Original Message:
Sent: 06-07-2020 01:35:48 AM
From: Jan Recker
Subject: Impact of Covid-19 on the research productivity of women in IS
Cynthia and Wietske asked me to provide some data from the Communications of the Association for Information Systems. I was happy to do that. The reason we waited with our analysis until now is that we wanted to have more Covid-related submission data available (i.e., including submissions from March to May 2020).
I am attaching a brief report we created in analogy to the reported data in the Nature article referenced above and the stats provided by Robert from ISJ. I hope it is self-explanatory, if not we can provide help. Note that coding data for gender can be error-prone and we did not take steps to verify our (subjective) coding. We do not offer interpretations of the data. We tried to put context around the data so everyone can draw their own conclusions.
Beyond the reported data, at CAIS we noticed a slight decrease in general review turnaround times but nothing to be concerned about. I believe this is entirely appropriate in a period where many if not all of us had to make adjustments to life and work.
Jan
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Jan Recker
Professor
University of Cologne
Original Message:
Sent: 05-31-2020 12:55:20 PM
From: Wietske Van Osch
Subject: Impact of Covid-19 on the research productivity of women in IS
Dear all!
Sorry to be late in my replies. My productive time is only during nap time or late evenings and with ongoing work commitments, this was my first opportunity to respond in a meaningful way.
Overall, I am thrilled by the amount of activity this post generated and to see the engagement of so many scholars, male and female, and across different ranks and age groups! I am very appreciative of each and everyone of you taking the time to respond, share additional resources and/or initial data, as well as personal experiences and your individual efforts in making a difference!
@Richard Watson: Thank you for sharing this article from Nature. It also shows some real data, albeit from different disciplines. If pre-print was a thing in our discipline, perhaps it would be faster to observe the impact as well!
Also love the suggestion about making these discussions public in the hope that our contributions and discussions as AiS Scholars can have a broader impact!
@Cynthia: Thank you for being so involved as a senior scholar! I totally agree that ultimately it is about "housekeeping" or "caregiving". There might be men in similar situations, however, as you point out too, I think "women" is a pretty good proxy (at least for now).
Loved the article about Japan - clearly it is not just a problem for academics! :-)
@Blake: Thank you for sharing the report from the Chief Scientist of the Government of Australia. Some very inter findings. I think the insight that is also important is that the disparity will be greatest for women with children under 12. This underscores Cynthia's point about housekeeping (and I would add caregiving responsibilities) being ultimately what we are interested in. However, as of now, this is hard to measure (when looking at submission data).
Thank you also for your response to Robert - I agree with the need for longitudinal assessments - but also understand this will be a lot of work/burden for EiCs!
@Manju: Thank you for this perspective!
Love the idea of a call for action! This is my hope that using data (in addition to anecdotes/stories) we can maybe create policy recommendations for how tenure and promotion committees should evaluate candidates following Covid-19 (and maybe more generally).
@Isabel: Interesting perspective about Portugal. Two of the big reasons for the disparity in North-America are that it appears thar the brunt of domestic/childcare still falls on women and that many men in academia have stay-at-home/part-time working partners whereas women academics are married to full-time working partners. I wonder if these circumstances are different in Portugal. In the Netherlands, I can see how some circumstances might be different, but my guess is that #2 still persists.
@Monica: Thank you for sharing the importance of mentorship! The AIS Women's Network has done a great job in this regard and I hope will continue to play this role even in these difficult times and in the absence of our face-to-face network activities.
@Cassandra: Thank you for sharing your perspective and experiences as a graduate student! Wishing you success and strength in these difficult circumstances!
@Robert: Thank you for taking the time and effort to get some real data. I really appreciate it! I also find your observations about quality, opportunism, and review timeliness very insightful!
@Ann: Thank you for raising this issue with the Provost at your institution!
@Carol: Thank you for your insights! Gender inequality is a deeply embedded issue and unfortunately is amplified during these times! I will be reading your editorial with interest in particular in regards to the policy suggestions you make.
@Eleanor: Thank you for sharing your experience! Mine is fortunately not school age yet (that sounds like a very busy schedule and a lot of IT multi-tasking), but still find it hard to find balance as an 18-mo needs constant attention!
