I have suggested that books and articles have had a monopoly as the format for the dissemination of ideas, and new media liberate us from this somewhat. In my case the book has grown out of stuff I've been blogging over the past 4 years or so, but it isn't just a load of blog posts bundled together (whatever you may think). The length and format of a book is a very good means of both exploring ideas in depth and pulling together various strands that have been rather fragmented. Who knew eh? One of the points I make (repeatedly, ad nauseum) is that we now have alternatives, where there were previously limited options. It is not the case that the book will disappear, or is dead, but that we have alternatives now to expressing and sharing ideas. Is an article, a blog post, a video, a slidecast, a podcast or conference presentation the best? Sometimes the book really is the best format.
Perhaps more interesting is not which one of these you choose, but the combination of them. What is the boundary of the book? Is it the physical object? What about the shared comments and highlights on Kindle? Then there will be related media, blogs, twitter conversations. The decision is less about which sole method you select but rather which one you place at the center of this distributed knowledge bundle.
I submitted the manuscript (well the Word files) of my digital scholarship book to the publishers, Bloomsbury Academic, a couple of weeks ago. It should be out in September, with an online OA Creative Commons version as well as the printy touchy feely one.
So now is a good time to reflect on the process. In the following posts I'll suggest a number of reflections on the process. Overall it's been rewarding, and a useful exercise, but I couldn't have done it without this blog. Whereas many authors create a blog to accompany a book, I think I have created a book to accompany the blog.
I'm not sure if this is one long post or several small ones, but I'm breaking with my usual style of long (ponderous) posts and trying some shorter, pithy ones focusing on one element, because, well, because I can, which is the joy of it. So over the coming week I'll do a post a day on this subject.
This another post from the stable of 'Martin's great business ideas that never get taken up, and which he never progresses.'
One of the themes in my digital scholarship book is that of alternatives - new technology driven approaches give us alternatives when previously we had none: we can join in a conference remotely, we can choose which medium we wish to convey our message in, we can make our outputs as detailed or as general as we like and we can chat about professional interests, sport, politics, film, or whatever we like all in the same space.
Looking at academic publishing, it strikes me that this rather odd model (as so well parodied by David Wiley in the Trucker's Parable) persists precisely because of the lack of alternatives. In order to disseminate research the only option available was the printed journal. So we had to sign up to it, and then the journal article became a measure of reputation so it became the means by which promotion committees determined an individual's case, meaning there was even less alternative.
The second of these problems, the tie-in with tenure, still persists but the first has been eroded by the advent of the read/write web. The journal's monopoly on research dissemination has been broken. But this doesn't mean we need to discard the academic journal, it is still likely that the peer-review process will be one of the scholarly approaches we wish to retain. It does mean the journal has to adapt though.
And many are doing just this, PLoS being a great example. Here are some of the factors authors might want to bear in mind when looking for a journal to publish in, and if these can't be met, then maybe they should consider going down the blogging or alternative route:
Open access - does the journal have an open access policy? (If not, ask them why).
Green or Gold - if it is open access, does it operate a Gold OA policy (the journal is open, and the author pays) or Green (the journal isn't OA, but the author can self-archive).
Fee - if it is Gold OA, what is the fee?
Embargo - if it is Green OA, is there an embargo before the author can self-archive
Rights - does the author or the publisher retain the rights?
Average publication time - what is the average time between submission and publication?
Rejection rate - what percentage of submissions are rejected?
Review policy - is it open, blind, double-blind reviewed?
Added value - what extras does the journal provide, eg metrics on access, tracking blog references, promotion
Impact factor - if you must...
When you look at these factors they begin to resemble the choices you select for car insurance or similar. The significance of each might be more or less for any individual, eg. if you have a very current piece, then publication delay becomes very important.
I don't think all of this data is readily available, but certainly a lot of it is. You could image a site then that allows you to select the broad area of interest, and then work through these various options, allowing you to determine which journal meets your requirements. I would propose that the existence of such a tool would itself make journals begin to compete on some of these factors, and thus improve choice.
Maybe such a tool already exists, if not, who will join/fund me in building one. Come on, let's make these journals work for our publications!
Having done a couple of DS106 radio shows with Jim Groom (which suffered rather from, erm, technical difficulties), the notion of the early video cassette recorder as a formative technology has emerged for me.
Here are some ways in which I think it was relevant:
It changed the film industry - home video was seen as a threat by the film studios back in the early 80s, with the fear that it would mean people would stop going to the cinema. This didn't happen, and gradually they realised that it was another very lucrative form of income. Many decent films got a second life on video, and an awful lot of crap ones went straight to it. Ironically, it is the protection of DVD rental and sales (the very things they fought against) that the film industry seeks to protect against the new interloper, the internet.
It created a new kind of aesthetics - this is my attempt at justifying my penchant for B-movie horror, but I think, that just as, say Dire Straits seemed made for CD, and Gladiator for DVD, so those 80s horror films such as The Evil Dead, The Thing and CHUD seemed to be the right mix of platform and content. Carpenter's The Thing was panned when it was released as being over the top, but I think he understood the type of aesthetics that worked on VHS.
It acted as a social object - I was one of the first kids to have a VHS, and so people would regularly convene round my house to watch films. We developed a library, a shared repertoire of dialogue, and a culture around the movies that we could watch repeatedly. We still went to the cinema, but being to see your collection of movies over and over, created a different type of interaction between school-friends.
It gave the viewer control - this was the main thing, it first of all liberated us from TV schedules or cinema listings - you could rent the film you wanted and watch it when you determined. But also it gave us control over the viewing process. You could fast forward, rewind, slow mo and pause. There were many films which we would skip to favourite scenes in (eg fight scenes in The Warriors), and particular ones we would watch in slow-motion (the head exploding in Scanners). This meant we were watching films in an entirely different way from that which was intended.
[UPDATE] The birth of read/write - I didn't include this originally, but Scott's comment below set me thinking. I didn't do much creating with the VCR, as cameras were still expensive, but on reflection, Scott is right to highlight this. Even by recording from the TV you began to make your own creation - for instance, I had one tape for artists on Top of the Pops, so over the years created my own compilation (I wish I still had that tape now). And in the late 80s a bunch of us hired a camera for a weekend and made a video for a friend's 21st, with a bunch of comedy clips and film pastiches. So, even if we didn't do much, this technology marked a significant change - that from consumer to producer, which is one that has come to define the modern age.
I think all of these have resonance with what we are seeing now with internet culture - the threat of new technology, loss of control, greater choice and democratisation of process. The home computer is often cited as the influential technology for today, but I reckon the VHS home recorder was more significant. It taught us how to play around, reinterpret and take control. And it had great big buttons you could operate with your toes.
Last night I joined Jim Groom for a live session on DS106 Radio. The idea was to chat about 80s b-movies, an interest we have in common and see where it went. It's fair to say it went all over the shop, but was really fun from our end anyway (I'm not sure how much fun it was for the listener). But on the basis that it's through playing and doing fun stuff that you actually learn, we're going to have a go again. Next time we'll try and get others involved and have a focus around a particular theme or film I think.
I created some fake adverts for a VLE/LMS sponsor, ZombieBoard ("Because learning is too serious to have fun"), which are here:
If you want to hear two people struggling with technology, winging it a bit, and then being self-indulgent about John Carpenter films, then you can listen to the whole show here:
Well, actually a fiver. I'm running my first marathon this year, and what with the old hip, general age and fondness for beer and pie, I figure this may be the only one I do. So I thought I'd put out a request for sponsorship, which I don't usually do. I'm raising money for Velindre Cancer Centre, which is where my wife had her treatment a couple of years ago. It was a very well run, friendly place that attempted to remove as much stress as they could do from a rather gruelling process.
The marathon I'm attempting is the Great Welsh Marathon on April 10th. I would like to say I'll be tweeting and audiobooing all the way round, but I think finishing alive is a sufficient goal at the moment.
So, last time I'll ask for money, I promise, but if you've got anything down the back of the sofa, here is the obligatory Just-Giving page: http://www.justgiving.com/Martin-Weller
