Changing our editorial processes

Early in this CoverWeb's development, we found that we could not rely solely on our traditional review process -- albeit an author-centered and creative one inherent to Kairos. We not only needed to expand our peer review process to incorporate broader knowledge of new media, but also had to consider innovative review genres that we had not originally anticipated. Kairos has made its reviewing process explicit in its Guide for Prospective Authors. But, for CoverWeb 8.1, we made several changes to that process, including inviting outside reviewers to join the process. Because new media scholarship is so new to the field of humanities -- until this issue, there has been only one or two new media texts published in any scholarly online journal -- we invited six outside scholars who specialize in new media texts to participate in the reviewing process for this issue.

For their generous help in reviewing submissions, we would like to thank our outside reviewers: Ingrid Ankerson, N. Katherine Hayles, Jennifer Ley, Talan Memmott, Megan Sapnar, and Thom Swiss. Their thoughtful consideration of the new media submissions enabled us to communicate with composers more authoritatively and to provide more helpful suggestions for presenting already fine ideas. We sincerely appreciate these reviewers' help in developing this CoverWeb.

A second issue we noticed with this CoverWeb, is that new media texts, by their nature, are not blind when submitted for at least two reasons. As web pages or Flash-based texts or digital videos, (a) they reside on the home institution servers of the authors for such reasons as the cost of server space for both authors and Kairos, and (b) in some cases, it would be nearly impossible to delete all references to the author without destroying the structure or argument of the text. For instance, over half of the new media texts appearing in this issue feature videos of the authors. Without blind reviews, we run the risk of undercutting the value of new media scholarship as judged by contemporary traditional scholarship. However, until we, as a community of journal editors and readers, can figure out how to overcome this issue or decide that it isn't an issue at all, we have to rely on our editorial reviewers to give justice to the texts. In some ways, incorporating outside guest reviewers with vested (and publicly acknowledged) interest in new media as an advancing form of scholarship helps us accomplish what other journals do through blind reviews. Their allegiance is not to Kairos or to the authors, but rather, their interest is in new media itself. These outside reviewers, leaders in the field's inquiry into new media, help us extend our audience and expand our notion of new media scholarship, by adding the rigor of experientially like-minded peer reviewers. Doing so benefits Kairos and other online journals by extending our audience with active scholars who can expand our notions of new media texts.

Our Kairos Editorial Board reviewers went far beyond our expectations in developing and presenting their reviews. They were incredibly savvy in their interpretation and understanding of new media texts, providing ideas that only come from genuine collaboration. But, they also made us work harder. For instance, when we typically send a text out for review, we expect to get a letter or short essay back from the reviewers generally stating the benefits of the text, where it might need to be revised and in what manner, and whether it should be accepted for publication. For this issue, however, our editorial notion of the review was dramatically altered when we received a review for Dan Anderson's text about digital video in the form of a digital video. Where we would normally cite from the reviews to form a cohesive declaration of acceptance and preparatory requirements to send to the author, in the case of Dan's submission, we decided it was appropriate to provide him with the full multimodal review of his new media text. The reviewer, Joel English, graciously gave us permission to use his piece in this issue so that we might show readers what the future of scholarly publications and their reviews might look like. This was only one of many encounters with authors and reviewers that made us question our notions of scholarship in relation to the genres of texts we read.

CoverWeb home | text introductions | history/reasonings
definitions of new media | paying attention to new media
changing editorial processes | works cited