WIDE's Twitter Stream
billhd: oh, how long has that #wave invite been in there... <accept> #fb
grabill: Shirky "Authority is a social agreement, not a culturally independent fact. Authority is as a authority does." http://bit.ly/2A3bzw
grabill: Rhetoric and (algorithmic) authority from Shirky: Trust is a function of in-group identification processes. http://bit.ly/2A3bzw
billhd: read some NEH proposals for review purposes
billhd: Been too busy to dig into new book on design of information dashboards that arrived this week. But it looks great! #fb
Featured News
Featured Research
Swarm is a social web service for conducting writing review.
The WIDE Research Center
The WIDE Research Center investigates how digital technologies - such as the networked personal computer, the Internet and World Wide Web, and computer-based classrooms and workplaces - change the processes, products, and contexts for writing, particularly in organizational and collaborative composing contexts. <more>
Latest from the WIDE Blogs
Imagining a High-Value Writing Program
September 22, 2009 - by Jeff Grabill, from the blogs Jeff's Blog, WIDE World Web
In this second installment of WIDE’s idea documents that take up challenges to and opportunities for writing programs, Jeff Grabill addresses a range of issues that writing programs might consider as they adjust to the new economies of higher education. Grabill attempts to work back and forth between the general and the specific, but as with Julie Lindquist’s document on possible relationships between writing programs and English Education, this piece is situated within the case of the writing program at Michigan State. <more>
A Vision for English Education
September 17, 2009 - by Jeff Grabill, from the blogs Jeff's Blog, WIDE World Web
WIDE recently announced that we were interested in generating and sharing a set of idea documents that proposed innovative approaches to a set of writing program issues that took into consideration the severe economic conditions that higher education must navigate over the next many years and our best thinking for how to structure compelling, world-class programs given these economic conditions. These idea documents are intended to raise issues of general concern by exploring the particulars of our own scene here at MSU. This is a tall order, and we will do our best to avoid the purely local but rather use our context as a heuristic for thinking about issues that we believe that many of us face. <more>
ATTW 2010 Call for Papers
September 8, 2009 - by Bill Hart-Davidson, from the blogs Billblog IV, WIDE World Web
ATTW 2010Synergies: The Intersections of Research and Teaching <more>
Archive 2.0 Project Wraps Startup Phase, Whitepaper Published
September 4, 2009 - by Bill Hart-Davidson, from the blogs The Samaritan Archive Blog, WIDE World Web
With the submission and publication of a whitepaper entitled "Archive 2.0: Imagining The Michigan State UniversityIsraelite Samaritan Scroll Collection as the Foundation for a Thriving Social Network," the Archive 2.0 project team officially wrapped up the startup phase of their efforts today. Jim Ridolfo, graduate of Michigan State University's Rhetoric & Writing program and Assistant Professor at the University of Cincinnati is the lead author of the report. Mike McLeod and Bill Hart-Davidson from WIDE are also authors on the report. <more>
Coming Soon: Thinking About Writing and Programs with WIDE
August 25, 2009 - by Jeff Grabill, from the blogs Jeff's Blog, WIDE World Web
WIDE would like to give a heads up to friends and colleagues that a key project for the Center this year will be to generate and discuss issues and concerns connected to what writing programs should look like in the future. There are a number of issues driving our interest in this project, particularly the dynamics of a "knowledge economy" and what it means for writing, culture, and creativity--and especially the new economics of universities and public education. <more>
Hart-Davidson, Zachry & Spinuzzi Offer Workshop at Rhetoric Society of America Summer Institute
July 1, 2009 - by Bill Hart-Davidson, from the blogs Billblog IV, WIDE World Web
Participants in "Visualizing Patterns of Communication in Digital Workspaces" at the 2009 Rhetoric Society of America Summer Institute spent two and a half days learning to use analytic techniques developed by Spinuzzi, Zachry, and Hart-Davidson such as Genre Ecology Models and Communicative Event Models. The conference was held on the Penn State University campus in State College, PA. <more>
Kirk St. Amant Workshop & Presentation Materials
June 22, 2009 - by Bill Hart-Davidson, from the blog WIDE World Web
Last week, Kirk St. Amant of East Carolina University visited MSU and offered a workshop and a presentation. Both were very well attended events. Below, we've provided a short summary and a link to a PDF of slides from each event. <more>
Jake McCarthy's Research Featured in New STC Intercom Article
June 3, 2009 - by Bill Hart-Davidson, from the blogs Billblog IV, WIDE World Web
WIDE researcher and recent Rhetoric & Writing MA graduate Jake McCarthy's research is featured in the article "Finding Usability in Workplace Culture" published in the June 2009 edition of Intercom, a publication of the Society for Technical Communication. <more>
