Professor Bainbridge quotes at length one Dean’s thoughts on blogging, scholarship and tenure:
Bottom line: While no replacement for writing articles and books, and no one is going to get tenured or promoted through blogging (at least not today); but what I’ve called a serious blogger would get a big plus on the positive side on the ledger from me when it gets to merit review time! Failing to reward it would be failing to recognize that blogging is not just another new communication medium; it is a new way to do scholarship.
The Dean also recognizes something many of you are experiencing. Blogging can absorb huge amount of time:
That being said, just reading blogs – let alone writing them – can be entirely too much fun, and could suck time away from the grind of in depth writing and research. In fact, I should be massaging my footnotes instead of writing this. I’m also advising my juniors not to get blog-happy.
Read the rest and for those interested in delving deeper there are links to a couple long discussions.