1. Future Reading: The Liquid Course Reader Dr Joanna Zylinska Reader in New Media and Communications Goldsmiths, University of London

3. Aims: (1)Enhancing learning experience by involving students in the design of both form and content of study materials (2) Designing a viable, sustainable and student-centred alternative to a traditional photocopiable course reading pack (3) Making use of students’ expertise in, and everyday experience of, the practical use of art/design and media in devising the liquid readers (4) Providing an open-access study tool which will be available to both Goldsmiths students and to students and tutors in other geographical locations, thus facilitating the sharing of both knowledge and pedagogic practice.

4. Specific objectives: (1) Devising 3 ‘liquid readers’ – one in each of the three disciplines in art, design and media – as pilots for implementing this method throughout the three departments and disciplines, with a view to replacing the static photocopiable course reading packs currently in use (2) Familiarising students with the current disciplinary scholarship, while also promoting both critical and life skills (agglomeration, prioritisation, decision making, negotiation, participation, collaboration) (3) Liaising with the Open Humanities Press to make the readers available via open access to the art, design and media community internationally.

5. MA Digital Media pilot (Dr Joanna Zylinska, Media & Comms) The first part of the project ran on a core course, ‘Technology and Cultural Form’, on the MA Digital Media. The ‘liquid reader’ provided a practical case study of a medium. Using the free educational wiki platform, PBworks, a ‘skeletal’ course reader was initially devised online. It was then opened to customisation by students, who became involved in editing the content. They were also encouraged to experiment with the idea of ‘the reader’, through activities such as collaboratively writing a wiki- style essay and putting together an online gallery of their photos. The liquid reader, published under the auspices of the Open Humanities Press’ Liquid Books series, is now available open- access.

9. http://liquidreading.blogspot.com/

10. Liquid Books http://liquidbooks.pbworks.com/ http://liquidbooks.pbworks.com/

11. Dr Jennifer Gabrys, Design www.designandenvironment.co.uk www.designandenvironment.co.uk The course, ‘Design and Environment’, was a ten-week MA-level studio and seminar course, with a brief set for students to ‘design a political scene’. The ‘liquid reader’ was been set up as a collaborative blog. All students were required to submit 3-5 project-related case studies in the form of images, text and pdf readings. They used the blog as a discussion forum, a space for posting events, and a resource for collecting research material. The readings were posted as pdfs on this blog under a password- protected setting. The blog will continue to be used beyond the duration of the ‘liquid reader’ pilot project.

15. Dr Edgar Schmitz, Art The third part of the project was run with a level 2 Critical Studies seminar on the BA Art Practice degree. The group consists of 22 studio practice-based students. The seminar, under the title of 'Post-Criticalities', discussed contemporary forms of criticality in artistic practice and broader cultural production. The Liquid Reader pilot was used as a way of building up an expanded archive around discussions in class as well as students' respective research interests by using an open Dropbox folder. Overall, the project tried to gauge to what extent students would engage with this opportunity, what kind of contributions it allowed for, and how a deliberately flat and non- hierarchical format such as Dropbox could be structured productively. The lack of hierarchical authorship protocols was integral to that part of the project.

16. http://pbworks.com

18. Can you use a Wikipedia model to write and edit books?

19. You have just written a book. How are you going to publish it? Group 1 - devise a 5 min presentation to explain why you have decided to publish it in paper form. What are the advantages of paper publication over digital? Group 2 - devise a 5 min presentation to explain why you have decided to publish it in electronic form. What are the advantages of digital publication over paper?

20. What potential problems might texts which are ‘born digital’ present for the following concepts: the author? the work? intellectual property? plagiarism?

21. Assessment and evaluation of digital texts Should students’ ink-on-paper work (‘essays’) and their digital texts all be judged and assessed in the same way? What standards and criteria can be used to assess students’ works that are ‘born digital’, such as those associated with blogs, wikis, social networking, p2p file- sharing? What issues arise from this regarding judgement, authority and legitimacy?