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Google Faces Legal Challenges in its Effort to Digitize University Library Contents

Krista Kennedy, PhD Student, University of Minnesota
Assistant Chair, CCCC Intellectual Property Caucus

CASE OVERVIEW

In December 2004, Google announced an ambitious new attempt to scan and render searchable millions of volumes from the libraries of Harvard, Stanford, Oxford, and the University of Michigan, as well as the New York Public Library.  The original project name was Google Print, which was changed to Google Book Search in November 2005.  There are two central facets to the initiative:  Google Publisher and Google Library.  The first works with publishers to coordinate permissions, direct contributions of texts, and promotion.  Compensation is provided in the form of links that encourage searchers to purchase the product from booksellers or directly from the publisher.  Publishers may also share in contextual advertising (“Google ads”) revenue if they agree that advertising be included on the pages for their books.  All material generated under this project is digitized and offered with full permission of the copyright holder.

Google Library, on the other hand, partners with libraries to arrange and facilitate scanning of materials under fair use doctrine.  No permission is sought from the publisher for reproduction of these materials.  The initial stage of the Google Library project involves a six-year partnership between Google and the University of Michigan called the Michigan Digitization Project.  The seven million volumes in the UM Libraries collection would constitute the initial acquisitions for Google Book Search.  In return for their cooperation, the Libraries will receive digitized copies for their own use.  While UM has been a leader in digital preservation and has pursued an internal digitization project for a number of years, they have only been able to digitize about 5,000 volumes annually.  At that rate, digitization of the entire collection would take approximately 1600 years.  By partnering with Google, they are able to drastically increase the pace of this project while also making strides toward opening their collection to users worldwide.  In the process, they also reduce their own digitization expenses, since Google bears the costs of reproduction, conversion, and transmission, as well as costs associated with pulling and reshelving materials.  Scanned and converted works are made available immediately through Google as they are processed and are stored in perpetuity on the company servers.

From the project launch, Google has drawn a sharp distinction between public and proprietary works.  Works that have passed into the public domain are made available in full.  Out-of-print works whose copyright is still in duration are made available in “snippets” consisting of approximately three sentences.  Availability of in-print works is at the discretion of the copyright holder, who may choose to allow availability of the entire work, of a few sample pages, or of a snippet.  The owner may also choose to opt out of the project altogether, much in the way that domain owners can request that Google not catalogue digital works.  On August 22, 2005, Google announced that it would not begin the project until November, so as to give publishers a chance to make decisions about participation and submit a list of works to be excluded from the project.

On September 20, 2005, the Author’s Guild (AG) filed a class action complaint against Google.  The three named plaintiffs were authors whose works are in the UM collection and the Class was initially defined as all persons or entities holding copyright to one of the seven million volumes in the UM Libraries.  It alleged that “by reproducing for itself a copy of those works that are not in the public domain, Google is engaging in massive copyright infringement.  It has infringed, and continues to infringe, the electronic rights of the copyright holders of those works.”  This infringement, it was claimed, adversely affected the market for their works and damaged their goodwill and reputations.  They also claimed that Google intended to derive revenue from those works by using them specifically to attract visitors and consequently generate advertising revenue. 

A month later, the Association of American Publishers (AAP) also filed suit.  The named publishers include McGraw-Hill, Pearson Education, Penguin, Simon & Schuster, and John Wiley & Sons.  They claimed that they were engaged or planned to engage in similar digitization endeavors that would eventually be made available to all search engines, including Google.  Google’s project impinges on this potential market.  The suit also objects specifically to Google’s announcement that publishers could provide the company with a list of books to be excluded from the project by November 2005, arguing that it is a clear inversion of the default rights afforded authors to control of reproduction, distribution, and display of their works in 17 U.S.C. §106.   It further characterizes Google’s actions as willful infringement executed with conscious disregard for author and publisher rights.

DISCUSSION OF THE CASE

The primary decision to be made in this case concerns the application and limits of fair use doctrine.  The application of fair use rests on a four factor test:  the purpose and nature of the use, the nature of the copyrighted work, the amount and substantiality of the work taken, and the effect of the use upon the potential market. 

