E-Learning and Publishing

[John Simkin]

I have been thinking about the possibility of combining the forum, websites and traditional publishing methods. I developed the idea from my work on the JFK Forum. We have a section called Online Seminars. Over the last few weeks we have produced 27 of these seminars. So far 80 people have participated in these threads. All contributors are told to reference their work in the same way as if they were producing an academic paper. The role of the participants is to both point out flaws in the argument of the seminar leader or to add extra information to support the case that is being made.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showforum=197

My intention is to commission another 20 or so of these seminars. When each one of these has come under the scrutiny of the whole group, I will ask the authors of the best of these seminars to submit a final paper based on what information they have received during the discussion period. I believe that this is a good example of developing collective/community intelligence via the web.

These seminars will then be produced in a form of a book. All the authors will be able to purchase copies at cost price. These can be sold at a profit via their website or at conferences, etc.

We have the talent to organize a collection of seminars on E-Learning. Would you be interested in becoming involved in such a venture?

[Graham Davies]

John writes:

These seminars will then be produced in a form of a book. All the authors will be able to purchase copies at cost price. These can be sold at a profit via their website or at conferences, etc.

Academic books, in my experience as a series editor for a major international publising house, tend not to sell very well. A typical initial print run is 500, but sales may not even achieve this figure. The last volume that I edited, entitled "ICT and language learning: a European perspective", sold around 250 copies worldwide. It was the outcome of a series of seminars that formed part of a project funded by the European Commission.

John writes:

We have the talent to organize a collection of seminars on E-Learning. Would you be interested in becoming involved in such a venture?

My New Year's resolution for 2005 is to produce no more academic papers. I intend to concentrate on keeping the ICT4LT website up to date and to produce the occasional monograph that I will publish on my own website:

http://www.ict4lt.org - does OK with an average of 600+ visits per day.

http://www.camsoftpartners.co.uk/freestuff.htm - around 40-50 visits per day.

Oh, and I also intend to reduce my golf handicap and become a better skiier - must work on my carving turns...

[Karl Donert]

We did something similar this year and we included a F2F session at a conference to get even more deeply into the discussion before submission for publication.

Think this is an excellent idea