How Professors Think

these can be viewed as “myths and ceremonies” that play a crucial role in legitimating the process—for instance, by making the criteria of selection available to the public on websites or by prefacing deliberations with an official introduction concerning the importance of the work of the panel and its rules.

This technology defines and constrains possibilities.

Drawing on the work of Karin Knorr-Cetina, I understand these aspects of panels as a machinery or technology of evaluation around which evaluative cultures are intertwined