Web Publishing and Educational Scholarship:
Where Issues of Form and Content Meet*
(Published in Cambridge Journal of Education, 1997)
Nicholas C. Burbules
Department of Educational Policy Studies
University of Illinois, Urbana/Champaign
The Internet has rapidly become a popular medium for the presentation of scholarly work in a widely accessible, low-cost form. [1] More and more academics read, and seek publication through, on-line journals (whether in exclusively electronic formats, or electronic parallel versions of paper publications). Others publish their ideas by contributing them to listservs or other on-line discussion groups. Others self-publish by posting their writings via their World Wide Web home pages. These new avenues of publication have raised a host of questions that are only beginning to be sorted out by those with the greatest stake in exploiting these new opportunities: issues of intellectual property and plagiarism; issues of how publication in on-line journals, many of which are refereed with as much rigor as most print journals, should be evaluated for tenure, promotion, and salary purposes; issues of what constitutes a "publication" in a medium that makes possible a host of new forms, versions, and variations of academic writing. This essay examines the last of these clusters of questions, but several of the points raised along the way have implications for the others as well. Overall, my concern here is with how new forms of publication, which are made conveniently, if not uniquely, possible on-line, are changing also the kinds of scholarship that are being counted as academically worthwhile - the point at which form and content meet.
I.
Self-publishing is, in certain respects, simply an extension of activities academics have practiced for a long time: for example, by duplicating photocopies of manuscripts and distributing them to colleagues. These may be draft versions, or reprints of published essays (reprints that might be purchased from the journal or photocopies of the original article). Leaving aside some significant questions of ownership and copyright for the moment, such practices are ways that academics have circulated their work, directly or indirectly, with colleagues, students, or even unknown recipients. Such distribution may be for the purposes of receiving feedback while revising a document, or for disseminating a more or less finished version for wider readership; sometimes such documents are accompanied by a request not to circulate the paper more widely, and sometimes not. Presumably, once an article is finished (in the author's own mind), the wider the circle of recipients the better - though the same may not hold true for work in progress.
Self-publishing on-line has many of these same characteristics, and raises many of the same issues. The pool of distribution can be targeted or unrestricted; for articles posted on Web pages, presumably, the predominant sentiment is "come one, come all." In fact, given the current state of word processors and server technology, an author (or, here and throughout this essay, authors) can basically write something, save it in HTML format, place a copy in a special folder on his or her desktop computer, if it is networked, and publish it to the entire Web. The very distinction of writing versus publishing breaks down when any electronic document, as soon as it is written and saved on a networked computer, is thereby instantly published. There are certain potential advantages or disadvantages to authors in such practices, and advantages or disadvantages for readers; however, these respective advantages and disadvantages do not exactly correspond with one another.
Authors can avoid dealing with the "gatekeepers" that journal editors and reviewers represent. Sometimes these judges have blind spots, or biases, that make it difficult to get certain kinds of articles through the review process. Sometimes they are regarded as too demanding for revision or elaboration of manuscripts. Sometimes the review process is simply seen as too slow. Self-publishing allows authors to bypass this process entirely and reach readers directly: those who know the author can look for new publications from time to time; those who do not know the author can find the articles through key-word searches.
An on-line article can be revised easily, with each new version replacing an older one, an unlimited number of times. An article that is journal-published, whether in print or on-line, has a final, archival quality to it: this is the considered view of the author, revised, edited, and finished. While this quality enforces a certain care and discipline in what an author commits to finished status, it does not take advantage of one of the chief benefits of electronic publishing: easy and repeated revisability. Few authors have not looked with dismay at printed articles to find uncorrected errors of spelling, punctuation, and grammar; or uncited works that would have better substantiated a key point; or substantive arguments or claims which, upon reflection, should have been stated differently - or, worse, not at all. It is sometimes said that on-line publishing will encourage more sloppy, uncorrected work, "instant ideas" slapped together with a minimum of attention to quality or clarity of writing; yet it is also true that on-line publishing will make possible more highly refined content, via multiple revisions: correcting errors that slip through the first time and modifying works over time ("upgrades") as an author's thinking evolves, as further studies are completed, and so on.
