The Chronicle: 7/28/2006: Book 2.0 – Good article that highlights work being done at the Institute for the Future of the Book. It mentions several subjects I’ve already covered including the MediaCommons and the new Rice University Press. The aritcle mentions the coming academic dustup over the use of electronic works for tenure work. This may be the most important thing here.
Historically, especially in legal academia, any sort of electronic publication is discounted by tenure review committees. CALI has seen this a number of times when we have had authors of our Lessons actually physically print their lessons and put them in a binder so that the work would get any review at all. As more and more work moves into an electronic world this prejudice will need to disappear. Some law professors are now beginning to think of their blog work as scholarship, though most recommend that junior facutly stick with more traditional work writing for law reviews to insure a favorable tenure outcome. The law reviews themselves are experimenting with online versions of their publications and the day is not far off when the traditional forum for legal scholarship, the law review, in only available online.
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