Reading Response: Authorship in the Academy

In “The Crisis in Scholarly Publishing in the Humanities,” Unsworth concludes that a large interested readership (i.e., audience) is necessary for the continuation of scholarship in the humanities (5) and argues that the readership already exists but yearns for the scholarship to be readily available electronically. Although, the idea of online articles as legitimate publication has been a topic of interest among academics for a least a few years now (Into the Blogosphere, Unsworth), university faculty administrators promote the traditional method of printed publications, particularly authoring books, and perpetuate the sense of prestigious accomplishment by directly tying award-winning recognition and professional development to it (2). Somehow Unsworth “flew under the radar” of the typical tenure-track process and climbed up the “institutional” ladder on the merits of his articles—many that are collaborative works and accessible in digital form. He advocates for a new type of scholarly publication, the “Thematic Research Collection” online, and suggests that the number of online users who access the electronic texts would far outweigh the number of customers who purchase printed manuscripts by traditional means, for example, physically going to a bookstore (4). He believes that the “Collection” will be more advantageous to academics and universities alike.

In “Who Owns My Work?” Herrington examines the contributions academics in technical communication make to their universities and the rare cases of litigation between them or between academics and professional organizations. She charges academics to be familiar with university policies and guidelines and even copyright and patent laws to protect their intellectual property and to intelligently advise their students—future academics or professionals (126). Herrington explains that the “work-for-hire” agreements signed by numerous academics are not legally binding; therefore, when a case goes to court, judges look to the agency-partnership laws to determine the best course of action (136). Additionally judges must determine whether or not the “properties” are created under reasonable work responsibilities. She goes on to summarize cases such as Williams v. Weisser (Williams, the professor, won) and Hays v. Sony Corp. of America (Sony Corp. won) and illustrates the arbitrariness of court rulings. To avoid conflict specifically between academics and universities, Herrington encourages the universities to remove the heavy hand from intellectual property and instead cultivate the interests and activities of their academics because their continuing expertise in the field will only enrich their campuses and improve their reputations.

Both Unsworth and Herrington’s articles describe the institutional attitudes of value placed on scholarly work by university faculty administrators as well as judges in the court of law. In Unsworth, electronic publication is not seen as valuable as printed publications. In Herrington, academics and universities fight for the rights of what they perceive as valuable information to them. Though Ede & Lunsford’s “Collaboration and Concepts of Authorship” is not mentioned above, the “value” theme is also present in their article. They discover that a high or low value is placed on scholarship depending on single (high) or collaborative (low) authorship. The conclusion in each of these readings seems to imply that an attitudinal change toward modern ways of publishing, writing, and owning scholarly work will depend on progressive, forward-thinking academics and their students. Those who want to see changes take place will most likely need to be the agents of change in their institutions.

“Into the Blogosphere Review Process: A Statement from the Editors” Into the Blogosphere: Rhetoric, Community, and Culture of Weblogs." Ed. Laura J. Gurak, Smiljana Antonijevic, Laurie Johnson, Clancy Ratliff, and Jessica Reyman. June 2004. 27 April 2008