The precedent most often cited in fair use issues relevant to search engine operations is Kelly v. Arriba Soft, 336 F.3d 881 (9th Cir. 2003).  Much like Google Image Search, Arriba Soft created a database of images from websites without obtaining the permission of the site owners or copyright holders.  They then displayed the images as thumbnails that linked to the original content on external sites.  Kelly, a photographer, discovered that his images were being used as thumbnails and sued for copyright infringement.  The court found that the reproduction of the photographs as thumbnails did satisfy the conditions of fair use, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed the opinion.  The opinion addressed the four factors as follows:

  • Purpose and character of the use:  Arriba was not using the images to promote itself nor did it attempt to profit through their use.  Kelly’s images were only a few among many thousands in the database.  More importantly, their use of images served a different function than the original prints, namely directing access to material on the Internet rather than facilitating original expression. The court ruled that this use was sufficiently transformative, since the images were reduced in size and reproduced at a lower resolution.  Since their use was not exploitative, the commercial aspects of Arriba’s venture weigh only slightly against their favor.
  • The nature of the work:  The court observed that while creative works are closer to the core intent of copyright law than factual works, “published works are more likely to qualify as fair use because the first appearance of the artist’s expression has already occurred.”  Kelly’s works were both creative and published.  Because of their publication, the court ruled that fair use only slightly favored Kelly.
  • The amount and substantiality of the portion used:  Arriba copied each of the images in their entirety.  However, the court ruled that this was necessary in order to construct an identifiable link that would allow users to recognize the content and decide whether or not to continue on to the originating website.  In the end, this factor favored neither party.
  • The effect of use upon the potential market:  By providing direct links to Kelly’s original site and content, Arriba steered potential customers directly to him.  Since the thumbnails were small and of low resolution, the court ruled that they did not dilute Kelly’s market for full size images.  This final factor favored Arriba.

The purpose and nature is a primary aspect of concern in both the AG and AAP complaints.  Fair use doctrine extends protections for specific types of use:  critical comment, parody, educational purposes, and news reporting.  Google satisfies none of these criteria.  While the materials in question largely come from educational institutions, Google itself is not a neutral or altruistic entity or technology.  Rather, it is for-profit, publicly traded venture.  Its business model relies heavily on contextual advertising, and a significant portion of its revenues come from advertisements of one sort or another.  It will in fact profit from advertising associated with this new material.  (The fact that Google’s market value three months after their IPO was half that of Viacom lends some perspective.)  However, it will not profit directly from the sale of reproduced copies.  On the contrary:  search results will bring the texts to the attention of the reader, and links to booksellers and the publisher will encourage the reader to purchase a hard copy of the text.

The question of the nature of the work is easily satisfied in this case:  all of it is previously published.  While some of it is indeed creative, the majority of the texts in question are non-fiction and technical works.  (It’s perhaps relevant to note that all of the named authors in the AG suit are authors of creative works.)

As in Arriba, duplication of entire works is necessary in order to ensure effective operation of the search engine.  However, Google will not provide users with access to the entire text.  In most cases, users will receive only snippets or a few pages in their search results.  If the search term appears multiple times throughout the work, Google will return only three results.  Repeat access attempts will be blocked in order to reduce the chances of the searcher viewing too much of the text.

Through the use of direct links to purchasing opportunities, Google Book Search will increase the demand for searchable texts.  This should be particularly true for lesser-known texts that readers might not happen upon in any other fashion.  Even if the reader checked out the book at a library rather than purchasing it themselves, the libraries will in turn respond to increased demand.  If users were able to print out entire works, diminishment of the market would be conceivable.  A three-sentence snippet  simply cannot do similar harm.

The McGraw-Hill suit suggests that the project restricts their ability to license digitized copies themselves, thus reducing potential market share.  In his copyright analysis of the Google project, Jonathan Band argues that the existence of the Publisher program negates this complaint.  By opting to license works through the Publisher program, publishers receive revenue from contextual advertising and linkage, thus opening up revenue streams unavailable to them elsewhere.

Following the line of argument presented here, the Google Book Search project is lawful under U.S. fair use doctrine.  However, Google results are available internationally, and copyright exceptions vary from country to country.  Band reminds us that copyright infringement is specific to the jurisdiction it was committed within.  Since Google is working in the Untied States to scan books from United States libraries, the relevant law concerning these actions is U.S. law.  While few other countries would allow reproduction of entire texts, most countries do permit short quotations similar to what might appear in a snippet.  Band suggests that these exceptions for quotations should protect Google’s international transmission of search results.

IMPLICATIONS FOR EDUCATORS AND WRITING TEACHERS

In a statement issued the day after the AG suit was filed, UM associate provost and interim librarian James Hilton addressed the crux of this issue:

This is tremendously important public policy discussion.  … We need to decide whether we are going to allow the development of new technology to be used as a tool to restrict the public’s access to knowledge, or if we are going to ensure that people can find these works and that they will be preserved for future generations.

