The Modern Language Association has issued the final report of its Task Force on Evaluating Scholarship for Tenure and Promotion.  Inside Higher Ed has a detailed article on the report, Rethinking Tenure — and Much More, by Scott Jaschik:, which summarizes the panel’s recommendations:

• Create “transparency” in hiring and promotion, so that junior faculty members know what is expected of them and are not surprised by changing expectations as their tenure reviews approach.
• Define scholarship broadly, including the “scholarship of teaching,” scholarship produced by teams, and work that is not presented in a monograph.
• Accept “the legitimacy of scholarship produced in new media,” ending the assumption that print is necessarily better. (And to the extent that some professors and departments don’t know how to evaluate quality in new media, “the onus is on the department” to learn, not on the scholar using new media, Stanton said.)
• Focus on scholarship, teaching and research — and not collegiality — as criteria for tenure.
• Consider their missions in setting standards for tenure, and to consider whether they are adopting research-oriented missions that don’t reflect the reality of the kind of institutions where they work.
• Limit the number of outside review letters sought in tenure reviews, pay those who provide them, and limit the kinds of questions asked so that they are appropriate for the institution and the position.
• Improve the process by which junior faculty members receive guidance on their careers.

For more, see the Chronicle of Higher Education:  MLA Panel Finds No "Lost Generation of Scholars" From the Tenure Track. by Jennifer Howard.