Self-publishing also makes possible the distribution of work to a far greater audience, at little or no additional cost to the author. Unlike photocopies, reprints, and so forth, an on-line article, once published, is there for millions of potential readers, worldwide. No academic print publication can boast such widespread access; though it is also true that this audience is limited to those who have, or have access to, computers (for this and other reasons, one should not expect print journals to disappear any time soon - see below). [2]
On the other hand, self-publishing deprives authors of certain potential benefits and opportunities. For one thing, as matters stand now, on-line publication garners no royalties for the author: a minor matter for most journal publications but a significant one where books are concerned. Whether an academic's interests are (or should be) with earning money for his or her writing, and how such interests are to be weighed against the interest of academics in securing the widest possible engagement with the ideas, perspectives, and information contained in their work, are vigorously debatable propositions, needless to say. As with other issues discussed here, one's person's advantage may be regarded by another person as a disadvantage.
Similarly, issues of plagiarism arise whenever on-line publication is being discussed. The possibility of duplicating, retyping, or quoting the work of others without attribution is hardly new; the most that one might say is that the existence of electronic versions on-line makes far easier the technical process of copying and pasting text from one source into another. A thorough discussion of this issue goes far beyond my present purposes in this essay; but a few questions might be posed here. To what extent have our assumptions about intellectual ownership arisen from metaphors of "property" that may have weak analogues when one is discussing ideas? Why should the citation of written materials have a special status compared with conversations, conference talks, or comments in the classroom, all of which are likely to be picked up and repeated by others, frequently without attribution? How has the "intellectual property" metaphor grown out of the physical existence of written texts (journals and books) that are themselves commodities, marketed and sold by profit-making institutions? When the process of publishing can be decoupled from the existence of physical commodities that are bought and sold, should there continue to be a financial interest in what one writes for an academic or professional audience? Finally, is the fundamental issue one of ownership and royalties, or of attribution - credit within a community that acknowledges the significance and influence of an author's work - and should we shift focus from the former to the latter as electronic publishing makes possible new forms of attribution (such as hypertext links that, when clicked, carry one from a given text to another one)? It is far from clear where the interests of academic authors in restricting access to their ideas, perspectives, and information should begin and end.
Another potential disadvantage to authors who are avoiding the "gatekeepers" of journal publishing is that they may miss out as well on the benefits of the review and editorial process. Editors and publishers like to call this the "value added" of journals: the constructive criticisms and suggestions that anonymous peer reviewers can offer, and the accuracy and clarity that good copy editors can add to an author's style. Beyond this, journals with a good reputation provide an imprimatur to the work published in them; they can sponsor symposia that bring various authors and perspectives together in a fruitful way; and they have a standing distribution list of subscribers (including libraries) that, while smaller than the total number of Web residents, and while not insuring that anyone will actually read any particular article, do offer a targeted distribution that makes it more likely that interested parties will find out about an article, or know where to look for something relevant to their concerns.
Again, corresponding to each of these points there are further reactions to be posed. Authors can develop their own networks for peer review and feedback (all the easier now that photocopiers don't need to be burned out or mailing budgets dissipated in the process). Computer spell-checkers and grammar checkers can catch many typographical or syntax errors. In on-line publishing, as noted, authors can substitute a revised version for the original if new errors show up at some later time, anyway. And the imprimatur that journals provide, the dissemination networks, the heft, credibility, and status of refereed publication, are all benefits for which equivalent Web practices are rapidly being developed. What we are seeing in electronic publishing is a shift away from traditional authorities and sources of credibility, linked with institutions such as universities, journals, and professional organizations, who filter and legitimate certain kinds of writing, to more decentered, audience-driven, processes of screening, feedback, and attributions of credibility or status (such as the counters that indicate the number of visits a page has received). Where these traditional sources have been subject to criticisms of conservatism and hegemonic exclusion of radically different or novel points of view, this more decentered writing/publishing system seems to hold the promise of "letting a thousand flowers bloom." Yet, conversely, the vast explosion of materials on the Web, with so little guidance (at present) to assist one in distinguishing the interesting, original, or important - as opposed to the derivative, duplicative, or trivial - may in the end require a re-creation of just the sorts of systems of evaluation and selection on others' behalf that the journal process has traditionally represented. It may be different individuals or groups performing such tasks; but almost certainly someone will have to keep doing it. [3]
This becomes even more clear as we examine the other aspect of the publication relation: the interests of the reader. Here too there are advantages and disadvantages to self-publishing. For one thing, as things stand at present, most on-line texts are available for free - once one has a computer and Internet access. Such issues of access, cost, and the increased commercialization of the Internet merit close examination as well; but for now at least the basic ethos of the Web is to provide resources and information for free. Many commercial publishers are seeking ways to garner subscription revenues for on-line journals, or even charging for access on an article-by-article basis. Self-publishing derives from an entirely different impulse: making work directly available from author to reader with the fewest possible intermediaries or barriers - including cost. Especially with authors who already have an established reputation in an area, fostering direct access to their work poses a major advantage to prospective readers searching for their writings.
