Ball, Cheryl E. (2012) Assessing scholarly multimedia: A rhetorical genre studies approach. Technical Communication Quarterly, 21(1), 1-17.

abstract

This article describes what scholarly multimedia (i.e., webtexts) are and how one teacher-editor has students compose these texts as part of an assignment sequence in her writing classes. The article shows how one set of assessment criteria for scholarly multimedia—based on the Institute for Multimedia Literacy’s parameters (see Kuhn, Johnson, & Lopez, 2010) for assessing honor students’ multimedia projects—are used to give formative feedback to students’ projects.

accompanying materials

• final page-proof (pdf)

abstract
This chapter is composed of 14 voices—12 undergraduates, 1 graduate student, and 1 faculty member (Cheryl E. Ball, contact author) from a multimodal composition class at Illinois State University. In a three-part chapter, we speak to the perceptions of undergraduate students’ technology use presented by scholarship, attendees at the Watson conference, and on our campus. The first section, presented as a video, reflects on conference attendees’ discussions of students who weren’t representative of the majority audience (professors and graduate students) at the conference. The second section, also presented as a video, asks how pedagogy needs to change to accommodate an increase in digital technology and what kind of cooperation is necessary between students and their teachers so both parties can effectively communicate to and learn from each other. The third section, presented as a MySpace page, argues that educators should incorporate social networks into their pedagogies because they offer a different way of composing. The sections will be presented together on the class blog, http://www.ceball.com/classes/239, where the index page will become a static Introduction to the chapter and each section will be presented as a page off the index. The benefit of hosting the site (for now) on the 239 class blog is so that readers can explore behind the scenes of our learning experience as we produced digital scholarship this semester.

status

• 12/08: proposal accepted for the collection
• 07/09: student projects revised
• 10/09: collection accepted by press
• 11/09: final chapter draft being readied for editors

accompanying materials

• chapter proposal
• chapter acceptance email from editors
  

see also

• English 239: Multimodal Composition (Fall 2008 syllabus) (under Classes Taught)
• The New Work of Composing (under Edited Volumes)
• “A Case Study of Revision Processes…” (under Honors)

abstract
This project intended to collect oral histories of local Utah residents & scan their keepsake/artifacts for arhival purposes.

accompanying materials

• not available

abstract
The New Work of Composing is the working title to the field of English Studies’ first digital, multimedia-rich “book” to be published in the field’s first fully online press: Computers and Composition Digital Press. This research grant will support the principle investigator, who is co-editor of The New Work of Composing, through a course release. During the release time, the PI will (1) provide initial feedback and editorial support for authors submitting to the collection, (2) edit the digital, multimedia submissions, which are due early in the spring of 2009, (3) study the process of editing scholarly, book-length, digital collections that contain multimedia elements, and (4) work toward the publication of a scholarly article about the process of authoring and editing large, digital multimedia collections to satisfy (in small part) the field’s increased interest in understanding and evaluating digital scholarship (especially digital books) for tenure and promotion purposes.

accompanying materials

• proposal

abstract
The Modern Language Association reports that over 52% of humanities department chairs have no experience evaluating digital books for tenure/promotion, including “born-digital” books (i.e., a book that exists only in a digital format, with no possible print or analog counterpart). I intend to edit the first born-digital scholarly book in English studies, The New Work of Composing. This book will add to humanities’ understanding of writing in a digital age by providing an example of born-digital scholarship that will help us consider the new intellectual work of the “book.” The deliverables for this NEH summer stipend include designing the book’s interface and composing the afterword, a media-rich assessment of digital scholarship with an emphasis on the process of writing, designing, and editing the field’s first born-digital, scholarly book. Computers and Composition Digital Press—the humanities’ first digital-only, open-access, academic press—has asked for a prospectus in Spring 2009.

accompanying materials

• proposal narrative