CandCBlog

Special guest editors Michael Day, Randall McClure, and Mike Palmquist present the summer/fall issue of Computers and Composition Online - Composition in the Freeware Age: Assessing the Impact and Value of Web 2.0. The texts assembled for this issue simultaneously describe, analyze, and, perhaps most importantly, demonstrate the complex of possibilities and challenges networked writing presents to both the teaching and learning of composition.  More specifically, the texts presented in this issue address the impact that “open source, freeware, collaboration, and other new forms of distributed, iterative writing” might have for teaching  and research at the individual level as well as how these practices could potentially inform how the composition community collectively defines its disciplinary work.

As usual, I encourage anyone interested to post their responses to the issues and concerns addressed in this issue of CCO here on the blog!

Call for Webtexts
Open Source: Purpose, Practice, and Priorities
Computers and Composition Online, Fall 2010 

As shown in the Fall 2009 Computers and Composition Online special issue on Web 2.0, open source projects are a significant part of social media, especially media intended for education. Although some of Web 2.0 is open source, that overlap barely begins to cover the purpose, practice, and priorities that comprise open source in academia, especially for those who teach and research in composition studies. This special issue invites submissions centering on open source as it connects to writing and the teaching of writing.

Even now, five years since Computers and Composition Online published Laurie Taylor and Brendan Riley’s Open Source and Academia (Spring 2004), the open source movement grows in importance while at the same time remaining an under-the-radar stance, despite the significant inroads open source has made into writing pedagogy. At the heart of this lack of transparency is definition. What is or isn’t open source remains slippery. Scholars may see open source in academia as primarily an intellectual property issue and advocate Creative Commons use and more openness in scholarly publication. Others may see it as a software accessibility issue and support alternatives to proprietary software used in teaching, i.e., using Moodle instead of Blackboard or Open Office over Microsoft Word. Still others look to the rhetoric beneath the stance and and see open source as a continuation of the fundamental idea of academic freedom: in order to have freedom of expression, academics need to also control the ways their works are expressed, not outsource intellectual work to for-profit corporations that usually have different agendas than academics.

In this special issue of Computers and Composition Online, editors Lanette Cadle and Kristine Blair with guest editor Joe Erickson ask for webtexts that investigate the purpose, practice, or priorities needed for an open source  connection with writing theory or pedagogy. For the purposes of this issue, we will be using the most inclusive definition of open source possible and will consider, especially in the Virtual Classroom section, webtexts depicting assignments using free software that may not be purely open source, such as Google Wave, which is part of Google, but has opened the code for independent developers to use. Here are a few suggestions divided by sections:

Theory into Practice

This is where purpose will be examined, a place to ask—and answer—the why questions.

• Open source and academic freedom
• Defining open source
• An answer to the question, why would anyone give away software/code (why non-proprietary exists)
• Copyright, copyleft, or no copy: when copyright limits academic accessibility

• Collaborative programming as composition
• When is free truly free? The dilemma of free yet proprietary software

Virtual Classroom

Clearly, this is where case studies or how-to webtexts based on classroom practice will fit.

• Using an open source CMS (content management system)
• English Education majors and open source use
• When the classroom default is open source (Open Office vs. Microsoft Word, etc.)
• Assignments using FOSS (free OR open source software)

Professional Development

Open source is a huge issue for those interested in the larger issues of publication, ownership, and collaboration. Setting priorities and advocating priorities, including calls for action, would be a good fit here.

• Why are there no open source plagiarism detectors? Open source as a measure of usability in education.
• The open source university. What happens when a university consciously prefers open source

Reviews

Although book reviews are always welcome, this issue will be a very good place for software reviews. For examples of how this has been done in the past, see the Web 2.0 issue reviews of Open Office and Moodle. Suggested reviews include DrupalEd,  Sakai, Google Wave (highlight open source aspects of this project), Gimp, Zotero or any other software or social media that is open source (not proprietary) would be welcome. Please send a query.

Queries and submissions should be sent to Lanette Cadle at lanette.cadle@gmail.com, Kristine Blair at  kblair@bgnet.bgsu.edu or Joe Erickson at jericks8@gmail.com. Webtexts only—no word processor documents. Also, webtexts need to be produced using web authoring software such as Dreamweaver or Frontpage rather than created on a site such as Google Sites. Submissions need to be received by Friday, February 5, 2010 in order to allow time for peer review. Revisions due by Friday, May 7,  2010.