As educators, we should be particularly concerned about the preservation of our written culture and the access that we and our students have to written artifacts.  Our cultural history is rapidly disappearing, as Lawrence Lessig has pointed out in various books, articles, and lectures.  In his lecture on Google Print, he reminds us that only 9% of published American literature is currently in print and under copyright.  16% of it is in the public domain.  The remaining 75% is out of print but still in copyright.  Because of our loose registration requirements, there is no practical means of obtaining permission from the owners.  The volume in this predominant segment of written culture are largely orphaned works.  We are faced with opposing options:  either reproduce the materials without permission and preserve them, or observe the letter of the law and lose them.  Copyright exceptions (such as fair use doctrine) and complements (such as Creative Commons licenses) provide the only viable solutions to this current and future dilemma.

We are also faced with deciding exactly how we should harness emerging technologies.  Whenever we discuss issues of cultural production, be it text, audio, or video, we are also forced to discuss control of the technology that delivers and transmits them.  Will the Internet be a technology that helps us preserve and share our culture, or will it be a means for corporations to sell our culture to us bit by bit and destroy whatever isn’t profitable?

A different but related question is, what sort of texts do we want to see on the Internet?  As teachers of research and argumentation, we often caution our students about wholesale acceptance of materials found online.  We hold a wide variety of opinions about the value and reliability of collaboratively constructed resources such as Wikipedia.  If a wide range of vetted publications from established publishing houses was available for searches (whether the results be full-text or snippets), would we feel that the Internet had become a more reliable place?  Would a mix of commercial and personal publication increase its inherent value?

As educators who are also advocates of culture, our basic responsibilities lie in the preservation of cultural works.  As educators who are also intellectual property scholars, our responsibilities lie in the creation and dissemination of a technological philosophy that encourages progress and creativity.  And as writing teachers and disciples of text in all its forms, it is imperative that we work toward converting those commitments into policy and law.

RELEVANT SOURCES

Band, Jonathan.  “The Google Print Library Project:  A Copyright Analysis.”  www.policybandwidth.com/doc/googleprint.pdf

Google Books.  http://print.google.com/googlebooks/about.html 

Hilton, James.  “U-M Statement on Google Library Project.”  http://www.umich.edu/news/?Releases/2005/Sep05/r092105 

Kelly v Arriba Soft, 336 F.3d 881 (9th Cir. 2003).  http://homepages.law.asu.edu/~dkarjala/cyberlaw/KelllyvArriba(9C2003).htm

Lessig, Lawrence.  “Google Book Search:  The Argument.”  http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/003292.shtml

Michigan Digitization Project.  http://www.lib.umich.edu/mdp/index.html 

Download Author’s Guild v Google
http://files.findlaw.com/news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/google/aggoog92005cmp.pdf
Download McGraw-Hill et al. v Google
http://files.findlaw.com/news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/google/mcggoog101905cmp.pdf

Dean #2

Harrison Spenser: Case #5

Characterization of Institution

Research II University

Characterization of Department

Ph.D. granted in composition/rhetoric
M.S. granted in composition/rhetoric
B..S/B.A. Scientific and Technical Communication
B.A. English

How would Harrison Spenser’s case turn out in your department?  At your university/college?

No one ever knows how anything will turn out here, as in most universities.

Had everyone done everything right here, the dean would have read the recommendations of the committee, would have considered that of the department head, would have seen the inconsistency, and would have both met with the head and also provided a written comment, thus by the end of the third year provoking a resolution and likely track either to tenure or to non-reappointment.

The dean should also have required, and the department head should have been accustomed to providing, either a concise statement of expectations in the initial letter of appointment or a concise job description, one or two sentences.  For this appointment that statement should have included the words “scholarly publication appropriate to the area of graduate teaching”  or the words “grant writing” or “funded research.”  If  any of  these words or phrases had not been included, it should have been agreed by all parties that there was no expectation in that area.  If not stated, then that work, if done, would be a bonus but not a requirement.

That is how it would be done here, if everyone got it right.  Sometimes they do.

What are the Department Chair’s responsibilities toward Spencer?  Which did he fulfill?  Fail?

Serious problem here.  In part the head led Spencer astray by not resolving the conflict, which seems to me to have been between head and committee.  The head seems fine on foresight and weak on execution.

What are the Personnel Committee’s responsibilities toward Spencer?  Which did they fulfill?  Fail?

That chair needed to invite the head to a meeting of the committee.  By the third year it should have been clear that Spencer was receiving conflicting directions and that a resolution needed to be reached between head and committee.

What are the responsibilities of the Dean?  Which did she/he fulfill?  Fail?

