Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
university or college they work for. In general, if the school is a household name (e.g.,
Notre Dame, MIT, Stanford, Penn State), the university is a research school. At these
schools, the professors spend the vast majority of their time writing grants to do research,
supervising graduate students to do the research, writing papers and grant reports, and to a
lesser extent teaching. They may teach one or two classes a year. At smaller, teaching-
centered schools, these roles are reversed. At these schools, professors teach three, four, or
even more classes per semester. Research at this type of school normally revolves around
teaching methods, learning effectiveness, and pedagogy theory. Although many professors
at teaching schools still do non-teaching-focused research, it is generally a smaller pro-
gram than that engaged in by their colleagues at research institutes.
Regardless of the type of school, a professor is evaluated in three areas: research,
teaching, and service/outreach. The research aspect is the easiest to quantify and carries
the majority of weight at all larger schools, as well as at many of the teaching schools.
Professors are evaluated based on their external grant income; graduate-level (PhD and
master's) degrees awarded; publications in peer-reviewed journals; impact factors or
enced by others; and presentations and invited presentations at professional conferences,
among other areas. The quality of teaching is usually evaluated by student surveys con-
ducted after the course ends, peer observation, and new or novel pedagogies developed.
Finally, to a much lesser extent in terms of their overall score, professors are evaluated on
their service or outreach through committee involvement; service to the community,
whether professional (e.g., peer reviewing of articles) or the broader community (e.g., giv-
ing lectures on their specialties to youth groups); and good publicity, such as having the
university favorably mentioned in media.
Most academics, who as researchers and teachers dedicate their lives to information
sharing, are already familiar with the ethic behind the open source hardware culture.
There is a well-established gift culture in the tenure process, as professors are judged not
by what they hoard, but rather based on how much information is shared (and how valu-
able that information is). Thus open source hardware is an extremely good fit for the aca-
demic, as open source hardware can assist build a professor's tenure package in all three
areas of research, teaching, and service, and can continue to bolster the academic's career
after he or she receives tenure. The remainder of this chapter provides details and ex-
amples about how open source hardware is being used in academia and explains why pro-
fessors should be integrating it into their labs and classrooms for their own benefit, the be-
nefit of their students, and the benefit of literally everyone through the accelerated devel-
opment of their disciplines.
