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Papers by Richard Cunningham

New Knowledge Environments, Oct 20, 2009

Digital humanities' technology has mainly focused its development on scholarly text digitali... more Digital humanities' technology has mainly focused its development on scholarly text digitalization and text analysis. It is only recently that attention has been payed to the activity of reading in a computerized environment. Some main causes of this have been the advent of the Ebook but more importantly the massive enterprise of text digitalization.(Gallica, Google Books, World Wide library, etc.)

Abstr act. While library- and science-centered projects typically draw on teams of content expert... more Abstr act. While library- and science-centered projects typically draw on teams of content experts, archivists, developers, programmers, managers, and others, many emerging academically-oriented e-book projects also draw on disciplinary expertise from areas that do not typically work in team environments. To be effective, these teams must find processes – some of which are counter to their natural individually-oriented work habits – that support the larger goals and group-oriented work of the e-book projects. This paper will explore the prevalence and nature of research teams undertaking similar types of digital projects. Drawing upon interview and survey data, it aims to identify the methods and patterns of interaction used by collaborating digital projects teams and provide recommendations to support effective and efficient teams, particular those undertaking e-book projects. Conclusions are focused on supporting strong team processes with recommendations for documentation, commun...

Digital Studies/Le champ numérique, 2017

In this introduction, we provide context for a collection of essays that asks the question of whe... more In this introduction, we provide context for a collection of essays that asks the question of where textual studies are going in an age of powerful and easy access to digitized documents and text. In a brief survey of historical, technological, and methodological developments that have led to this moment, we discuss the intersections of textual studies with editing, book history, and the history and phenomenology of reading, as well as, increasingly, information studies and interface design, and the role the digital humanities have played in facilitating these intersections. We conclude with a brief summary of the chapters contained in the volume. Dans cette introduction, nous placons dans son contexte un recueil d’essais qui posent la question suivante: Quelle direction prennent les etudes textuelles a une epoque ou l’acces a des documents et des textes numerises est puissant et facile. Dans le cadre d’une courte enquete des progres historiques, technologiques et methodologiques qui ont donne lieu a ce moment, nous discutons des intersections entre les etudes textuelles et l’edition, l’histoire du livre, et l’histoire et la phenomenologie de la lecture ainsi que, de plus en plus, les etudes informatiques et la conception d’interface, et le role que les sciences humaines numeriques ont joue pour faciliter ces intersections. Nous concluons avec un bref sommaire des chapitres contenus dans le volume.

Digital Studies/Le champ numérique, 2009

We are experiencing a paradigm shift in the way information is generated, disseminated, received,... more We are experiencing a paradigm shift in the way information is generated, disseminated, received, and preserved. For all our efforts since the rise of the Internet, we are still working to determine how best to design digital documents, and the systems that support them, that are functional and versatile in ways that enhance both the user experience and research possibilities. Although there have been many advances in digital textuality-the facilitation of hypertextual interrelation, the inclusion of multimedia content, the strategies that mimic the look and function of print, and the large database integration into research and reading environments-we recognize that the immediate need to design new knowledge environments that can expand the complexity of modes afforded by the digital text while attempting to meet the function and familiarity offered by print. The root of this research problem was addressed initially by consultations held with funding from the SSHRC Strategic Research Cluster Developmental Grant program. Under the title "Implementing the New Knowledge Machine: Human Computer Interaction and the Electronic Book," these consultations drew together researchers and representative stake-holding research partners comprising interdisciplinary expertise from over ninety fields and sub-fields ranging from philosophy and cultural studies to visual communication design and robotics. As a result of these consultations, researchers concluded the mains reasons for the limitations currently found in electronic books and documents is the fact that they are still predominantly modeled on print-based textual forms. Research and development of such digital materials has chiefly focused on mimicking the look and feel of print-an approach founded on critical and textual models imported from print without understanding them fully. Hence, such work fails to capitalize fully on the technical possibilities of computational simulation. It also fails to take full advantage of computational possibilities for the use of text in dynamic reading environments where the reader is capable of controlling and modifying the format and content of the text as part of standard interaction with it (following McGann, 2001). In order to achieve all the benefits of computation in these digital artifacts, our work suggested that research in this area must begin with a re-conception of core critical and textual models from the following perspectives: [1] the evolution of reading and writing technologies from antiquity to the present; [2] the mechanics and pragmatics associated with written forms of knowledge; [3] strategies of reading and organization within those forms; and [4] the computational possibilities latent in written forms and manifest in emerging technology. Drawing on this foundation, our research group works towards an understanding of how best to combine the traditional strengths of print with the flexibility of integrated digital reading environments in order to take full advantage of the technical possibilities of the electronic medium. We seek to: Our interdisciplinary research team will meet these objectives by using methodologies drawn from all disciplines represented, involving innovative research training and dissemination, and culminating in the release of prototypical digital reading interfaces and environments directly and through our partners. document the features of previous textual forms as the context for implementing new knowledge environments; ✱ advance our understanding of how reading texts and using information is affected by digital, multimedia delivery; ✱ conceptualize new knowledge environments, and develop tools to produce accessible, flexible information architecture; to extend user control and/or affordances; ✱ to implement new visual metaphors and integrate social networking functionality; ✱ to create dynamic interface prototypes for new knowledge environments. ✱

Scholarly and Research Communication, 2012

This article considers the role of textual studies in a digital world and reviews the work of a p... more This article considers the role of textual studies in a digital world and reviews the work of a particular group of digital textual scholars. Specifically, the article examines the work of the Textual Studies team at the Implementing New Knowledge Environments project (INKE.ca), a group of digital textual scholars working on user experience, interface design, and information management with the goal of better understanding how reading is changing in the context of digital media. INKE’s work rethinks what the book can become and aims to generate prototypes to be shared on an open-source basis with the public.

