Archive for Book Chapters

Designing the PhD Curriculum in the Design Disciplines

citation

Mainsah, Henry; Morrison, Andrew; Aspen, Jonny; & Ball, Cheryl E. (2017). Designing the PhD curriculum in the design disciplines. In Laurene Vaughan (Ed.) Practice-based design research. London, UK: Bloomsbury.

abstract

In this chapter we focus on the challenges and potentials in the design of a curriculum for doctoral education in design-related disciplines in increasingly interdisciplinary contexts and where the PhD is located within a wider research project or strategic research area. We do so with reference to the implications for the growth of pedagogies that support doctoral students’ professional development as researchers beyond formal taught courses in the confines of a PhD school and the role of participation in wider research project based inquiry and the role of supervisory support.

supplemental materials

“History of a Broken Thing: The Multi-Journal Special Issue on Electronic Publication”

citation

Eyman, Douglas, & Ball, Cheryl E. (forthcoming/2015?). History of a broken thing: The multi-journal special issue on electronic publication. In Bruce McComisky (Ed.), Microhistories of composition (pp. forthcoming as Chapter 4). Logan, UT: Utah State University Press.

abstract

This chapter looks closely at the summer, multi-journal special issue on electronic publishing, simultaneously published across five online journals in rhetoric and composition: Kairos, Enculturation, CCC Online, Academic.Writing, and The Writing Instructor. It traces how the same issues (and problems) in electronic publishing that were key in 2002, when this issue was published, are still relevant (and still problematic) today. By revisiting the major themes present in that multi-journal special issue — such as archiving, technical infrastructure, and tenure and review — we demonstrate how some online journals have addressed these issues and others have not, primarily through the example that, in the nearly 15 years since that issue was published, only one of the five journals publishing in it have remained online and accessible. Being editors of that journal, we conclude the chapter by proposing some best practices for sustaining webtext publishing that may be useful for others editing, publishing, or starting their own journals.

supplemental materials

 

“All Writing is Multimodal”

citation:
Ball, Cheryl E., & Charlton, Colin. (forthcoming). All writing is multimodal. In Linda Adler-Kassner & Elizabeth Wardle (Eds.), Naming what we know: Threshold concepts of writing studies. Logan, UT: Utah State University Press.

abstract:

This encyclopedia-like entry on multimodality for the threshold concepts collection defines what multimodality is, why it is a useful concept for writing studies, and outlines several misconceptions about this theoretical and pedagogical approach.

accompanying materials:

status:

  • collection manuscript received final approval for publication by USUP board in June 2014, for publication in 2015.

The Boutique is Open: Data for Writing Studies

citation

Ball, Cheryl E.; Graban, Tarez Samra; & Sidler, Michelle. (under review). The boutique is open: Data for writing studies.

abstract

This chapter takes up the issue of open data for networked humanities scholars, specifically through small, or boutique, data sets created by writing researchers. In contrast to a national funding focus on big data by agencies like NEH, boutique data is already readily available in writing scholars’ pedagogical, scholarly, and professional research. By opening access to this research data through publication, we argue that researchers can speed the pace of discovery, analysis, and collaboration. In response to the need for such boutique publication venues, this chapter outlines one attempt to create a boutique data repository, rhetoric.io, and the kinds of distributed and pedagogical infrastructures necessary to make this collaborative system a reality.

materials

“Digital Humanities Scholarship and Electronic Publication”

citation

Eyman, Douglas, & Ball, Cheryl E. (under review). Digital humanities scholarship and electronic publication. In Jim Ridolfo & Bill Hart-Davidson (Eds.), Rhetoric and the digital humanities. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

abstract

This chapter argues that the publication and dissemination of digital scholarship relies upon three critical forms of infrastructure: scholarly, social, and technical. Scholarly infrastructure impacts the design choices made in the production of screen-based scholarly works; social infrastructure has to be developed to increase to value and acceptance of such work; and technological infrastructure is needed to ensure sustainability and accessibility of digital scholarship. Drawing on their many years of experience as editors of a digital journal devoted to publishing digital media scholarship, the authors of this chapter examine an NEH-funded digital humanities project they worked on to better the scholarly, social, and technical infrastructures of Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy.

downloads

“Pirates of Metadata: The True Adventures…of a Harrowing Metadata Mining Project”

This work originally appeared in “Common Ground at the Nexus of Information Literacy and Scholarly Communication” edited by Stephanie Davis-Kahl and Merinda Kaye Hensley. Chicago, IL: Association of College & Research Libraries, 2013. Any use of this work must be accompanied by this notification.