The dean should have asked for clarity in the initial appointment, should have seen the conflict between head and committee, should have recognized that the head was either leading in the right direction and could get there or that the leadership of the head was to a dead end.  If dead end, the dean should have let the head know so that the head might direct the appointment back to traditional scholarship while thinking about other jobs.  If the dean believed the head understood a vital direction of the future, then the dean need to  find a way to support the head and get the head’s message to the committee.

What are Spenser’s responsibilities?  Which did he fulfill?  Fail?

Spencer needed to recognize that given conflicting directions, tenure was unlikely.  The message was there.

What went wrong?  What went right?

Most things went wrong.  The head went one way, the committee another, and Spencer tried to ride with both.  What went right was that there were reviews and there was communication and the differences might well have been recognized and resolved had they been faced up to.

Additional Comments

One further note.  Conflicting advice is not unusual and untenured faculty need to be responsible to themselves, in part by thinking about the future of the area in which they  work.  I think the best piece about future directions in the profession is still one that was written by George Steiner in the 1960’s.  It remains in print as the chapter “To Civilize Gentlemen” in his book Language and Silence, New Haven: Yale UP, 1998.  It might have been a useful piece for Spencer (was that the name?) to have read.

Harrison Spenser: Case #5

 

American Harrison Spencer, with a D.Phil. from a British university and a dissertation on a medieval rhetorician, spent several years in non-tenure line positions before being hired by University X into a tenure-line position in a fledgling rhetoric and composition program.  At the time of hiring, Spencer had just secured a contract to publish his dissertation.  The search committee recognized his historical scholarship in rhetoric but the department chair more eagerly welcomed the expertise Spencer had developed with technology during his adjunct teaching.  Although Spencer was given a 2/2 teaching load for his first year, he was immediately assigned administrative responsibility for the department’s computer lab, a task that carried with it staffing the lab, acting as troubleshooter for everyone who used the lab, mentoring new users, and defending the use of computers in English classes to the literature faculty in the department.

In his first year, in an attempt to engage some of the literature faculty, Spencer asked two of them to become part of a team of five co-investigators seeking a major software development grant that would bring a state of the art technology classroom to the department. For a period of three years, the grant would support one course of release time each semester for each co-investigator.  During the few months between submitting the grant and learning that it was funded, Spencer completed revisions to his dissertation for publication.  His teaching evaluations that year were competent but lackluster in the undergraduate classes; the graduate students, on the other hand, praised his knowledge and expertise in his new course in Technology and English Studies.  One asked that he direct her M.A. research project, and two asked if he would serve on their dissertation committees.  Reviewing Spencer’s record for his first year, the department’s Promotion and Tenure Committee (comprised only of tenured senior faculty) reasoned that he had accomplished a lot that first year, but urged him to make time for publication since he was hired with the book contract in place. In his meeting with Spencer, the department chair conveyed the Promotion and Tenure Committee’s concerns but focused on the benefits and practical implications of Spencer’s bringing the grant to the department.

In his second year, with the chair’s blessing, Spencer established a department Technology Committee to assess needs, set policies, and prepare proposals. Lab use policies, training for G.A. lab attendants, faculty development, and network management were issues he could no longer handle alone.  The informal mentoring he was doing and the workshops he was offering on demand were consuming his time.  His low key affability and willingness to take on what needed to be done were being stretched thin; the committee would allow him and others to look beyond the next week. Rather than appoint a committee, however, the chair asked for volunteers.  The other untenured faculty member on Spencer’s grant team volunteered (neither of the two literature faculty on the team did), as did several long-term adjunct faculty and graduate students. The committee’s three year plan for technology use and integration into the department was, however, passed by the department and then by the College Computer Literacy Committee.

Remembering the Promotion and Tenure Committee’s concerns, Spencer thought he could move some of his work to publication if it were more closely tied to his teaching.  To the Curriculum Committee he proposed breaking apart the graduate history of rhetoric course into at least three, offering a new course in Medieval/Early Modern Rhetoric as well as the Classical and Contemporary Rhetoric that matched his colleagues’ expertise. He also proposed a new course in Web (port)folios that could be taught at the undergraduate or graduate levels.  In addition to a K-12 computer workshop at the state NCTE affiliate conference in the fall, he presented at CCCC’s and Computers and Writing.