The 2009 Computers and Writing is still seeking proposals for this year’s Graduate Research Network.  The deadline to apply for travel assistance and to appear in the program is May 30th.

Here is the link for more information:

http://class.georgiasouthern.edu/writling/GRN/2009/index.html

Copyright, Culture, Creativity, and the Commons

This special issue of C&C, which will be published in September 2010, will pick up where the 1998 special issues on copyright of both C&C and Kairos left off.  The guest editors are seeking manuscripts that address “the cultural consequences of our expanded sense of what counts as ‘property’ in digital spaces.”  How have digital phenomena like Napster, Kazaa and other file sharing systems altered our understandings of digital property?  How has legislation over the last decade responded to changing understanding of digital property?  How does all of this play out in our work in rhetoric and composition?

Manuscripts should be submitted by September 15, 2009 to each of the special guest editors:

Martine Courant Rife - martinerife@gmail.com

Steve Westbrook - swestbrook@fullerton.edu

Dànielle Nicole DeVoss - devossda@msu.edu

John Logie - logie@umn.edu

St. Cloud State University in St. Cloud, MN will be hosting the 2009 Great Plains Alliance for Computers and Writing Conference, which will take place on October 23 and 24. While the conference theme examines topics related to the connection between computers, writing, and online communities like SecondLife, Facebook, and other social networking sites, they welcome individual and panel proposals related to any topic within the general areas of computers and writing. Abstracts are due by August 15 to gpacw@stcloudstate.edu

See the UPenn CFP for more detials

The Chronicle of Higher Ed is running a story about the University of Virginia’s plan to phase out public computer labs on its campus. They claim that 99% of its students have their own laptops, and that a large percentage of the computer lab usage only involves basic computing programs like web browsers, PDF document readers, and office applications, all of which most of their students have access to on their personal computers.

This story struck a chord with me because for the last year we have been piloting a laptop program in the FYC program I teach in. In addition to a number of computer lab sections, as well as tech free sections, we have been offering several laptop only sections, for which students must agree to bring their own computers to class with them every day. The university loves the idea because it frees up a lot of the demand for lab space on campus and it keeps the FYC director happy. Also, the students seem to like working with their own computers more so than the school’s computers - at least for the purposes of FYC.

I’m not sure how I feel about the potential of phasing out computer labs all together, though, as Virginia is planning. I can see the financial benefits, but I wonder how well the decision really serves the needs of the student body.

Inside Higher Ed is running a piece today detailing the University of Michigan Press’ decision to shift to a primarily digital publishing model. It will still be publishing scholarly monographs, but printed editions will be gradually phased out over the next two years. To no one’s surprise, the press is citing basic economics for the decision, claiming that they “have been increasingly convinced that the business model based on the printed monograph was not merely failing but broken.” It should also be noted, as Inside Higher Ed points out, that this decision come at a time when other presses have been laying off staff and Utah State Press is facing the real potential of completely shutting down.

The NCTE is working to make October 20th the National Day on Writing. There hope is to raise awareness about the craft behind all of the kinds of writing that people tacitly engage in everyday. As part of their effort the NCTE is creating a digital National Gallery of Writing, which they will unveil on October 20th of the first annual National Day of Writing.

They are asking members of the composition community to send in short pieces of writing aimed at non-educators to help them become more interested in the craft of writing. Teachers are welcome to submit groups of writing written by their students as well. For more details, see the NCTE website.

Karl Stolley has kindly created a twitter group to facilitate interaction among the rhetoric and writing community on Twitter. In just a few short days, the group has grown to something like 130 members. Check it out at: http://twitrhet.org/

The Parlor Press and the WAC Clearinghouse have teamed up together to present the composition community with a new Web site called Writing Spaces | Readings on Writing.The purpose of the site is to provide online texts for teachers to use in composition courses like first year writing and, eventually, writing across the disciplines, and professional writings. Basically the site will consist of a series of peer reviewed essays written by scholars in the field for undergraduate students. Instructors can pick and choose readings from the site on an individual basis or choose a collection of the essays for inclusion and a printed course reader that could be sold at university bookstores. All of the texts on the site are available for free via a Creative Commons Copyright license.

http://writingspaces.org/