4.0 Defence for an alt-diss format
4.0. Defence for an alt-diss format
“What is the reading of a text, in fact, except the recording of certain thematic recurrences, certain inconsistencies of forms and meanings?” (Calvino, 1979)
To honour the topic of media and digital literacies, while authentically sharing and revealing the MDL and OEPr under investigation, the results of my research will be presented in an openly accessible, alternative, digital format, while using and applying a variety of media and digital strategies and techniques. This “open-ended, problematic, critical, polyphonic” text (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005, p. 1124) will bend and circumvent the boundaries imposed by traditional alpha/numeric dissertation representations. This reflects the non-linear, hyper-textually linked, dialogic, conceptually and topically interconnected and networked nature of my subject matter, and the nature of this qualitative research.
Idhe and Malafouris (2019) posit the notion of Homo faber, suggesting that humanity is evolutionarily constituted and shaped by the technologies we use. New materialities and digital ecospheres encompass all aspects of living and learning (J. Pahl et al., 2020; Sameshima et al., 2019). We are thus constructed by the tools that we’ve constructed and by which we engage in relationships and construct our learning (Ihde & Malafouris, 2019). This echoes McLuhan’s position that the medium is the message (McLuhan, 1964). This dissertation process and product will “look beyond the obvious and seek the non-obvious changes or effects that are enabled, enhanced, accelerated or extended by the new thing” (Federman, 2004) and will ”suit the style as much as possible to the matter” (McLuhan & McLuhan, 1992, p. xi). In this way, my research and the resulting dissertation will critically analyze the privilege of representation, voice, and academy.
Deciding to shift my research process and product into a fully interactive and digital environment fits with the ontological and epistemological frameworks within which I study. Pockley, the creator of the first electronic dissertation in 1995, describes texts as “mutable streams of thought, open to annotation, revision, re-presentation and part of the very fabric of their community of interest” (Jacobs, 2008, p. 245). By preparing and presenting my research and dissertation in an alternative dissertation (Alt-Diss) format, I contribute to the breaking open of “calcified conventions” sustaining the linear privilege of print text (Covey, 2013) that is traditionally found in electronic dissertation and theses formats relying on static PDF documents. With my experiences in producing and sharing media texts, I recognize the “cultural agoraphobia, the cognitive bias that leads us to underestimate the potential of openness” and will push open the structure, media, notions of authorship, and methods of assessment in the process and products of my research and dissertation (Covey, 2013, p. 550).
As evidenced in my comprehensive portfolio, I will design paths through the research information, but the reader of the dissertation will control the serendipitous navigation through the content. Reader control in determining the research reading experience, through strategic use of hyperlinks, embedded media, graphic organizers, taxonomic features, and visualization options and affordances in the Scalar software, will reflect the media filled, rich, thick descriptions, and the open nature of this dissertation. For ease of access, the references will be included as a full curated reference list but also as an indexed, alphabetic offering. Software such as Scalar will be utilized to present the research results within a fluid, editable, elastic format that is “open to annotation and responsive to change” (Jacobs, 2008, p. 237). Previously published Scalar dissertations, modelling the use of Scalar (Dixon, 2014), provide the opportunity to explore, experience and understand the digital mechanisms available in this form of digital publication.
Since my research and dissertation is not without its political dimensions, and to meet institutional requirements for a ‘frozen in time’ document as a representation of my research capabilities (Barrett, 2014; Jacobs, 2008), a hyper-textually linked, linear PDF version will also be produced. Dissemination of research results will be pursued through traditional, peer reviewed Canadian and international journals, (e.g. the Canadian Journal of Education, Open Praxis), conference presentations, (e.g. OTESSA, OER21, OEGlobal) and through open social media and web publications (blog posts, FoE newsletters). In this way, I heed Denzin’s (2017) call to “unsettle traditional concepts of what counts as research, as evidence, as legitimate inquiry” (p. 8) reflecting postmodernist compositions such as Italo Calvino’s novel A Winter’s Night A Traveler (Calvino, 1979).
