The Digital Remains

The Digital Remains Sarah Lowengard (bio) It was perhaps eight years ago, and within a week of the new semester opening. As I recall, the head of the school where I taught sent a memo to all teaching faculty asking—demanding, really—that we create a website to accompany each course we taught. These websites, the memo continued, should be in operation by mid-term. The response varied. One group of faculty members insisted they could never permit use of the internet in their classroom. A few immediately squeezed into their own schedule the over-subscribed introductory course that explained the basics of creating a website. Several others ignored the request as redundant (they already had an internet component in place), as exploitative (the increased workload came with no increase in compensation), or because they didn’t read the memo. At the end of the semester, this department had the same number of “course websites” as it had before the memo was distributed. Readers with at least one foot in academia may recall similar episodes at their own institution. The conflicts raised by differing perceptions of “digital scholarship,” “the internet,” or “cyberspace,” and differing perceptions of its value, are by no means confined to classroom teaching, to the university, or to education, however. I’ve observed similar anxious requests and equally anxious responses at nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations, professional societies, homeowners’ associations—all institutions that serve a constituency and are concerned with serving it well. We (or our administrations) know the internet is a useful addition to our scholarly lives. But how, exactly? What must we learn to do, or to accept? [End Page 1031] What place should the internet hold in professional activities or scholarly endeavors? In answering these questions, it is helpful to remember that the internet is, in essence, a communication tool. It can bring information to a great number and range of people more quickly and at less expense than surface mail or conference attendance. It is also helpful to remember that the essence of scholarly activities is communication. It’s not enough to generate new ideas or conclusions; telling others and learning their opinions are critical aspects of participation in the academy. The adoption of the internet by scholarly communities has changed the paths of scholarly communication, argues Christine Borgman in her new book Scholarship in the Digital Age, and in so doing has transformed those communities.1 An aspect of that transformation is a redefinition of data—what it is, how it is used, who owns it and what that ownership means—that challenges the foundations of the academy. Scholarly communication, much like building a website, involves a series of interconnected activities and considerations, some public, others private. Borgman’s assertion is based in the particular ways that interactive (internet-dependent) digital formats have altered scholarly digital communications. They offer new presentation tools and new techniques to communicate with colleagues. Discussions and distribution of information and resources are simultaneously broader and more personalized. The revised formats accommodate and encourage greater collaboration. These changes have brought good and less-good results, as the proliferation of information has altered attitudes toward content and presentation. Internet access eases the exchange of information within and beyond single disciplines; this democratization of information is a notable feature of digital scholarship. Some common internet or cyberspace protocols disrupt assumptions that academic or scholarly work is published exclusively by academic or scholarly publishers. The ease of distributing unprocessed data along with explanatory charts, graphs, and conclusions means that information can be studied in different ways by practitioners of different disciplines. As a result, the use of the internet as a tool for scholarly communication raises new questions about controls and gateways. The same questions arise when examining the internet-wrought changes to peer review and to concepts of ownership, particularly as each relates to the goal of open access. In scientific disciplines where acknowledged priority ensures future funding or advancement, openness and the interactive nature of the internet are as much threat as promise. Openness and interactivity have widened the gateway into the humanities, suggesting that scholars in [End Page 1032] those disciplines need to conduct more critical assessments of internetaccessible

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