Mémoires du livre, 2009

Codex ultor: Vers des fondations conceptuelles et théoriques pour de nouvelles recherches sur les... more Codex ultor: Vers des fondations conceptuelles et théoriques pour de nouvelles recherches sur les livres et les environnements documentaires. Mémoires du livre/Studies in Book Culture, 1(1).

Scholarly and Research Communication, 2012

This document reflects the distributed administrative structure to be put into practice by the Im... more This document reflects the distributed administrative structure to be put into practice by the Implementing New Knowledge Environments (INKE) group for the purpose of governing itself as it carries out work on its Major Collaborative Research Initiative (MCRI)-funded initiative. The INKE group consists of academic researchers, academic research partners (many invested as stakeholders as well), an international advisory board, a partners committee, individual research area groups (RAG) each with their own (co)leads who act as administrators for the group and form the overall RAG administrative group committee, and an executive committee (EC) that represents all areas of activity in the research endeavour and also includes an administrative/ management advisor (who carries out work and provides leadership on process, not research content) and a project manager. Taken as a whole, the structure of the group is an embodiment of the distributed administrative and authoritative principles ...

Scholarly and Research Communication, 2012

In this 2009 article, we present details of the first year work of the INKE (Implementing New Kno... more In this 2009 article, we present details of the first year work of the INKE (Implementing New Knowledge Environments) research group, a large international, interdisciplinary research team studying reading and texts, both digital and printed. The INKE team is comprised of researchers and stakeholders at the forefronts of fields relating to textual studies, user experience, interface design, and information management. We aim to contribute to the development of new digital information and knowledge environments that build on past textual practices. We discuss our research questions, methods, aims and research objectives, the rationale behind our work and its expected significance—specifically as it pertains to our first year goals of laying a research foundation for this endeavour.

“dis-Covering the Early Modern Book” is a description of an experiment conducted during a single ... more “dis-Covering the Early Modern Book” is a description of an experiment conducted during a single day spent in the Electronic Textual Cultures Lab at the University of Victoria. The purpose of the experiment was primarily to find out what kind of digital artefact could be generated from an early modern book. Secondarily, we wanted to contemplate potential use for such an artefact, which subsequently was clearly established to be teaching bibliography, or book or print culture.

Philosophy and Rhetoric, 2001

ABSTRACT Philosophy and Rhetoric 34.3 (2001) 207-224 How did the self-described new natural philo... more ABSTRACT Philosophy and Rhetoric 34.3 (2001) 207-224 How did the self-described new natural philosophies of the early modern period displace other philosophic (moral, ethical, legal), and specifically religious, discourses as the locus of truth in our culture? Natural philosophy's rejection of disputation and of revelation as means of producing truth in favor of the "discovery" of truth was more accurately an introduction of the invention of truth than of its discovery, and this invention demanded the creation of and participation of a certain kind of reader. Rhetorical examination of the early modern magnetic philosopher William Gilbert's most influential work, De Magnete, will help us understand the "paradigm change," to use Thomas Kuhn's oft-misquoted term, from a culture that accepted probabilistic truth in the natural realm to one that expected moral certainty, from a culture that accepted revelation as a legitimate means of access to truth to one that increasingly recognized only the "discovery" of truth through sensual experience disciplined through experiment. One way this paradigm change was effected was through the inclusion of the reader as an active participant in the new natural philosophies. The reader was included in the new natural philosophies by engendering in him desires for particular forms of knowledge and particular ways of attaining that knowledge. Peter Dear notes that "in the seventeenth century old practices changed and new ones appeared. Those changing practices represent shifts in the meaning of experience itself" (12-13), and he then asks the question that might well have been on the tongues of many as the old practices gave way to the new: "how can a universal knowledge-claim about the natural world be justified on the basis of singular items of individual experience?" (13). A crucially important way to justify the universal knowledge-claim on singular items of individual experience was through the employment of a technique Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer have labeled "virtual witnessing" (60-65). Briefly, "virtual witnessing" describes the use of linguistic resources to produce a vicarious experience enabling a reader to confer agreement as though she had actually been present when an experiment was conducted. Virtual witnessing alone, however, cannot explain how the scientific became the dominant truth-producing paradigm in our culture. Virtual witnessing intermingled with a variety of other elements in early modern natural philosophy to encourage readers to participate in the invention of "true" accounts of the world in which we live. In this article I will apply the tools of rhetorical analysis as I use the example of De Magnete to elaborate on how a Foucauldian form of disciplinary impulse combined in the early modern period with the technology of virtual witnessing to create an audience inculcated with desire, interest, and belief in the new natural philosophy, which had to precede and accompany expansion of the scientific into the dominant truth-producing paradigm it has long since become. For the sake of clarity I should expound upon the two key elements of my argument, "discipline," in the Foucauldian sense in which I use the term, and "virtual witnessing." According to Michel Foucault, "discipline" is "a political anatomy of detail . . . situated on the axis that links the singular and the multiple" (139-49), and I argue that this point, on the "axis that links the singular and the multiple," is exactly the point that enables modern science. William Gilbert's De Magnete can help us understand how knowledge and power -- or epistemê and technê, to use another, perhaps more rhetorically inflected, vocabulary -- combined in the early modern period to produce the effects that would become those of modern science. Gilbert provides an excellent example of the movement from the production of truth through revelation to the production of truth through discovery and the experimental method. De Magnete persuades its reader by rendering visible a formerly invisible "universal nature," so that truth is no longer warranted by the invisible workings of God but by visible causes in nature. Foucault's concept of discipline enables us to address the question of how Gilbert, and by extension early modern "science" generally, made this move, made visible the previously invisible, thereby making truth more a product of the...

