Just a head’s up that next week we’ll be running the 2013 RHSU Edu-Scholar Rankings. The exercise is intended to counter the academy’s unfortunate tendency to discount scholarly contributions that inform the broader public understanding and influence education policy debates. The Edu-Scholar Rankings are designed to recognize university-based scholars, of any discipline or bent, for their contributions to the public square. Edu-scholar impact is understood to encompass both the corpus of one’s scholarly work (a scholar’s widely-cited works, books, etc.) and one’s centrality to public discussion in 2012 (appearances in newspaper reporting, online media, and so forth).

After all, a scholar’s impact on schooling is a product of several factors, including their body of scholarship, the degree to which their work has influenced today’s researchers, their willingness to wade into public discourse, and the energy and effectiveness with which they write for and speak to popular audiences. This means, for instance, that veteran scholars typically enjoy a natural and appropriate advantage in the scoring. Savvy readers will note a few small tweaks to the rubric from last year, and also that the ranking table--now numbering over 160 edu-scholars--continues to expand.

For interested readers, here’s a preview of next week’s lineup: