Six Years and Counting…

research

With my promotion to editor for the scholarly journal, Kairos: Rhetoric, Technology, Pedagogy, scholarship of editing will become a focus for me over the next five years. Kairos’ readership is approximately 44,500 readers per month (based on unique server hits) and has an acceptance rate of 25 percent (down from 30 percent in previous years). My main scholarly concern in regards to Kairos is that I continue to promote how and why readers should value (and make meaning from) new media texts. I plan to do this by mentoring authors and helping them to publish experimental webtexts as well as by implementing a new section of the journal, Inventio, which will host editorial reviews and revision commentary of one webtext a year.

In addition to my work with Kairos, I am pleased to have accomplished the following in 2005-06:

• published a refereed webtext analyzing student-produced new media texts,
• wrote a digital textbook (ix tech comm) about using rhetorical terms to analyze multimodal elements found in technical communication documents,
• produced a proceedings article about multimodal compositions as ‘open’ texts,
• applied for a grant on collecting digital narratives,
• performed research for my New Faculty Research Grant on the state of multimodal composition pedagogies nationally, which enabled me to send off a refereed article (forthcoming) that provides the methodology and data results from the national survey conducted as part of the grant,

Adding to the above, I also gave seven invited talks or guest lectures related to my work with multimodal composition,

• (2006, March). Featured speaker. Take 20: How I teach writing [film]. Todd Taylor, Director. Bedford-St. Martin’s Press, Producer.
• (2006, February). What defines computers and writing as a discipline? [Keynote with Cynthia Selfe, Fred Kemp, & James Inman]. Computers & Writing Online.
• (2006, February). New medi-ack! Considering technology rich texts in a literature/writing curriculum [Two lecture-workshops]. Kent State University, Kent, OH.
• (2006, January). What if?: New media for a new university. Faculty Forum. Logan, UT.
• (2005, November). The state of multimodal composition pedagogies. Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA.
• (2005, November). Teaching new media texts in English studies classes. Utah Writing Project, Salt Lake City, UT.
• (2005, October). Qualitative and quantitative research methods in new media. Research Methods (Dr. Rebecca Rickley), Texas Tech University.

and presented at six conferences on my work with multimodal composition practices,

• (2006, July). Multimodal composition practices: Overviews and impacts on tenure & promotion. Virtual Reality & Real Life (VR@RL). .
• (2006, May). A survey of multimodal composition practices: Report on a CCCC Research Initiative Grant. Computers & Writing, Lubbock, TX.
• (2006, May). Editing scholarship in a new media age. Computers & Writing, Lubbock, TX.
• (2006, March). Revisiting the usefulness of current multimodal and new media theories. Conference on College Composition & Communication, Chicago, IL.
• (2005, October). Designing educational spaces for students & colleagues. Council on Programs in Technical & Scientific Communication, Lubbock, TX.
• (2005, September). Trans-cultural multimedia production in an English classroom. Conference of Open Source Learning & Instructional Technology, Logan, UT.

Finally, I moderated a national workshop on professional development for graduate students in computers-and-writing studies; participated in a national roundtable on the future of composition/rhetoric textbooks (sponsored by the Institute for the Future of the Book and the Annenberg Center for Communication); guest-edited two journal issues (which came out this year)—one for Computers and Composition, which is the major print journal in my subfield, and one for C&C Online, its sister, online journal—both on the topic of sound in digital spaces; edited the student STC Chapter’s nationally award-winning newsletter, Synopsis; and edited two issues of the Kairos CoverWeb (themed) section, including managing the February issue (two-issue total of 10 webtexts, 4 reviews) prior to my promotion to lead editor.

As of October 1, 2006, I have accomplished or am working on the following for the upcoming academic year

• finishing an edited book collection with Professor James Kalmbach (Illinois State U) called Reading (and Writing) New Media, which has 22 chapters and the prospectus of which will be sent to MIT Press this winter,
• publishing two refereed articles that have been accepted:
• waiting to hear on a co-authored, refereed webtext for Fibreculture on the connections between multimodality and academic literacies as made possible by the WPA Outcomes for First-Year Composition classes,
• co-authoring a digital textbook on multimedia terms for Bedford-St. Martins,
• keeping my fingers crossed on a USU Innovation Fund grant under review ($95,000) that will help establish a collaborative, technology-rich environment to support digital writing instruction in English 1010 and 2010 classes, and
• presenting at three conferences this year regarding the production or analysis of multimodal texts.

I have research leave in the spring during which I plan to work on a born-digital scholarly book.

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