The Internet offers enormously flexible methods of document searching (for those items that are available on-line), which permit readers to tailor highly customized parameters for what they want to find. This extends even down to the level of key-word searches within documents: and I would suggest that this will prove a major factor in driving more and more publishing on-line (even if there are paper parallel editions as well). The possibility of rapid, precise, and virtually labor-free searches for names or terms within documents (including book-length volumes or even larger archives, such as the complete contents of journals over several years) offers a kind of super-indexing capability that scholars will find invaluable - and nothing on paper can come close to matching this.
Yet, with the explosion of on-line material, as noted, come some marked disadvantages for readers. A search that pulls up 50,000 items in seconds is technically stunning, but practically useless. No reader wants 50,000 (or 500,000, etc.) references: the very usefulness of such powerful searches is undermined by their relatively indiscriminate character (even the way that search engines rank items within such lists may not correspond to the actual criteria readers will find useful). The democratization of the Internet, as in other media contexts, opens up new freedoms and possibilities - and drastically increases the amount of silliness and garbage as well. The sheer overwhelming volume of material may (and I have suggested will) foster a kind of nostalgia for the time when editors, librarians, archivists, or other scholars performed the task of filtering, evaluating, and organizing material in a useful format for others. And while the Web may vastly increase the number of people performing such functions (raising the issue of credibility again at a second-order level), the number of people who can or will practically perform such selecting or sorting functions for themselves will always remain relatively small. The basic pattern, I believe, will be a shift from institutional, hierarchically sanctioned authorities to processes of distributed intelligence, where the judgments of communities of authors and readers - who is cited, how often they are cited, by whom they are cited, whose pages are linked to and from those of others - will provide the network of support that sustains certain works as credible or significant. Such processes are subject to many abuses and imperfections, without a doubt; but since the traditional journal review and selection process is subject to abuses and imperfections as well, the best one can hope for is the continued existence of multiple avenues of publication and legitimacy, each compensating to some extent for the weaknesses of others.
II.
For these and other reasons, pertaining to the convenience of the print medium, its portability, its ease of readability, and its availability to many, through subscriptions or library holdings, who do not have computer access, print journals will continue to exist for a good while. But a deeper reason why on-line publication will continue to increase (whether self-published or via refereed outlets) is that it makes possible new kinds of publication, many of which can only exist in an on-line (or CD-ROM) format. Here issues of form and content merge further: the kinds of text-production that will count as scholarly work are going to continue to undergo rapid change and innovation; and, correspondingly, the conceptions of disciplines, of originality, of intellectual ownership, of what constitutes a "primary" text and what counts as "references" or "citations" - indeed, of what we count as a piece of "writing" itself - will alter through far-reaching and unpredictable lines of creativity. Still, certain current trends are already apparent; and on-line entities called "publications" or "journals" will increasingly need to find ways to accommodate them.
First is the capability of on-line work to include multimedia sources: sound, graphics, video, and so forth. An ethnographic study can include not only static photographic data, or transcribed audio, but actual video or sound clips. A cultural studies essay can include film or music resources, complete with voice-over commentary and analysis. Experimental or observational studies can include raw data of all sorts, inviting reanalysis for validation.
