Math Career Simulation Activity

Faculty Handbook

Faculty will earn scholarship points by completing tasks in three categories: research, service and teaching. The faculty member’s evaluation score will be 40% research, 30% teaching and 30% service. After two simulated years, a vita will be presented for pre-tenure review. This evaluation will inform faculty of their progress toward promotion and tenure.

To achieve tenure, at least 500 scholarship points must be earned (625 for graduate students, 375 for business majors). This would guarantee a faculty member of achieving tenure during promotion and tenure review and would result in at least a score of 84% for the mathematics career simulation portion of the Math 3590 grade. These general categories of scholarship will earn grades as follows:

Promotion & Tenure Award	Course Grade
Tenure Awarded & Promoted to Rank of Full Professor	92 – 100%
Tenure Awarded & Promoted to Rank of Associate Professor	84 – 92%
Not Tenured but Promoted to Rank of Associate Professor	76 – 84%
Not Tenured & Not Promoted – Retain Rank of Asst. Professor	68 – 76%
Dismissed from university faculty	Less than 68%

The following activities earn scholarship points:

Activity	Max Possible Points
	R	S	T
Published, peer-reviewed journal article	200
Conference presentation	25		100
Invited address	75		100
Journal editor	125	125
Conference organizer		150
Peer reviewer for journal article		40
Library resource gathering (articles, websites, texts)		20
Department Chair		100
Professional workshops conducted			50

Research

Faculty earn research points by being published in journals, editing journal editors or making conference presentations. Journal articles are peer-reviewed by the journal editor and a referee who professionally and tactfully comment upon their peers’ work.

The review process should eradicate all mathematical errors prior to publication and will have evaluate the article’s significance. Is it a good solution of a minor problem? Was a truly important problem solved? Was a proof included? If so, was the proof valid?

The choice of referee is left to the editor. Referees award papers status as follows: “accept with revisions,” “revise and resubmit,” or “reject.” After receiving a recommendation from a referee, the editor will award the article final status. If the editor awards the article “accept with revisions” status, the author(s) will receive a copy of the comments of the reviewers and make necessary changes. When corrections are complete, the paper will be published. If the editor awards the article “revise and resubmit” status, the author(s) will receive a copy of the comments of the reviewers. In this case, the work will need major corrections, changes and revisions. The author(s) are invited to rework their article and resubmit, but the paper must then be returned to the referee. Papers published after initially receiving this status will not be awarded as many points. If the article is rejected, the author(s) will receive a copy of the comments of the reviewers but may not resubmit an article on that topic to that journal. The authors may revise that article for publication in another journal. The rubric below will be used to evaluate all research articles.

Research Article Rubric – 50 Points
Category	Points Awarded			Comments
	0	20	30
Status Awarded	Article rejected by journal editor	Article awarded “revise and resubmit” status initially, then published	Article awarded “accept with revisions” status and published
Depth of Insight	Writing demonstrates a profound understanding of concepts and why they are true and important.		0 – 6 Pts
Breadth of Insight	Writing demonstrates an understanding of how topic connects to other mathematics topics or consequences that extend to other disciplines or real-world phenomena.		0 – 6 Pts
Verification & Proof	Mathematical arguments are clean, precise and demonstrably true and correct; they utilize established techniques of proof and/or verification.		0 – 8 Pts
Multipliers	Level of Scholarship 1 2 3
Total Points Earned

As with presentations, the research rubric score (25 Pts max) is adjusted by a multiplier that assesses the importance of the work.

Research Article Multiplier Table
Category	Description	Multiplier
Level 1	Described a method for solving a class of problems and demonstrated why proposed solution is valid. Problem class solved is important to course objectives.	1
Level 2	Proved a major result from game theory, provided a counterexample to a conjecture, posed an interesting game or example worthy of consideration by other researchers.	2
Level 3	Prove or verified an especially important or difficult result, provided an especially exquisite game for other faculty to study.	3

Non-published articles receive no research points, but they often provide the framework for a quality conference presentation. Published articles may also form the basis of a conference presentation. In the case of superlative research articles, the authors may be “invited” to address a conference. This is a high honor and counts toward promotion and tenure. Journal editors count half of their scholarship points towards research, and 20% of each conference presentation will count toward the presenter’s research total.

Service

Faculty earn service points by being editing journal, organizing conferences, refereeing papers and contributing to library resources for the course. Conference organizers volunteer. Those who volunteer first get first choice. However, most universities try to distribute the work equitably so that, if one faculty member has yet to help organize a conference, that faculty member is strongly encouraged by colleagues to perform that service task. Journal editors are chosen by Dr. Sinn from a group of volunteers.

Conferences are run by an organizer who recruits speakers, determining time allotments for presentations and having the conference evaluation rubric sheets sheet ready for Dr. Sinn as class begins. During the conference, the organizer will ensure that speakers conclude on time, are properly introduced and generally perform Master of Ceremony duties. The organizer assists the speakers with needed technology such as PowerPoint, Excel, overheads, calculators and so forth. Speakers will request needed technology in advance, and the organizer will liaise with Dr. Sinn to provide it. After the conference, the organizer will gather digital summaries of presented material from each speaker. When all summaries are available, the coordinator will post the files on blog site. Professor James Wall will be available to assist with posting conference preceedings.

