Promotion and Tenure Guidelines Department of BioHealth Informatics

The Department of BioHealth Informatics (BHI) includes three academic programs: Bioinformatics, Heath Informatics, and Health Information Management. Each of these fields encompass a range of scholarly endeavors, and our faculty conduct research, teach and perform services in a variety of ways appropriate to their several disciplines.

The BHI Department is committed to recognizing, supporting and rewarding academic excellence through regularly scheduled reviews of faculty work, and through the processes that lead to advancement in rank. The BHI Department adheres to the standards and processes described in the guidelines for promotion and tenure of the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering; IU Indianapolis; and the IU Indianapolis campus. In addition, the BHI Department adheres to the following guidelines appropriate to our department.

To achieve tenure and promotion, tenure-track faculty in Bioinformatics and Health Informatics are expected to pursue excellence in research, except where otherwise stipulated in the contractual letter offered at the time of appointment or in subsequent letters co-signed by the faculty member, the department chair, and the Luddy Indianapolis Executive Associate Dean.

Excellence in Research is demonstrated in ways most appropriate to the individual’s discipline, but must include the successful pursuit of significant external funding and the distribution of scholarship in prestigious, peer-reviewed venues. Success in both areas is crucial to demonstrate excellence in research and to build a convincing case for advancement in rank. Candidates for tenure are expected to demonstrate a rising trajectory of research achievements as well as a rising trajectory of scholarly publications or presentations in prestigious, peer-reviewed venues. Taken together, these achievements should demonstrate an emerging national reputation and the clear potential for greater achievement.

In evaluating external funding, there are several ways a candidate may demonstrate excellence in research:

• At the time of their application for tenure, candidates are expected to have a record of significant, external funding for research, and to have served in leadership roles in research projects during their probationary years at IU Indianapolis. This record must include at least one project in which the candidate serves as the Principle Investigator/Director for a multi-year, peer-reviewed project supported by a nationally prestigious agency such as NIH, NSF, DOD, RWJF, and others.
• Candidates for promotion to full rank are expected to demonstrate a sustained national reputation based on ongoing research productivity as described above, both in funded research and scholarly publications/presentations.
• As part of their teaching responsibilities, candidates for promotion to full rank are expected to serve as mentors and research collaborators for BHI graduate students or postdoctoral researchers.

Excellence in Teaching or Service: The same expectations as described above generally apply to tenure-track faculty members where the area of excellence is expected to be teaching or service, as stipulated in the appointment letter. These tenure-track candidates are also expected to secure external support for their scholarly endeavors, although the BHI Department recognizes that the customary sources of external research support (e.g. national foundations) may not offer the same range or level of support to teaching and/or service endeavors. Thus, the Department may exercise some flexibility in the quantitative expectations for this external support. At the time of their tenure application, candidates should demonstrate a rising trajectory of scholarly productivity and an emerging reputation as a national thought leader in the field.

Lecturers in the BHI Department must earn advancement based on excellence in teaching. As described in IU Indianapolis campus guidelines, excellence in teaching is demonstrated in excellent performance in classroom or through online teaching, through course and curriculum development, and in the scholarship of teaching and learning. In order to earn advancement to senior lecturer, lecturers in the BHI Department are expected to demonstrate all three. Although candidates for senior lecturer are expected to generate and disseminate scholarship in prestigious peer-reviewed venues, the Department recognizes that the scholarly prestige and impact of these venues may not be as great as the scholarly venues expected for tenure-track colleagues seeking advancement based on excellence in teaching. Although candidates for senior lecturer are encouraged to pursue external support for their scholarly endeavors, successful application for this support is not expected for advancement.