It looks like there is a new player in the online document review field: Backboard. I read about it on the Read/Write/Web blog this morning and have been playing with it for a while. Basically, what it allows you to do is share documents with others, online, and leave written comments on those documents. Looks like a neat little tool, although I am still not sure whether it would be more useful for my purposes than, say, Google Docs or Google sites, both of which also allow users to leave written comments.

I suppose that Backboard would claim that it offers better security to enterprise users, at least if you are using a premium account which costs a few bucks a month. Oh, and I think the choice of the name for this new service is somewhat unfortunate--too close to my all-time "favorite," Blackboard.

I am an ocassional user of scribd.com, which I think is a very nifty place for uploading large documents and sharing them. About a year ago, I did a presentation on blogs and wikis for the staff of Carrier Library here at JMU. I uploaded the presentation file to scribd rather than bringing it on a jump drive or some such thing. Having almost forgotten that I had done that, I went to scribd for something else eysterday to discover that my humble presentation had been favorited by someone named Erik Jonker. Turns out Mr. Jonker is a "Policy advisor, Information Infrastructure, Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations (BZK) in the Netherlands."

Wow! Does this mean that I am influencing the Netherlands' policy on information infrastructure? Probably not, but it is still pretty cool, I think.

Update: we are six days away from the deadline and we have 35 proposals. I am addicted to counting them now and amazed at the interest this project has generated so far. Of course, most of it is due to the excellent promotion work done early on by Charlie and the members of our editorial board.

Earlier this year, my colelague and friend Charlie Lowe and I started a new project called Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing. The idea behind this to create a series of open access composition texts which readers can either download from the website (for free) or purchase, in print, from Parlor Press. We are also partnering with the WAC Celaringhouse and our respective departments in this project. All submissions will be peer reviewed and each author will get a line on his or her CV for the chapter he or she wrote.

Charlie blogged about this project when we started it.
We also posted the call for proposals in many places online. Charlie
and members of our editorial board did some very useful leg work during
CCCC in SF to promote the project.

This morning, we noticed that we already have 12
submitted proposals and we are still over 2 weeks away from the
deadline, so, I am sure, more proposals are coming soon. There is still time to submit, so, if you are interested, go to the website and submit your proposal.

Anyone who has been paying attention to the recent developments in the textbook publishing industry knows that there have been several factors that have spurred the open access movement, one of them being cost of textbooks. Case in point: yesterday, a sales rep from one of the major publishers showed me a book which I thought was very good and which I might have used in one of my composition classes. The book is just over 300 pages long. The cost? With the bookstore's mark-up, "low $60s," according to the said sales representative. Makes me think twice about asking my students to buy it.

Given the interest for the project we have seen so far and the professional caliber of people who have agreed to serve on the editorial board and to partner with us either as publishers or as sponsors, I feel very optimistic about the project. Here is hoping for more high-quality proposals.

Here is a bit of shameless self-promotion. Or, rather shameless promotion of the two classes I will be teaching online here at JMU this summer. Both will start in mid-June and run until the end of July.

It might be useful to post the cfp for the first volume of writing spaces separately, so here goes:

Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing is a new textbook series seeking proposals for essays for the composition classroom. Each volume of Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing will contain peer-reviewed collections of essays all composed by teachers for students, freely available for download under a Creative Commons license.

Volumes in Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing will offer multiple perspectives on a wide-range of topics about writing, much like the model made famous by Wendy Bishop’s The Subject Is . . . series. In each chapter, a rich variety of authors will present their unique views, insights, and strategies for writing by addressing the undergraduate reader directly. Drawing on their own experiences, these teachers-as-writers will invite students to join in the larger conversation about developing nearly every aspect of their craft. Consequently, each essay will function as a standalone text which will easily compliment other selected readings in writing or writing-intensive courses across the disciplines at any level. Thus with your submissions and the publication of subsequent volumes of essays, the Writing Spaces website will become a large library of student-centered instructional essays on writing for all across our field to use in the composition classroom.

The theme for Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, Vol. 1 will be first-year composition, and we invite authors to submit a proposal for a chapter on any topic about writing suitable for a first-year class. For example,

* College writing vs. what you did in high school
* Freewriting
* Why invention is important
* Finding a topic for your personal narrative
* Drawing on personal experience in your writing
* Understanding the rhetorical situation
* What is creativity?
* What do we mean by that term "style?"
* Developing the appropriate voice for your audience
* Getting to the draft
* What makes a good thesis and how to focus your paper
* Best practices for conducting research
* The Internet as a space for communication and research
* Effective quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing
* Re-vision as re-seeing your text
* Why proofreading is important
* Primary research: the I-search paper, ethnography, or interviewing
* Logic in argumentative writing
* Collaborative writing
* New media writing

Because each chapter in Writing Spaces is an essay, authors will want to strike a balance between instruction and creating a text that demonstrates excellent essay writing, with an appropriate and strong, engaging voice for a student audience. An essay could provide students with good writing advice and strategies. Or it might exemplify the type of essay writing that presents perspectives that stimulate critical thinking and invigorating class conversations. Any essay that incorporates outside material should also serve as a student-friendly model for demonstrating effective attribution and integration of sources.

Chapters in this collection could draw on personal experiences and include narrative writing. Student voices and examples are encouraged (student permission required), and visuals can be included in the text. Collaboratively written essays are also welcome.

Each proposal will be a 300-400 word abstract that clearly states the focus and purpose of the essay and briefly outlines the working structure of the piece. Furthermore, abstracts should indicate whether or not and how student voices and/or visuals will be included.

Proposals are due by April 10, 2009 and are to be submitted online via the Writing Spaces website as a .doc, .pdf, .rtf, or .odt file. Authors will be notified by e-mail about the status of their proposals by May 15, 2009. Final submitted chapters will be approximately 5,000 to 6,000 words. The publication of the first volume is planned for January of 2010. More information for authors and a link to our submission form is available in the authors area of our website: http://writingspaces.org/authors.

Upon publication, individual essays and a full electronic version of the first volume will be available for free download from the Writing Spaces' website. Teachers may upload these onto their course management websites or integrate them into course packs--royalty free. As they are published, print editions of each volume will be available through Parlor Press.

For more information about the Writing Spaces book series or other questions, please take a look at the materials on our website, http://writingspaces.org/, or contact the editors: editors@writingspaces.org.

Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing is published in partnership with Parlor Press and the WAC Clearinghouse.