Managing a Medium Sized Project on the Internet: The Editing of "Computer-mediated Communication and the Online Classroom"

Paper presented at the February 1995 Association for Educational Communication and Technology Conference, Anaheim, CA

In the spring of 1992 a debate was raging on IPCT-L, sparked by one contributor who asked how access to, the use of, and the expenses associated with, computer-mediated communication in and out of the classroom could be justified in the budgetary process. As the contributor pointed out, CMC consumes computing time and resources; connection to regional and national networks is expensive, and, in these days of budget constraints and restraints, it is becoming increasingly necessary to justify such expenses.

Our discussion centered on the value to students, staff, and faculty of open access to the Internet from educational institutions. The Internet is an open communication channel that allows for free and open expressions in ways that are sometimes vulgar and profane and, at first glance, may not appear to contribute anything to the academic process. The contributor pointed out that this kind of iscourse was not something that could be pointed to during the budgetary process as adequate reason to continue to pay the connection and usage charges that allow faculty and students free access to both internal and external computing resources.

Many members of the list responded to this challenge, and pointed to benefits they had realized, including

1. classroom accomplishment for their students;
2. personal and scholarly growth;
3. the increased range of their scholarship attributed to their free access to many and diverse resources including local, national and international libraries and databases;
4. the colleagues they had ~met~ via CMC and subsequently collaborated with;
5. the mentoring relationships they had benefited from, with senior scholars they might otherwise never have met,
6. the friendships and collaborations they had formed on a global scale;

Another contributor, Dr. Gerald Phillips, Emeritus Professor of Speech Communication at the Pennsylvania State University, suggested that, while administrators might be unable or reluctant to follow our networked discussion, they do understand documentation and that list members should get together and write a grant to research the scholarly uses of electronic mail with Berge and Collins (the IPCT-L moderators) as leaders in this effort. He also mentioned in the same message that a book might even emerge from this effort.

After some extended discussion, we (Berge, Collins and Phillips), decided that, while a research project might be beyond our scope, a book on computer-mediated communication would be feasible. Very early on, we settled on Computer-Mediated Communication and the Online Classroom as the title and determined that the desired content was to be examples and models of the uses of CMC in teaching and learning, written in such a way as to provide exemplars for those who are searching for ways to integrate CMC into their own classrooms and to justify continued support of network access to administrators. We contacted Hampton Press with our idea and they expressed sufficient interest to ask us to submit a book proposal.

A call for chapters, distributed only through IPCT-L and a number of other electronic discussion group lists, brought us 93 chapter proposals via electronic-mail. These were forwarded, again via electronic mail, for blind review, and then reviewed once more by our editorial board at their first face-to-face meeting in June, 1992. Thirty-five of these proposals were finally accepted (with three subsequently dropping out) and acceptances emailed.

To ease the distribution of common materials (e.g. the table of contents, instructions to authors, etc.), we set up a private LISTSERV discussion group and subscribed all the authors and co-authors, the editors, and the editorial board. This allowed rapid dissemination of information and gave the authors and the editors a forum for discussion, suggestions and questions. However, chapters were not posted for general critique to the list, although some authors did share drafts with one another. Only the two chapters considered critical to the content of all the rest were posted. These were Santoro's introductory chapter on computer-mediated communication and Sudweeks, Collins and December's chapter on internetworking resources. They were posted so that the other authors could reference them, instead of re-explaining (for example) some of the basic internet file retrieval tools

The initial "Instructions to Authors" detailed a time line for drafts and revisions, with all drafts being sent and returned via electronic mail. Through all subsequent revisions, the drafts were edited online using an evolving set of "copy-editing symbols" and returned to the authors. It was not until the final revisions had been accepted that the authors sent in hardcopy and disks.

It became evident that the book, as originally planned, would run in excess of 700 pages. After some discussions and a look at the "natural breaks" in the subject areas, we proposed to the publisher that there were actually three books here, not one. After some deliberation, the one book became three with the series title: CMC and the online Classroom. The three volumes are "CMC and the online Classroom: Overview and Perspectives", "CMC and the online Classroom in Higher Education", and "CMC and the online Classroom in Distance Learning".

Towards the end of the process, we asked the authors if they had been involved in any similar publishing efforts, where all text, up to the final hard copy, was handled via electronic mail, and what their reactions were to the process. Reactions were mixed. Some of those who replied were evidently pleased with the system we had developed, the access the LISTSERV provided to the other authors, and the speed at which their queries were responded to. One chapter was written by authors residing in Australia, Singapore and the US, who collaborated using electronic mail, and the Sudweeks chapter made the round trip from the eastern US to Sydney, Australia no less than 6 times on one particular day. Several authors remarked on how different and harsh it felt to see the editor's comments, in capitals, on the screen, even though they were used to editorial commentary on paper.

The most consistent request for a change in process was for a more comprehensive table of contents be made available, and for chapters be made available online for general discussion. We decided not to do this because, with the number of authors involved, we felt it would be very time-consuming for all concerned. Many of the authors commented that the amount and speed of information and feedback flow helped them significantly in drafting their chapters; they could ask questions and get help from the editors or other authors in a most timely manner.

Among the editors, publisher, authors, or potential authors, there were over 1200 email messages posted to the discussion list, exchanges of drafts, or postings in relation to this set of books in the first year of the project, (with hundreds more since then). This figure excludes the information exchanged privately among authors and some "broadcast" announcements to the fifty-plus authors, editors and publisher. Without question, that amount of information and feedback could not have been exchanged via traditional mail in that time frame. One author noted that our process allowed us to exchange a quantity of information that otherwise would have been too time-consuming, using other communication channels. He continued by saying that he did not take as much advantage of the potential as he might have and concluded that we have come a long way down the line in bringing the editing process online, "but it seems to me. . . that there's a long road out there yet." We agree.

The book materials were all submitted within the deadlines specified in the original contract, however, the pace slowed considerably when they entered the traditional publishing process. This caused the authors and the editors considerable consternation. The editors had encouraged the authors to keep their chapters at a general level, not tied to a particular computer program, or platform, as both change and upgrade frequently. We did feature several "Resources" chapters and this information tends to be volatile and the location of such resources is subject to change.

When we were told that the books were finally on their way back from the printer, Berge started his marketing efforts. After some discussion with the publisher, he received permission to make electronic copies of the introductions to each book available as downloadable files from the Georgetown listserver. Included in those files was the ordering information for the books. We did it this way as we are cautious about using university resources for commercial purposes. The announcement was posted to several discussion groups, including IPCT-L, and chosen with an eye to their sales potential. This created very little comment to us(from all bar one list, hose members were vociferous in their protests). However, the resulting flurry of orders had our publisher referring to her office as ãZanelandä for several weeks. The first "bookstore" order was received from a colleague in New Mexico who has chosen to use the books as texts or a Spring course she is teaching.

This set of volumes is perhaps the first to be electronically coordinated and edited online from start to finish. The concept was suggested, conceptualized, announced, accepted, drafted, edited, redrafted several times, made ready for delivery to the publisher, and subsequently marketed, all online. . Was all the work worth it? It certainly was from the perspective of the authors and editors. In the final analysis, however, how well we have traveled this road is to be answered by our readers.

Dr. Gerald Phillips, Emeritus Professor of Speech Communication, Penn State University and Trade books editor for Hampton Press (now deceased) deserves a great deal of the credit (and none of the blame) for this book. He instigated the initial discussions on IPCT-L, suggested the book, put the editors' names together in the same sentence for the first time, and provided us with invaluable encouragement, guidance and advice. Gerry Santoro has been an inexhaustible source of technical information, and Brad Erlwein assisted in the original review and selection of the manuscripts. Mark Evangelista has patiently helped us set up and keep the LISTSERV lists functioning and both the Academic Computer Center at Georgetown University and the Center for Academic Computing at Penn State University have been generous with their computer resources. Michael J. Day served as our "editors' editor" and we thank him for his stylistic and substantive revisions to this Preface and to the Introductions to each of the books.

Above and beyond all, we thank Nancy Biggs Berge for her patience, tolerance, and hospitality, and for living with the incredible time demands involved in our editing three books in two years (to say nothing of five issues of the IPCT Journal, four conference presentations, two book chapters and seven articles). We to all our children: Jenna and Mark Berge, Doug Collins, Kim and Mike Snyder, Sarah Waghorn, Paul Simon Waghorn, Krys and Cyrus Hosmer, and Jay, Ben, Norah, and Joshua.

February 1995