Richard R. Ranta, Dean
College of Communication and Fine Arts
University of Memphis
Campus Box 526546
Memphis, TN 38152-6546
rranta@memphis.edu

When I was asked this question, my first reaction was that there was no need. Afterall, we had been conducting searches for communication positions for years without them and were in fact doing that now. I polled the various search committees as to whether or not they were inspecting candidates' web pages. With one exception, the answer was no. What they were inspecting was the vita, references and the published work. Thus, the quick answer would seem to be that personal web pages were not an element in the decision to hire or not hire a professor.

It could well be that Memphis is atypical. Afterall we do have Elvis and no one else does, or at least not for as long as we had him. However, I did an informal poll of some other colleagues around the nation and found that we were not that unusual. Oh, I did find some who did look up a candidates web page, but they seemed to be the ones who were more into electronic communication, which biases the sample in another direction, and in a not unexpected way.

I checked out some of the pages of the candidates (I would not have if I were not writing this piece.), and was surprised at what I found. It seems that personal web pages are often " personal." Indeed, some have information on them that I certainly would not put on my web page and certainly not as part of a professional application, if that is what the question implies. In fact, it made me wonder about the effect of such information on the search committee members as it began to introduce information that the search committee is not suppose to raise questions about. From that point of view, the "personal" web page might in fact be a real disadvantage to the candidate.

But from an instructional perspective, some valuable information is contained on some web pages. This includes information as to how one approaches ones students and the content of the courses which one teaches. This I found to be valuable information. It gave me the impression of insight into the often dark area of teaching and student interaction. You could see the course outline and instructions for following it throught the semester. Some did a good job of outlining grading and attendance, or lack of one, policies. Some were very formal, others almost social. For better or worse I began to form a picture of what this person may be like as a teacher, beyond the Q and A of an interview or the staged presentation or even one lesson that is part of many interviews. This had value!

Some, but few, give a look at service, but not in any way more revealing than what is on the traditional vita. This category was really mostly one of getting an impression of personal interest. Of course, the research, where addressed, was generally no better than the vita submitted to the search committee.

One other impression gained was whether or not the person was a novice with the construction of web pages. Of course, who knows who constructed the web page. Could have been a student, friend or the college computer expert. However, regardless of the real source of expertise, I found myself forming an opinion of how strong the person's computer skills were. If the job involved a lot of computer work, this could be valuable. Then again, if the job involved a lot of computer work I would have probably looked for more than the personal web page in the first place, just as I would have for a person teaching web page design in art or journalism.

Thus, I came to the conclusion that although a web page for a non electronic job is not necessary at this time, having one can be an advantage, assuming it is done well, doesn't get too personal, and reveals something about one as a teacher.