Karen Gabrielle Johnson is an Associate Professor and Director of the Writing Studio at Shippensburg University. Ted Roggenbuck is an Associate Professor and Director of the Writing and Literacy Engagement Studio at Bloomsburg University.

WLN Blog: This new WLN resource will be very helpful. What is the progenitor of the project?

Karen: The Digital Edited Collection (DEC) developed over a two-year span in response to our call for proposals for a WLN special issue on tutor education. This project began in the spring of 2016 when I responded to an email sent by Mickey Harris through the WCenter listserv. In her email, Mickey invited colleagues to contact her if they were interested in serving as guest editors for a WLN special issue. I conversed electronically with Mickey about the logistics of serving as a guest editor for a special issue on tutor education, noting Mickey’s prediction that this topic might generate a great number of responses that could possibly result in a monograph.

Excited about a tutor education special issue and a possible follow-up project, I contacted Ted Roggenbuck to join me. Ted and I had previously collaborated on several projects, conference presentations, and joint tutor education seminars, so I was hoping he’d agree to join me on this particular project. I’m so glad he did. My natural inclination leans toward collaborative professional projects rather than solitary ventures, and Ted’s energy, fresh perspectives, and organizational skills made the work enjoyable and invigorating.

Writing Lab Newsletter co-editors, Karen and Tod

Mickey was correct; we received an overwhelming number of viable proposals for special issue articles, making the selections for one special issue incredibly difficult. We began to consider two special issues and entertained the idea of a monograph. Yet, when we began to research the possibility of publishing a WLN monograph that laid the groundwork for future monographs to follow, we encountered a number of challenges that included high printing costs and complications in disseminating the monograph. These roadblocks seemed to impede sharing of the exceptional scholarship we found in the proposals we received. But because we believed the authors had such good research, praxis, and resources to share, we felt compelled to identify alternative forms of publication. Through many conversations, informed by our belief that scholarship should be free and available to the public, we decided to pursue an open-access publication that is digitally available and could take advantage of digital affordances. After identifying how such a collection of research could be published, we contacted Richard Hay who graciously offered to support us as we worked to create an online, multimodal publication that offered numerous possibilities for engaging readers, sharing resources, and incorporating visual and audible elements on the WLN website. As we worked with authors, we collectively imagined how to transform largely text-based chapters into multimodal ones. During this process when we realized our technical skills were not sufficient to match our idealized vision for a multimodal publication, we contacted Crystal Conzo, who agreed to become the Design Editor and make our ideas become reality. Continue reading →