Representatives of the Awards Committee recently met with Prof Crewe to follow up on these concerns. The following points were tabled:

• The calibration of units allocated to creative outputs amongst disciplines. The range in the number of units that were allocated to particular outputs pointed to discrepancies in existing mechanisms of allocating units;
• The weighting of the external reviewers’ reports and recommendations. Recommendations and opinions of the reviewers did not seem to concur with final decisions about unit allocations;
• the selection of external panel member(s) raised questions about the appropriateness of  having one external panel member give an informed and considered opinion about the recognition of, and unit allocation for, creative outputs across disciplines;
• the submission of no or inadequate framing documents and insufficient supporting documentation made it challenging to discuss creative work as research output and cast doubts on the scholarly dimensions of the creative output.  

Whilst not disregarding the uniqueness of disciplines, it is necessary to attune the diverging approaches of departments to a greater extent to work towards establishing fair, transparent, accountable and equitable mechanisms for acknowledging and accrediting creative outputs: in this regard, Prof Crewe made the following recommendations:

• A maximum of 1 unit will be allocated to submissions that have a local/national focus and a maximum of 2 units for submissions that have demonstrable international exposure;
• External reviewers should preferably not be asked to make a unit allocation in their reports as reports are not the sole determining factors for the allocation of units. External reviewers give an opinion on the status of an output that will inform the discussion of the committee;
• external panel members from appropriate and representative disciplines will be invited to the Awards committee meeting to ensure that the committee’s discussions are framed by a broader base of expertise;
• All submissions should be accompanied by a framing document that explains researchers’ scholarly engagement with the discipline in which they locate their creative work, as well as other relevant supporting documentation. The committee differentiates between creative works per se and creative outputs with an overt, conscious scholarly objective. 

I would like to request that your department please revisit your criteria for the recognition of creative outputs to align them with the above revisions of the institutional criteria for the recognition of creative outputs as research. Revised criteria can be sent to Didi Botes ([email protected]) before 31 August 2009. 

Should you wish to discuss the above matters further, please contact me to set up a meeting with representatives of the Awards Committee.

Sincerely

________________________

Prof Marié-Heleen Coetzee

Faculty of Humanities contact person for creative outputs