Ball, Cheryl E. (2010–11). Building the future of the book with The New Work of Composing. Pre-Tenure Faculty Initiative Grant, Illinois State University. $3,500 [Internal].

description
With this PFIG grant, I will complete the afterword and index to the first digital, multimodal book published by an academic press: The New Work of Composing, an edited collection that will be published in 2011. The index is an interactive database of keywords based on each chapter’s digital assets (i.e., web pages, images, videos, audio files, written text, etc.). The afterword is a multimedia essay based on sample keyword searches in the index-database, addressing how the intellectual work of the “book” changes when distributed in a multimedia environment. This book also has 14 multimodal chapters and an introduction, which has already been drafted for the prospectus. To complete the index and afterword, I will continue work started this past summer with the creators of the Dynamic Backend Generator (a database program) at the University of Southern California. The DBG designers helped me create a prototype of the database to be used for the book’s index, to which the afterword will be linked.

accompanying materials

• grant application
  

citation
Ball, Cheryl E. (2008, Summer). Professional development through preparation of a digitally enhanced tenure portfolio. Summer Faculty Professional Development Fellowship, Illinois State University. $5,000.

summary
This summer I will begin work on a year-long project to design my tenure portfolio materials for digital, multimedia distribution. One professional development outcome relevant to this fellowship application will be scholarly presentation(s) for ISU tenure and promotion stakeholders on evaluating digital work in tenure cases. I will also produce an article about the process of preparing digital tenure portfolios. This application is requesting summer salary to support my work on this project.

accompanying materials

• grant/fellowship proposal

citation
Ball, Cheryl E., & et al. [12 undergraduates]. (2008). Teaching The new work of composing: Undergraduate research in digital scholarship. Teaching-Learning Development Grant, Illinois State University. $2,000.

abstract
A unique opportunity has arisen for the students in my English 239 (Multimodal Composition) class; they have been invited to the Thomas R. Watson Conference on Rhetoric and Composition at the University of Louisville this October, where they will collect research to complete their major class projects. The students will interview conference presenters, film and audio-record sessions, and, from that data collection, produce a digital, multimedia-based book chapter for submission to the first “born-digital” scholarly book in English studies, The New Work of Composing. This book is set to be published by the first all-digital, academic press in the humanities, Computers and Composition Digital Press.

outcomes
The students collected digital assets from the conference and produced 3 digital media texts for a chapter called “Talking Back: Undergraduates and Digital Media Research,” which has been editorially reviewed by the two other editors of The New Work of Composing and accepted for publication.

accompanying materials

• grant proposal (pdf)

see also

• The New Work of Composing (under Edited Volumes)
• “Talking Back: Undergraduates and Digital Media Research” (under Chapters)
• English 239: Multimodal Composition [Fall 2008] (under Teaching)

citation
Ball, Cheryl E. (2008–09). Digital scholarship in the Humanities, Part 1: Authors’ composition and revision processes of new media scholarship. New Faculty Initiative Grant, Illinois State University. $3,500.

abstract
My research question is whether new media scholars’ writing processes are the same whether they are composing for print or new media. That is, do the rhetorical decisions authors make when they are composing change depending on whether they are writing for print or writing for new media. My primary objective is to discover the connections (as well as any disconnections) between these composition processes for authors, whom I will interview. My purpose in doing this research is to compare the value of new media composition processes to the already-valued processes of composing for print. In addition, I hope to discover value differences between these composition strategies. The outcomes will include a national conference presentation and an article.

outcomes
I have successfully gathered the research for this project, which includes over 100 hours of video footage, screencasts, chat transcripts, and audio interviews (with one of the four authors) working collaboratively and at a distance as they composed a digital media chapter for the multimodal scholarly book I am editing, The New Work of Composing. My plan had been to code this data for use in the Afterword of the book, but that plan has shifted as the Afterword needed to accomplish different goals in the book. Thus, I plan to code the data and write it up for a future article and conference presentation.

accompanying materials

• grant proposal (pdf)

citation
Ball, Cheryl E., & Moeller, Ryan. (2006–07). The Learning Suite: A collaborative, technology-rich environment to support writing/composition in a digital age. Utah State University Innovation Fund. $86,000 [Internal].

abstract
Digital technology has dramatically changed the cultural and social landscape in the last 10 years. Nationwide, writing-studies scholars—those who instruct classes like English 1010 and 2010 [e.g., the first- and second-year composition sequence]—have been attuned to this change, paying attention to how digital technology and sustainable lab environments affect students’ writing processes. This Innovation Fund proposal seeks to create a sustainable learning community, called the Learning Suite, built on how people actually write in the workplace and at home. The goal is to enhance students’ experiences with English 1010/2010 curricula—classes that all USU students take—by increasing students’ access to 21st-century, digital writing practices and environments. The Learning Suite will help students bridge the gap between the writing they do in their classes at USU and the writing they will do in the workplace and beyond.  This change, combined with increased contact with other students and instructors in the lab suite setting, will primarily serve to retain students beyond their first two years by helping them see writing as an engaging, social activity rather than a requirement.

accompanying materials

• the background/big plan (long description) (doc; our internal justification document)
• the Apple price quote (pdf; for our budget)
• the submitted proposal (doc; what the provost saw)
  

see also

• “Designing Collaborative Learning Spaces” (under Peer-Reviewed Articles)

citation
Ball, Cheryl E. (2005–06). Uncovering Theories and Practices of Multiliteracies and New Media Pedagogies. New Faculty Research Grant. Utah State University. $10,633.

abstract
Literacy has changed as a result of technology, shifting from pedagogies based solely on writing instruction to multimodal pedagogies. My research question for this project is to discover what issues and obstacles nascent and established programs that teach the production of multimodal texts face. This grant extends research on the CCCC grant received the previous year.

accompanying materials

• not available

see also

• “Integrating Multimodality into Composition Curricula” (under Peer-Reviewed Articles)