Journals need reviewers (also called referees). The editor solicits and evaluates research articles, recruits a peer reviewer for each submitted article, makes final decisions about publication and communicates with authors. The editor will find at least one referee for each paper submitted and take the recommendation into account when determining a final status for each submission. The editor will communicate the results of the peer-review process to the author and will send suggestions of corrections and revisions made by the referees. The editor should respond to each author within five business days. This will only be possible if all reviewers respond in a timely manner when assigned an article. When two articles that meet publication requirements, the editor will publish a journal volume. Each editor should publish at least three volumes of the journal (total of six articles). Extra volumes or extra article per volume will increase the scholarship points each editor can earn.

The author is responsible for developing a HTML, DOC or PDF version of the article together with the editor. If there are any digital components to the research such as simulation using Excel or some other program, these files will accompany the article as attachments. Editors serve for the entire semester unless derelict in their duties.

The peer reviewers are volunteers recruited by the editor of the journal. Editors greatly welcome any volunteers but may refuse to reuse a reviewer if that person repeatedly turns in poor reviews or is late with reviews. All reviews should be completed and returned to the editor within 48 hours. A reviewer 20% of the article points. For example, if a reviewer worked on an article that was awarded 120 points, the reviewer would receive 120 * 0.2 = 24 service points. The reviewers role is ensure mathematical accuracy and establish mathematical relevance. A perfectly correct paper may be rejected if it is not ambitious enough. An ambitious paper may be rejected if it has inaccuracies. Reviewers who fail to find mistakes or misjudge relevance may have their service points docked.

Teaching

Conference Presentations should be well-rehearsed, well-organized talks about mathematics. Presenters should consider themselves teachers explaining difficult concepts to students. The rubric below will be used to evaluate all presentations. Presentations will all be scored out of 20 points, with multipliers given for difficulty of the problem (1 – 3), game theory connections (+1), connections to other disciplines (+1).

Oral Presentation Rubric – 10 Points
Category	Points Awarded			Comments
	0 – 1	2 – 3	4 – 5
Teaching Communication & Clarity	Difficult to understand or hard to follow	Well understood only by certain groups or levels	Easily understood by an audience with a wide range of mathematics ability
Teaching Precision	Several mathematics errors	Very few mathematics errors	No mathematics errors
Mathematics Proof & Accuracy	One or more logic flaws – argument not valid	Minor errors or missed steps – no logic flaws	Complete demonstration, verification or proof
Mathematics Explanation	Lacking necessary pedagogical skill	Good pedagogical skill demonstrated	Truly exceptional pedagogical skill demonstrated
Total Points Earned

As mentioned above, the subject matter and difficulty of the problems presented will vary widely. Each presentation will graded on a rubric with a maximum of 20 Points (shown above). The rubric score will be adjusted by multipliers as described below. The maximum number of points awarded is 5 * 20 = 100. After the final presentation total is awarded, 20% of this total will be added to presenter’s research points. Invited addresses will add an additional 50 points to the presenter’s research points regardless of total points awarded.

Oral Presentation Multiplier Table
Category	Description	Multiplier
Level 1	Solved a routine HW problem.	1
Level 2	Solved a class of HW problems and demonstrated solution method effectively enough for unit learning to occur.	2
Level 3	Solved an especially important, especially difficulty or especially large class of HW problems and demonstrated solution method effectively enough for unit learning to occur.	3
Additional Multiplier Units
Mathematics Connection	Problem or class of problems is connected well to other game theory ideas in this course.	+1
Beyond Mathematics Connection	Problem or class of problems is connected to other disciplines such as military, biology, economics, sports, social studies or some other real world problem or phenomenon.	+1
Invited Address	When a peer-reviewed journal article is of the highest quality, the author of the paper is often asked to give a presentation about it. This “invited address” status is similar to a prestigious keynote address.	+50 Pts
Note: Our textbook has applications and connections listed for most problem types. No connection multipliers will be given unless additional connections and/or applications are described in the presentation.
Total Multiplier Units

Example: Joe Smith solves a class of HW problems (Level 2) and makes a presentation. The presentation rubric score is 18 out of 20. He makes a connection to economics (+1). He receives a presentation score of 18 * ( 2 + 1 ) = 54.

In some instances, scholars will be asked to host professional workshops. These opportunities will be rare invitations offered by Dr. Sinn to students who have shown the ability to help their peers learn new ideas in game theory. Professional workshops are worth 50 Points and comprise a 20 – 30 minutes presentation in class where a demonstration and activity are conducted.

Vita

Each faculty member is responsible for keeping an up-to-date record of all scholarly work, called a curriculum vita or vita for short. The faculty member will list each activity under the following headings: presentations, publications and service. Each activity should have the date of completed and a brief description of the work completed. The vita will be reviewed by Dr. Sinn at midterm with a report returned commenting on the strengths and weaknesses of each faculty member.