Sustaining Scholarly Publishing

MediaCommons is very happy to host an open discussion of the Association of American University Presses report, released on Monday, “Sustaining Scholarly Publishing: New Business Models for University Presses.” This report examines the experiments currently underway in university press publishing and makes several key recommendations for the success of future innovation. Central to these recommendations is a call for greater collaboration and communication in these publishing processes.

Thanks to the support of Monica McCormick, Program Officer for Digital Scholarly Publishing at NYU, the AAUP task force has not only graciously agreed to but enthusiastically supported this discussion. Please come join us, and help MediaCommons and the AAUP together foster the kinds of communication that will support new modes of experimentation in scholarly publishing.

Shakespeare Quarterly Open Review

MediaCommons is very proud to be collaborating for a second year with Shakespeare Quarterly on the open review of essays under consideration for publication in their special issue on Shakespeare and Performance. As special issue editor Sarah Werner reports,

The essays cover a range of interesting subjects: a film about a Northern Ireland prison adaptation of Macbeth; Othello in 1903 Japan; Merchant of Venice in post-war West Germany; prophecy as a trope for performance; political theatre as staged by the RSC’s most recent stagings of the Histories; and a review of Ninagawa Yukio’s recent Doctor Faustus.

Discussion will be open to registered users for six weeks; further instructions for participation are available on the review site. Please stop by and join the discussion!

Learning Through Digital Media

MediaCommons Press is proud to host the open review of essays proposed for inclusion in the collection, Learning Through Digital Media. As editor Trebor Scholz describes it,

The simple yet far-reaching ambition of this collection of essays is to discover how to use digital media for learning on campus and off. It offers a rich selection of reflections on social practices, methodologies, and hands-on assignments by leading educators who acknowledge the opportunities created by the confluence of mobile technologies, the World Wide Web, film, video games, TV, comics, and software while also calling attention to recurring challenges. The authors in this publication ask how tools and services that are part of the contemporary media landscape can be used to create situations in which all learners actively engage each other and the teacher to become more proficient and productive, to think in more complex ways, gain better judgment, become more principled and curious, and lead distinctive and productive lives.

Please join in the discussion of these engaging and important essays!

The Net Effect

Thomas Streeter’s The Net Effect: Romanticism, Capitalism, and the Internet is now available from NYU Press (and Amazon.com). MediaCommons Press is pleased to make chapter 6 of The Net Effect, “Open Source, the Expressive Programmer, and the Problem of Property,” available for reading and discussion.

In addition to participating in the discussion in the margins of the text, Streeter will also be blogging about the ideas in the book and their implications for understanding contemporary issues surrounding the Internet.

Join the conversation, and spread the word!

Shakespeare Quarterly Open Review

It’s perhaps a tiny bit ironic to be launching this particular new MediaCommons Press project on the Ides of March, but nonetheless: we here at MediaCommons are thrilled to unveil the open review experiment being conducted here on behalf of Shakespeare Quarterly, in conjunction with the journal’s forthcoming special issue, “Shakespeare and New Media.” Special issue guest editor Katherine Rowe has brought together four fantastic articles plus three review essays, each considering the impact of media change on Shakespeare studies.

Please visit the site, read the articles, and leave your feedback for the authors. We very much look forward to your participation.

Planned Obsolescence: Publishing, Technology, and the Future of the Academy

We’re happy today to unveil both MediaCommons Press and Planned Obsolescence: Publishing, Technology, and the Future of the Academy. This book-in-progress focuses on the social and institutional changes that will be required within colleges and universities in the U.S. in order for digital scholarly publishing to become a viable reality.

The manuscript is here published in full, in an commentable format designed to promote a new open mode of peer review. We very much want your feedback, both on the process and on the manuscript itself. Please join the conversation, and spread the word.

CommentPress: New (Social) Structures for New (Networked) Texts

Originally published as a draft in July 2007, and then revised and republished on MediaCommons in October 2007 (and simultaneously published in the Journal of Electronic Publishing), “CommentPress: New (Social) Structures for New (Networked) Texts” explores the ways that new networked publishing structures might help us imagine new ways of publishing — and doing — scholarship.

MediaCommons: Scholarly Publishing in the Age of the Internet

Originally published in March 2007, “MediaCommons: Scholarly Publishing in the Age of the Internet” laid the groundwork for the MediaCommons project.