A second sort of use for multimedia is ongoing commentary by the author, in parallel with the text: a "talking head," for example, that interjects explanations, elaborations, or humorous asides throughout the text - either automatically or at the option of the reader. Such changes blur the differences between a "paper" and a conference presentation; in certain instances, the author may even be available for real-time question and answer sessions, on-line; and these, too, may be recorded and linked as part of the publication. In some cases there are print equivalents for certain of these practices; but undoubtedly on-line publication makes possible a vividness of performativity and a rapidness of response that go far beyond what any simply printed texts can offer. Some authors will favor such formats; others will eschew them - but either way the expectations of authors and audience for what can constitute an academic article will be transformed.
A third element, closely tied into what has already been discussed, is the hypertext capability of on-line publishing: the ability to link together multiple textual sources (including multimedia sources) in a complex, criss-cross pattern. [4] Hypertext highlights the possibility of lateral as well as linear forms of textual construction, and the supplementation of traditional forms of argument, based on hierarchical outline structures and step-by-step syllogistic reasoning, with other rhetorical forms, including bricolage, juxtaposition, and parallel composition. The implications of hypertext for encouraging new variations on the classic article or essay formats, and the possibilities of thinking, writing, and reading in "rhizomatic" or web-like conceptual organizations have only begun to be explored. Over time, the classic article or essay formats may come to be seen as suitable for certain purposes, but as artificially restrictive constraints on other types of thinking, writing, and reading.
Fourth, as noted earlier, on-line publication allows for the ongoing revision and development of articles over time (perhaps even demarcated as versions or upgrades: version. 2.1 replacing 2.0, for example, or, for a major rewrite, version 3.0 replacing 2.0). As any of us familiar with system or software upgrades knows, such relentless tinkering for the sake of marginal improvements can become wearisome, and it is doubtful how many readers would continue to reread versions of an article to get the latest state of an author's thinking (authors may find the revision process wearisome eventually, too, and so allow a particular version to stand as the "final" one simply because they're tired of messing with it). On the other hand, it is intriguing to rethink the idea of an article from a finished, one-time publication, to a changing, evolving representation of an author's state of knowledge about a particular subject. For any particular readers, the latest version may be all that they will ever know; but from the author's standpoint, the publication can provide an opportunity to revisit and elaborate certain ideas in an ongoing fashion - either choosing, or not, to allow earlier formulations to remain on-line as points of contrast (or, to move to yet another level of complexity, hyperlinked into each new version as explicit links and cross-references between the older and newer versions). Alternatively, this same capability would simplify publishing parallel versions of the same piece, targeted to different prospective audiences (including, notably, culturally and/or internationally diverse audiences).
Fifth, on-line publication allows for multiple new forms of collaborative writing: not only co-authorship in the traditional sense, but forms of interactive production that run across the whole gamut of multimedia, performative, hypertextual, and perpetually revisable possibilities already discussed. [5] Two or more authors may structure their work as an explicit dialogue or conversation; may write parallel, independent, yet cross-referenced texts; may include commentary upon, or criticism of, an original publication as part of alternative version; or may integrate such comments into a new collaborative edition. As such innovations range across current distinctions of publication versus e-mail versus on-line chat versus listservs, questions of authorship and discrete "ownership" of a final text become confused and, at some point, counterproductive. Here, too, publications become the manifestation of a distributed intelligence that goes beyond the provenance of any particular scholar - or, at most, of an editor who collates and weaves together the contributions of many others.
Sixth, and finally, for reasons that cut across most of these previous observations, on-line publishing will encourage an even higher degree of interdisciplinary scholarship in a range of fields. It will be virtually impossible to explore the possibilities of multimedia representations, cross-linked hypertexts, and new forms of collaboration without rethinking the boundaries between what are currently considered discrete disciplines of study. This shift, as others discussed here, is reinforced by contemporary theoretical trends, especially those broadly labeled "postmodern," and institutional changes in universities and the way in which academic problem-areas are being redefined. As a fundamentally interdisciplinary endeavor, educational scholarship will be strongly affected by these changes.
