ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on strategies for collaboration with peers beyond the institution, looking first at discipline-based conversation groups many faculty are tapping into through the Internet, then at steps toward the external peer review of teaching, as reported by several faculty. The Network is administered from the University of Kent, by Sally Fincher, who reports that it is one of twenty-four Discipline Networks recently set up under an initiative by the government's Department of Education and Employment. At present, most of the author's external reviewers are identified by the candidates themselves. A missing link in more extensive collaboration and review of teaching beyond the local campus setting is a ready pool of appropriate peers. To meet this need, the American Sociological Association is now working to develop a national network of faculty with the appropriate expertise to serve as external reviewers of teaching.
