definition of perpetual beta from wikipedia. developing in the open. don't try to take a snapshot of the now.

question is "what makes scholarship scholarship?"
contributes to collective knowledge, esp. one's area of expertise
peer reviewed--

not exactly the same as institutional transferability

(he's had three different committees reviewing and validating his research--all evaluated on different criteria--no shared vocabulary that guarantees work validated in one environment is valid in another--instead, you have to use different criteria in different environments.)

also role of professional societies and academic communities: a way to get beta work into professional disciplines

filtered and organized

"letting in vs. keeping out"

managing errata, Alan Sokal and Social Text 1996

Dissemination of standards

Preserved and archived (important role of libraries in all of this!) [c'est vrai]

(see Marsha Kinder and Labyrinth project--new MacIntels won't run her work)

Ernest Boyer: Scholarship Reconsidered

New Media is like a crime: every crime is a mistake, because crime violates the perfect order. New Media cannot but cause an inflection in scholarship: two systems of organizing meaning in collision. No perfect crime.

"We need scholars who not only skillfully explore the frontiers of knowledge, but also integrate ideas, connect thought to action, and inspire students."--Ernest Boyer New Media scholarship cannot justify itself only in terms of traditional scholarship, as those terms are antithetical to new media. [but aren't these goals typical of the best traditional scholarship?]

Vectors at USC: www.vectorsjournal.org: funded by HASTAC. Vectors will assign a production designer to work with faculty researcher on a new media design of what they want to do.

serialized academic audiobook--out of the past (film noir podcast)

ulipo--writing within constraints (i.e., without using "e")

podcast also a mode of operating under constraints

great books curriculum and film noir appear at the same time

jan 2006--itunes re-did its podcast subject categories

podcast has been at merlot and they've asked for peer review. there's a peer review button there. but no one has yet peer reviewed it. hard to argue that one has been a reader at merlot.org and that this should count as professorial.

are phds trying to be mfa's? creating objects, not books.

Henry Jenkins' work on fan culture, convergence culture--qv

a tweener project--something between teaching and research--the ootp podcast

buried assumption in the review process was that oral means teaching while writing means research


Richard Thomas IUPUI