Citation

Ball, Cheryl E. (2013). Pirates of metadata: The true adventures of how one journal editor and fifteen undergraduate publishing majors survived a harrowing metadata-mining project. In Stephanie Davis-Kahl & Merinda Kaye Hensley (Eds.), Common ground at the nexus of information literacy and scholarly communication (pp. 93-111). Chicago, IL: Association of College & Research Libraries.

Introduction

In this chapter, I discuss the use of metadata in digital publishing as both a necessary means for creating accessible and sustainable scholar- ship and a method of promoting information literacy in students. To make this point, I argue that information literacy extends beyond technical competence and into a critical understanding of the contexts and ecologies in which information is created and used. That is, while understanding metadata, as a concept, is a functional part of information literacy, understanding the role metadata plays in information communication, such as scholarly publishing, requires far more rhetorical and critical understanding, which enhances information literacy practices. The study that showcases this practice centers on a digital publishing class during which I asked undergraduates to mine metadata from an open access scholarly journal that publishes exclusively hypertextual and multimedia scholarship.

download

Pirates of Metadata” (OA PDF)

“Genre and transfer in a multimodal composition class”

citation
Ball, Cheryl E.; Fenn, Tyrell; & Scoffield Bowen, Tia. (2013). Genre and transfer in a multimodal composition class. In Carl Whithaus & Tracey Bowen (Eds.) Multimodal literacies and emerging genres in student compositions (pp. 15-36). Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.

abstract
This chapter is about a teacher’s progression through three iterations of a class (at two universities) in multimodal composition, with a focus on how two students brought previous multiliteracy practices into the classroom, how that knowledge shaped instruction, and how the instructor learned to not assign texts by modes in a multimodal class so as to avoid a-generic production of wowless, “five-paragraph” videos.


accompanying materials

status

  • Update 6/08: Collection received advanced contract from Utah State University Press.
  • Update 4/09: Utah State Univ Press downsized; asked to send mss elsewhere.
  • Update 10/09: Collection reviewed by Pittsburgh University Press; co-editors responding to reviews.
  • Update 11/28/09: Email notification by editors for new revision deadline of Feb. 1, 2010, to be reviewed again by Pittsburgh UP.
  • Update 2/2/11: Email notification of contract by U of Pittsburgh Press. Ours is the lead chapter in the book. We had no revisions.

"Talking Back to Teachers: Undergraduate Research in Multimodal Composition"

citation
Ball, Cheryl E., et al. (in progress). Talking back to teachers: Undergraduate research in multimodal composition. In Debra Journet, Cheryl E. Ball, and Ryan Trauman (Eds.) The new work of composing. Computers and Composition Digital Press/Utah State University Press.

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, https://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

see also

"Digital Scholarship and the New Work of the Book in Composition Studies"

citation
Journet, Debra; Ball, Cheryl E.; & Trauman, Ryan. (in progress). Digital scholarship and the new work of the book in composition studies. In Debra Journet, Cheryl E. Ball, & Ryan Trauman (Eds.) The new work of composing. Computers and Composition Digital Press/Utah State University Press. http://ccdigitalpress.org

status

  • Update 07/09: Prospectus with introduction submitted to CCDP.
  • Update 10/09: Verbal confirmation from press editor that collection has been accepted.
  • Update 11/09: Email confirmation from press that collection should proceed.

abstract
This introductory chapter to the digital media collection, The New Work of Composing, asks what constitutes a “book” in age of digital scholarship? In a period of digital production, we are pushed to consider what a book is and what it does. How do modes and media change not only how knowledge is produced but also what kind of knowledge is made possible? Which assumptions about the print book—its scope or range, its intellectual possibilities, the kinds of interactions it fosters—are transferable to digital books and which are not? This project lays the groundwork for these questions. The New Work of Composing contains 14 multimodal chapters that are organized around five clusters of issues of related to digital composition. In the introduction, each chapter is described, and the book’s interface is also discussed (e.g., how to read this book).

accompanying materials

see also

"Toward a Reading Heuristic for New Media Texts"

citation
Ball, Cheryl E. (under review). Toward a reading heuristic for new media texts. Writing spaces: Readings on writings. http://writingspaces.org/

abstract
Using terms familiar to composition, rhetoric, and their related disciplines (i.e., purpose, organization, emphasis, etc.), readers can shift their use of these concepts from written communication to interpret new media texts. I provide a reading of a new media text, “Murmuring Insects” (Ankerson, 2001) to show this transferability in reading new media. The reading and subsequent heuristic that this chapter offers pays attention to the many contexts in which new media texts are produced and read and focuses on interpreting the design elements of a text in relation to its purpose.

status

  • 4/15/09: Chapter proposal submitted
  • 5/20/09: Chapter proposal accepted
  • 7/15/09: Publication contract received & signed
  • 8/15/09: Chapter submitted to editors
  • 1/10: Expected publication date

accompanying materials