@Constantinos: Excellent points and thank you for being willing to raise this with Rajiv. Cynthia and I have been working on creating a process description for analyzing gender data based on existing academic resources and our own trial as well as creating sample spreadsheets for analysis and reporting. Happy to share if of interest/help!
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Wietske Van Osch
Associate Professor
HEC Montréal
Montreal QC
4383463134
Original Message:
Sent: 05-20-2020 01:52:38 PM
From: Wietske Van Osch
Subject: Impact of Covid-19 on the research productivity of women in IS
There has been a lot of discussion about the impact of COVID-19 on academics and this forum is evidence of the fact that there is a need and desire for such discussion in our Information Systems community also. One aspect that has received limited coverage, but deserves awareness and attention, is the disproportionate effect COVID-19 seems to be having on female academics. Indeed, several news outlets have highlighted this unequal impact, including:
Both articles cite editors of respected academic journals across disciplines-ranging from Philosophy of science, political science, astrophysics-who "have started noticing a trend: Women - who inevitably shoulder a greater share of family responsibilities - seem to be submitting fewer papers." But what is fascinating is that the self-quarantine seems to be benefiting male academics, as the same editors highlight a significant increase ("more than 50 percent") in the submissions by male academics.
Dr Elizabeth Hannon, deputy editor of the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, who is one of the cited editors that noticed a drop in female submissions, is quoted saying "I have now heard many stories from women of abandoned projects, collaborations they have felt unable to continue with, and so on."
Prof James Wilsdon, director of the new Research on Research Institute based at the Wellcome, also is quoted in the Guardian article saying "We have to be very cautious that we are not privileging those who are able to use the coronavirus situation as time to race ahead of their peers, who are held back not by talent or aspiration but by the need to do homeschooling and put three meals a day on the table." He argues that research is not really compatible with family life in lockdown. "Research requires headspace and the ability to immerse yourself over a prolonged period."
While the evidence in these articles is anecdotal, they are consistent with "broader patterns in academia (…) If men and women are at home, men "find a way" to do more academic work. When men take advantage of "stop the clock" policies, taking a year off the tenure-track after having a baby, studies show they'll accomplish far more professionally than their female colleagues, who tend to spend that time focused primarily or solely on childcare."
While institutions around the country are allowing people to extend their tenure clock, these measures are applied equally to male and female colleagues, as they should. But the article points out the concern that female colleagues experience, which is that tenure committees will think, "Oh it was hard for everyone, we were all home and nervous." If men experience a gain in productivity due to self-quarantine, they may not need to request these extensions. Women may then be reluctant to request them. Will such a request create the wrong impression? ("How does it look to ask for an extension?") Will universities and departments operating on tighter budgets be eager to deny tenure? And for those who will lose their jobs, will it be harder to find a job elsewhere?
Within the AIS Women's Network, several of us have been discussing what we can do in our discipline (@Cathy Urquhart, Eleanor Loiacono, Jacqueline Corbett, Dawn Owens, Cynthia Beath). We agreed the best thing would be to first analyze the submission trends in our own journals: are the Editors in Chief of our journals seeing similar drops in (particularly sole-authored) submissions by women and increases in submissions by men? Or not? Should submitters with extra family burdens be explaining this in their submission letters? Should the journals fast track submissions from submitters with extra family burdens or at least ensure they get assigned quickly to SEs/AEs/reviewers? Should editors reduce the service burden on women, by not asking them to review the increased number of submissions by men? Or will that backfire on women by taking them out of the research loop? Who in AIS could take on the role of disseminating evidence and insights about any disproportionate impact in our field, if there is one, that could be cited in promotion and tenure cases by committee members and external reviewers?
Two silver linings. One, I'm sure all mothers will agree with me that the quality time we are spending with our children is precious and priceless, despite the (almost complete) loss of productivity. Two, as pointed out in the Guardian-"All the juggling and the hidden labour of domesticity that is part of many academics' real lives is now being brought into view (…) Maybe when those things are raised in the future, universities will be better at understanding."
Wietske Van Osch
Associate Professor in Digital Transformation, HEC Montreal
Associate Professor, Michigan State University
Full-Time COVID-19 Mother of an 18-month old boy
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Wietske Van Osch
Associate Professor
HEC Montréal
Montreal QC
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