Guidance for Scholarship Impacted by COVID-19

In May 2020, Dean Klotman granted an automatic 6-month extension to the tenure clock for faculty in the clinical sciences due to COVID-19.  Because of the exceptional challenges of COVID-19 on maintaining our clinical, research and educational missions, especially for junior faculty, an additional automatic 6-month extension (total of 12 months) was granted by Dean Klotman in September 2020 to the clinical sciences faculty. The 12-month extension will automatically be added to faculty subject to the tenure clock (faculty at the rank of Assistant Professor and Associate Professor without tenure). No specific action by the faculty member is required.   

If pandemic-related challenges to scholarship persist and a faculty member wishes to request an additional tenure clock extension beyond the automatic 12-month extension, please use the form below.


Yes. Invited academic opportunities that were canceled or otherwise adversely impacted remain contributory in terms of academic promotion. Action will be required by the faculty member to document and disseminate these activities for APT purposes as the processes used by Scholars@Duke to automatically collate and document these opportunities may not detect canceled activities. See below for specific instructions. 

If the academic opportunity was accepted and scheduled for the scientific program, you will need to do two things. 

  1. manually add a citation to your Scholars@Duke record (https://scholars.duke.edu/) and 
  2. upload the abstract and any associated files (e.g., PowerPoint presentation, poster file) to an open access repository such as DukeSpace (https://dukespace.lib.duke.edu/dspace/) or the DukeAHEAD repository for clinician educators (https://dukeahead.duke.edu/duke-ahead-repository). Include documentation that this material was accepted for inclusion in the cancelled conference. 

For detailed instructions, see this guide (.pdf) from the Duke libraries. When creating the citation, note that the conference was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

If the academic opportunity was accepted and scheduled for the scientific program, you will need to manually add a citation to your Scholars@Duke record, describing the responsibility in the citation. Include the annotation “Because of COVID-19-related cancellation of the conference, this invited responsibility was not completed.”

Example: “Session Chair, session xxxxxx, New Therapeutics in the Management of Heart Failure. ACC.21 Scientific Sessions, Chicago IL.  Because of COVID-19-related cancellation of the conference, this invited responsibility was not completed.” 

Uploading your content to an open access repository (e.g., DukeSpace, DukeAhead for clinician scholars) is consonant with scholarship dissemination. Optionally, consider additional methods of dissemination such as social media or by creating and sharing a recording of a virtual presentation of your work. Make sure to follow the School of Medicine Social Media Guidelines (.pdf) at all times. If using social media, consider connecting with the communications professionals in your department. 

Resources for developing a video abstract are available through the Medical Center Library at https://guides.mclibrary.duke.edu/gettingpublished/videoabstracts. Also, applications such as PowerPoint include the ability to record and package narration synchronized to a slide presentation; conferencing systems such as Zoom and WebEx can also be used to capture a narrated presentation. The presentation file should be uploaded to the open access repository and noted on the citation.

Yes. Extraordinary clinical activities (e.g., authoring clinical policies / procedures related to COVID-19, re-organizing and managing clinical assignments of a Division or section), COVID-19-related administrative leadership, and other extraordinary contributions and impact should be described under the service section of the CV of the faculty member. The faculty member should retain documentation of the activities and describe their impact in the Intellectual Development Statement for APT purposes.

There is a lot of information available online. See https://about.scholars.duke.edu/support-duke-faculty-delegates.

Faculty members are encouraged to reach out to their mentor and/or department APT Committee Chair for further guidance and direction. For specific assistance with Elements and Scholars, faculty can reach out to the Medical Center Library.