Yet, there are probably not many features of this new publishing context that will affect educational scholarship any more radically than they affect those of scholarship generally, especially in the social sciences. For classroom-based studies, the use of sound or video may greatly enhance the portrayal of hands-on practices. For experimental or statistical studies, it may be beneficial to be able to include access to raw data that can be reanalyzed for replication or validation purposes. For policy issues, it may be beneficial to be able to include survey data, multiple perspectives, or feedback channels that provide a means for public discussion and debate around key problems. For research based on teacher thinking, it may be beneficial to allow for collaborative studies to which many teacher/researchers, in schools and on campus, can contribute. For studies of educational influences in the media, the use of actual clips will provide not only illustrations of the general points, but also be a way of representing the "raw data" of scholarship for review and reinterpretation. Further examples could be generated for these types of models. The point is, however, not what makes educational research unique in these respects; it is what particular use educators can make of these new possibilities given the varied audiences to whom they address their work: other academics, educators, policy-makers, parents, and so forth. It may turn out that one of the greatest benefits of new publishing technologies for educators is in making it easier to develop alternative versions of work for different purposes and different audiences, then finding particular avenues and forms of publication that can reach each of those semi-discrete groups.
What these confluences of form and content also reveal is the pressure that journals will face to go on-line simply as a way of accommodating new types of publication. Completely apart from issues of convenience or cost, then, authors and readers will demand forums that allow experimentation in certain new styles of presenting scholarly ideas and information. Electronic journals, and self-published pieces, will not simply be on-line versions of printed, or printable text: they will also include productions that can only be represented on-line. Only at this point will the full potential of electronic media for scholarly purposes be integrated into the practices of academic writing.
Then, there will be new needs: needs to reassess what counts for tenure, salary, or promotion purposes as a legitimate "publication"; who gets credit for certain kinds of collaborative work; how to judge the quality and originality of work that at least partly, if not largely, consists of the recombination and cross-linking of materials gathered from elsewhere on the Web; how to assess the quality of journals that push the forms of scholarship in especially innovative and risky ways; how to appreciate the value of alternate versions or elaborations of the "same" scholarly piece; and so on.
And, in conclusion, there are the even more radical implications of self-publishing as a way in which non-academics - or, more precisely, those not affiliated with formal academic institutions - can readily participate in debates with the same or even greater influence than those with traditional institutional credentials. The virtual monopoly that universities have held in creating and adjudicating the quality and importance of scholarly work may be rapidly coming to an end. What will become the new criteria of intellectual credibility and worth in a less institutionalized publishing world? I want to suggest that philosophers have an important role to play in re-examining the epistemological and ethical standards that will assist in identifying credible, creative, and significant work within these new media and genres of scholarship. Yet I do not think that we can assume that conventional academic vocabularies will suffice, either in helping to judge these new forms of work, or in appealing to and engaging the new authors and audiences who are participating in on-line scholarly conversations. The grounds of persuasion might require more mutual accommodation with this public than academics have previously been forced to accept.
REFERENCES
* Earlier versions of this essay were presented at Stanford University, the Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) conference, and the Faculty of Education, Queensland University of Technology, Australia. Thanks to the colleagues who provided helpful suggestions and feedback on those occasions.
[1] See Nicholas C. Burbules and Bertram C. Bruce, "This is not a paper," Educational Researcher, Vol. 24 No. 8 (1995): 12-18.
[2] See also Nicholas C. Burbules and Thomas A. Callister, Jr., "Issues of access and equity for new educational technologies," Insights, Vol. 32 No.1 (June 1996): 9-11 and Nicholas C. Burbules and Thomas A. Callister, Jr., "Access to new educational technologies: Democratic challenges," Critical Forum, forthcoming.
[3] Thomas A. Callister, Jr., and Nicholas C. Burbules, "Public spaces and cyberspace: Issues of credibility in educational technologies," Insights, Vol. 32 No.1 (June 1996): 11-14.
[4] For greater detail about hypertext, including an extensive bibliography of sources in the subject, see Nicholas C. Burbules and Thomas A. Callister, Jr., "Knowledge at the crossroads: Alternative futures of hypertext environments for learning," Educational Theory, Vol. 46 No. 1 (1996): 23-50. See also Nicholas C. Burbules, "Rhetorics of the Web: Hyperreading and critical literacy," Page to Screen: Taking Literacy Into the Electronic Era, Ilana Snyder, ed. (New South Wales: Allen and Unwin, forthcoming).
[5] The foremost advocate of these changes is Stevan Harnad, whose work is discussed at some length in Burbules and Callister, "Knowledge at the crossroads."