EFF Launches Free, Creative Commons-licensed "Teaching Copyright" Curriculum and Website
May 28, 2009 - by Martine Rife, from the blog WIDE World Web
According to an announcement from the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation), "last week, the Copyright Alliance Education Foundation (a nonprofit mouth piece for the entertainment and software industries) unveiled plans to spread its protectionist ideas to the nation's schools and libraries through the distribution of a curriculum titled 'Think First,Copy Later.'" <more>
First Few Days: WIDE's Research Trip to Israel
May 26, 2009 - by Michael McLeod, from the blogs The Samaritan Archive Blog, WIDE World Web
We are currently meeting with the Samaritan (Shomronim) community, living in both Holon, Israel and on Mount Gerizim, West Bank as part of our NEH-funded research project. We're doing interviews with members of the community about what they want to see in an online archive, and how they currently use digital technology. <more>
This week @ WIDE (Bill H-D edition)
May 22, 2009 - by Bill Hart-Davidson, from the blogs Billblog IV, WIDE World Web
One question we sometimes get around here is what it is like to run a research center. So...I thought I'd try to post weekly recaps of activity around here to create a record. I'm going to stick to the highlights, of course, and this is just my p.o.v. Maybe Jeff, Mike, Jim, Matt, Stacey, Anne, Doug, or Katie (just to name a few of my colleagues around here) will chime in as well! <more>
We Are All Digital Humanists Now
May 21, 2009 - by Jeff Grabill, from the blogs Jeff's Blog, WIDE World Web
By way of Bruce Maylath, I came across Cathy Davidson's "Humanities 2.0: Promise, Perils, Predictions" (couldn't find an online version, and so: PMLA, 2008, Volume 123, Number 3, pp. 707–717). <more>
WIDE Research Team Off to Israel & the West Bank for Samaritan Archive Project
May 20, 2009 - by Bill Hart-Davidson, from the blog The Samaritan Archive Blog
WIDE researcher Jim Ridolfo & WIDE interaction designer Mike McLeod are heading to Israel this week in conjunction with the Archive 2.0 Samaritan Scrolls project. While there, they will be doing community-driven design research with groups of cultural stakeholders in the project, members of the Israelite Samaritan community. <more>
Reinventing the (professional writing) Major
May 20, 2009 - by Jeff Grabill, from the blogs Jeff's Blog, WIDE World Web
I have been dwelling for some time with ideas for rethinking the professional writing major in response to phenomena that aren’t going away, such as the inadequacy of the university for life-long learning and the unsustainable way that public education is funded. <more>
Streams, Social Distribution, and Writing
May 18, 2009 - by Jeff Grabill, from the blogs Jeff's Blog, WIDE World Web
I have been reading John Borthwick on The Rise of Social Distribution, which I picked up via Jyri Engestrom's stream. This is an interesting read for lots of reasons. He touches on content distribution models, noting that it used to be the case that one made money by controlling distribution channels (think broadcast TV). <more>
Lee Sherlock, R&W Ph.D. student, publishes article in JBTC
May 18, 2009 - by Bill Hart-Davidson, from the blogs Billblog IV, WIDE World Web
Lee Sherlock's article entitled "Genre, Activity, and Collaborative Work and Play in World of Warcraft: Places and Problems of Open Systems in Online Gaming" is available now electronically via the JBTC pre-publication site. Check it out! <more>
Poor Grades and Facebook Use Linked? New Harvard study says "Nope"
May 8, 2009 - by Michael McLeod, from the blogs Billblog IV, WIDE World Web
A new study published in First Monday calls into question findings from an Ohio State University dissertation that showed a link between frequent Facebook use and poor grades. <more>
WIDE Researcher Martine Rife Takes on MPAA
May 7, 2009 - by Jeff Grabill, from the blogs Jeff's Blog, WIDE World Web
WIDE Researcher and Lansing Community College faculty member Martine Rife testified at the DMCA triennial rulemaking sessions before the Library of Congress. Early reports are that she has done very well in advocating for teachers and students. <more>
WIDE's multiplayer role-playing game INK mentioned in Journal of Adult Literacy
May 7, 2009 - by Bill Hart-Davidson, from the blogs Billblog IV, WIDE World Web
INK gets a mention in the March 2009 issue of the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy in an article entitled "Learning Argument Practices Through Online Role Play: Toward a Rhetoric of Significance and Transformation." <more>
Jim Ridolfo, WIDE RA & Network Admin, Defends Dissertation!
April 28, 2009 - by Bill Hart-Davidson, from the blogs The Samaritan Archive Blog, Jeff's Blog, WIDE World Web
Jim Ridolfo, WIDE RA, PI of the Samaritan Archive project successfully defended his dissertation entitled The Pigeon & the Honeycomb: Rethinking Rhetorical Delivery for the 21st Century on Friday the 24th. Please help us to congratulate the esteemed Dr. Ridolfo! And for more images, check out Stacey Pigg's photo set on Facebook. <more>