9. Description of Proposed Work
Please describe your proposed work in no more than 1000 words, using the following headings;
context, aims/objectives, benefits and interest for arts and humanities research community;
methods, outputs, and dissemination (where appropriate).
Context
This project is set against the growth of online research publishing and open-access publishing. It builds
on diverse initiatives in Art, Design and Communication and by the Canadian Public Knowledge Project
(PKP) (http://www.pkp.ubc.ca) which has developed open-source software that supports editing, indexing,
and publication of open-access journals and conference proceedings.
Digital publishing can support multiple media but online research publishing still emphasises text formats.
This limits “creative” disciplines where visual and time-based media are central but other disciplines could
also use richer media. For example Discourse Analysis Online and Critical Studies in Improvisation
include audio (eg Oliveros 2004) helping readers to judge research quality and making original data
available to future researchers.
Some creative disciplines, notably fine art, lack a scholarly infrastructure and there is continuing tension
between the requirements of the academy and art dissemination by exhibition or performance.
The cultural industries make few connections between academic research and professional practice. For
professionals to access research, and for practice to inform research, there would be value in a shared
dissemination network that archived professional outputs alongside scholarly work.
Finally, there is growing interest in publishing formats for open-access peer-reviewed research “journals”.
PKP’s software is a leading open source example, used for academic journals around the world. It
supports some multimedia but has not yet resulted in journals that are strongly oriented towards rich
media.
The project group has published two online journals (Discourse Analysis Online, Working Papers in Art
and Design), an online professional practice archive (Openfolio), a series of discursive texts by leading
artists with portfolios of related creative work (Transmission) and an international workshop (Rust &
Purcell 2003a) that generated an outline structure for a publishing archive (Rust and Purcell 2003b)
providing a basis for this proposal.
Aims/Objectives
Aims:
To develop and implement a web-based work-site for production of rich-media journals and other
publications or archives representing both scholarship and professional practice, building on PKP software
and working with PKP to extend current systems.
To provide tools for editors to develop and manage journals and other peer-reviewed or curated activity,
eg exhibitions or competitions.
To give editors a wide choice of operating methods (eg different levels of open review) and common
indexing and searching, while eliminating time-consuming administrative tasks (some of this functionality
is already provided by current PKP systems).
Objectives:

Identify requirements for supporting diverse publications.

Identify data structures and editing/review processes to be supported.
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Develop and evaluate a prototype database and user interface with prototype “journals”.
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Implement a working version of the software and launch three live “journals”.
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Provide good documentation
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Disseminate to relevant scholarly organisations.

Form an interest group to ensure continuing development.
Benefits and Interest
First beneficiaries will be scholars in the “creative” disciplines, who wish to develop opportunities for
dissemination.
Existing online journals will be able to move to a more supportive environment and be part of a wider
subject infrastructure.
Academic and professional communities will become more engaged through a shared infrastructure for
parallel peer-reviewed activities.
Institutions or associations that wish to develop rich-media publications within and beyond the Arts and
Humanities will gain an open-access platform.
Methods
Staffing
2 Researchers
Software Development (computer science)
Interface Design (art and design)
Academics
Dr Paul Crowther, Computing, 0.2 FTE in project
Mark Purcell, Fine Art (Interactive Media) 0.2FTE in project
The Co-Investigators will play an active role, and lead external consultation.
This will be a multi-disciplinary group with no internal boundaries, addressing design and development as
a single shared task.
John Willinsky of PKP will make two visits to the UK for consultation as well as providing support during
the work.
Other SHU academic staff will contribute:
Dr Simon Polovina, Senior Lecturer in Computing
Dr Sharon Kivland, Reader in Fine Art, Editor: Transmission
Rod Aiken, SHU libraries, on-line scholarship resources.
The steering committee will include the above plus:
Dr Michael Biggs, Hertfordshire University, Editor: Working Papers in Art and Design
Professor Jonathan Woodham, Brighton University, Design Historian
Dr Robert Young Design Research Director, Northumbria University and online professional archive
OpenFolio
The wider advisory group includes:
Professor Ken Friedman, Norwegian Business School, expert on design scholarship and practising
fine artist.
Dr Terence Love, Curtin University, Australia, Information systems design researcher and publisher
Prof Rachel Cooper, Salford University, Editor: Design Journal
Suzie Duke, Design Editor, Ashgate Publishing
Professor Sue Walker, Reading University, Head of Typography
Dr Heleen Giervelt, Delft University Press, Journal Publisher
Technical issues
PKP software employs MySQL and PHP, chosen for open-source sustainability. It uses a distributed
resource model, with software installed and modified locally, with common indexing for integration across
sites (and globally with BOAI). It has a wide community of users to sustain development. Project group
members have extensive experience of MySQL and PHP.
Development Programme
We will create a co-design environment for the wider community to participate in identifying requirements
and developing/evaluating software using low-fidelity prototyping and role-play methods developed across
a number of our research activities (eg Rust 2004a, Rust 2004b).
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Review and concepts resulting in storyboard and visual/functional prototype of key elements
Beta software development
Evaluation and testing resulting in a final version and pilot “journals”
Dissemination
Outputs
Open source software and documentation including operational guidance (principal output)
Prototype archive for art and design including a variety of scholarly activities.
Future requirements for development by ourselves or others (software will be structured to support such
developments).
Plan for fostering further activities in the Art and Design archive.
Dissemination
Project outputs will be a central aspect of dissemination. We will invite wide participation in review and
seek scholars to develop activities on the art and design archive/s.
Project will conclude with demonstration/symposium exploring implications of the work, and
demonstrations/workshops at international conferences and professional events, similar to previous
international workshop (Rust & Purcell 2003).
Participants will also develop papers for relevant conferences or journals concerned with Art and Design,
Communication, Computing and open-access publishing.
Oliveros,P.(2004) "Tripping On Wires" Critical Studies in Improvisation, 1.1
http://repository.lib.uoguelph.ca/ojs/rst/viewarticle.php?id=16
Total number of words
997