The second category of research takes place in all the other colleges of the university including the Health Sciences Center. This research varies from explorations at the outer edges of knowledge with not a glimmer of immediate practical benefit, as in the development of quantum theory that was necessary in order to develop lasers, to the most practical research on the strength of materials used in building roads, bridges, and schools. While the products of this research vary dramatically from the art exhibit to the specifications for concrete, we can find a variety of indexes to the productivity of the research work we do. In this second category of research, we first recognize that the teaching mission of the university requires that our faculty engage in research scholarship to maintain the currency of the expertise that underlies their instruction. For the rest of the research effort in this second category, however, we require publication.
Publication takes many forms.
It can involve an article in a journal, an exhibit in a gallery, a book for popular audiences, or the appearance of a poem in a magazine. Whatever the form, publication represents the product of the research effort, and without a product there can be no contribution to our store of knowledge. A promising idea that never sees the light of day cannot be criticized and tested and cannot contribute to the national and international conversation that moves our understanding forward. Science, for example, that remains an unexpressed idea contributes nothing to the combination of ideas, experiments, and theories out of which come the cumulative improvements in our lives. So we demand that research, to be considered research, must in a reasonable period of time produce a publication or a public expression of results that can be reviewed and understood by others.