Digital Studies/Le champ numérique, 2009

... these images was done by Janice Hudson while she was an undergraduate in Acadia's De... more ... these images was done by Janice Hudson while she was an undergraduate in Acadia's Department of English, and by Katie Marshall, a ... y reglas exemplificado con muy subtiles demonstraciones, was first printed in 1551, and again in 1556; both printings were issued in ...

Authors: Siemens, Ray, with Teresa Dobson, Stan Ruecker, Richard Cunningham, Alan Galey, Claire W... more Authors: Siemens, Ray, with Teresa Dobson, Stan Ruecker, Richard Cunningham, Alan Galey, Claire Warwick, and Lynne Siemens, with Michael Best, Melanie Chernyk, Wendy Duff, Julia Flanders, David Gants, Bertrand Gervais, Karon MacLean, Steve Ramsay, Geoffrey Rockwell, Susan Schreibman, Colin Swindells, Christian Vandendorpe, Lynn Copeland, John Willinsky, Vika Zafrin, the HCI-Book Consultative Group and the INKE Research Group

With Humanities Computing and New Media identified as emerging fields of significant strength, it... more With Humanities Computing and New Media identified as emerging fields of significant strength, it is time for well-funded and fully supported programs in Digital Humanities to be described, developed, and implemented in the university. This article is a description of an attempt to build such a program from the ground up, rather than from the top down. That is, the authors and others created a series of courses, both multidisciplinary and disciplinary, a database, and a core course designed to make digital humanities a reality, even without having it certified as a program by the governing bodies of their faculty and university. In this article, the database and core course are described in some detail in order to offer what the authors believe to be worthwhile ideas to others who would advance the cause of digital humanities. The article concludes with some concrete suggestions on how to ensure support, to make faculty participation possible, to measure success, and to motivate stu...

Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada. Cahiers de la Société bibliographique du Canada. Bibliographical Society of Canada

In this paper, we present the first year work of the INKE (Implementing New Knowledge Environment... more In this paper, we present the first year work of the INKE (Implementing New Knowledge Environments) research group, a large international, interdisciplinary research team studying reading and texts, both digital and printed. The INKE team is comprised of researchers and stakeholders at the forefronts of fields relating to textual studies, user experience, interface design, and information management. We aim to contribute to the development of new digital information and knowledge environments that build on past textual practices. We discuss our research questions, methods, aims and research objectives, the rationale behind our work and its expected significance -specifically as it pertains to our first year goals of laying a research foundation for this endeavour. We thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) for funding a research cluster grant, which has made our research network possible, and the generous co-sponsorship of our institutions and research partners.

Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 2009

Digital project teams are by definition comprised of people with various skills, disciplines and ... more Digital project teams are by definition comprised of people with various skills, disciplines and content knowledge. Collaboration within these teams is undertaken by librarians, academics, undergraduate and graduate students, research assistants, computer programmers and developers, content experts, and other individuals. While this diversity of people, skills and perspectives creates benefits for the teams, at the same time, it creates a series of challenges which must be minimized to ensure project success. Drawing upon interview and survey data, this paper explores the benefits, advantages, and challenges associated with these types of project teams. It will conclude with a series of recommendations focused on harnessing the advantages while minimizing the challenges.

Textual Cultures, 2012

ABSTRACT Why should designers of digital reading environments study the history of the book? What... more ABSTRACT Why should designers of digital reading environments study the history of the book? What can the continuities and discontinuities — the successes and failures — of new developments in the book's long history teach us about its possible futures? Questions such as these often go unasked in commercial e-book design and other domains that emphasize technical innovation as their only criterion for evaluating the past. However, new reading environments challenge us to understand the role of material forms in meaning-making, and to situate e-books and digital reading devices within the changing history of books and reading. This article explores that rationale as embodied by the Architectures of the Book (ArchBook) project, an online, open-access, and peer-reviewed collection of richly illustrated essays about specific design features in the history of the book.