The next year the university began a major thrust in distance education, and Spencer was asked to teach an online writing course.  Cost-effectiveness of computer delivery was appealing in the face of expensive satellite transmissions for televised courses, so the university was willing to work with him to solve the problems created by their network firewall. Spencer quickly found himself on the university Distance Education committee and then on a state-level committee.  His responsibilities for the lab and the technology committee continued, placing even more demands on his time.  He was active professionally in Computers and Writing, organizing a teleconference for Computers and Writing folks to showcase university facilities, volunteering to host a MOO for Computers and Writing Online, and presenting again that year at CCCC’s and the Computers and Writing annual conference.  He reviewed two recently published books for Kairos.  Progress on the grant work, however, was not on schedule.  He and the other junior faculty members, one in English and one in computer science, were making good progress on their modules, but the two literature faculty members were far behind schedule, even with a computer science graduate student assigned to write code for them.  Spencer had hoped to publish the software by the end of the grant period, during his fourth year, but that prospect was quickly fading. He spent much of his time that summer finishing his modules and reconceptualizing the project to reduce the literature faculty tasks.

Spencer’s three-year review (during fall of his 4th year) elicited a warning from the Promotion and Tenure Committee.  The Composition and Rhetoric representative on Promotion and Tenure Committee and the department chair supported Spencer because he was doing what his position asked for and what they thought the department needed, and they saw the promise of publications from his conference presentations. Committee vote, however, was split between “satisfactory” and “unsatisfactory progress toward tenure.” Their written review stated “teaching: satisfactory; service: outstanding, research: none.”  The committee recognized his book at the end of his first year but noted it was underway pre-hire.  When the concerns were passed on to Spencer during a meeting just before Christmas, the department chair confirmed his support for Spencer’s grant work and administrative responsibilities, but urged him to prioritize so he could get something published.  Spencer decided that the only time on task he could alter was in the grant work, so he asked the two literature faculty who weren’t pulling their weight to resign from the grant.  (One was relieved, but the other was irate that he would suddenly have a third class to teach spring semester.)  With a radical redesign, Spencer and his remaining co-investigators completed the software package on time that spring and demonstrated it at the annual Computers and Writing conference. Administrative and mentoring responsibilities and his online writing class consumed the remainder of his time that spring so after teaching first summer term, he spent the remainder of the summer reading and preparing his new course in Medieval/Early Modern Rhetoric for the following fall. One of the new books, examining the changing relationship between technology and rhetoric from Medieval/Early Modern to Post Modern times, he reviewed for Kairos, an online journal.

At the first department meeting that fall (Spencer’s fifth year), the chair announced that he would be leaving to take a position as Dean at University Y on September 15 and that Professor N would be acting as interim chair until the department could decide whether to conduct an election or a search. Spencer greeted the news with some alarm since Professor N was the second of the two faculty he had asked to resign from his grant, but he determined just to do his work and publish something more substantial. He presented some new work on Early Modern rhetoric at the Rhetoric Society of America conference, and his paper was accepted for publication in RSA Online, a refereed online journal. Tallman Publishers contacted Spencer about his software, and after months of negotiation, with the University and the granting agency both claiming intellectual property rights , Spencer finally signed a contract that would acknowledge his and his co-principal investigators’ authorship.   He also finished an article on pedagogy prompted by his online writing class and submitted it to The Journal of Online Instruction (refereed and, appropriately, online).  For good measure he reviewed three more books for Kairos, all to be published before his promotion and tenure document would be due in November of his sixth year.  He presented again at CCCC’s and Computers and Writing, and began preparing those manuscripts for submission.  His teaching evaluations remained competent at the undergraduate level and stellar at the graduate level, but a colleague’s observation noted that his high expectations for his students might have been more than some undergraduates could handle. That spring Professor N was elected Department Chair.

Spencer’s 6th year review, based on his 5-year record, caused considerable discussion in the Promotion and Tenure Committee, and the report came back with a 5-2 negative recommendation for tenure, which the Department Chair supported.

Tenure and Promotion Cases for Composition Faculty Who Work with Technology

Dean #1

Sherry Richer: Case #4

Characterization of Institution

Comprehensive I, State University

Characterization of Department

M.A. in English (literature/rhetoric and composition)
B.A. in English (literature, esl, teaching of English, creative writing)

How would Sherry Richer’s case turn out in your department?  At your university/college?

If Dr. Richer continues on her current path, she will be denied tenure. As much as the university and the department likes to reward innovative uses of technology, as of yet her scholarship online and in print is insufficient for tenure.

What are the Department Chair’s responsibilities toward Richer? Which did she/he fulfill?  Fail?

A bulletin board for use within the department would be considered service, comparable to developing a handbook for graduate instructors.

What are the Personnel Committee’s responsibilities toward Richer?  Which  did they fulfill?  Fail?

N/A

What are the responsibilities of the Dean?  Which did she/he fulfill?  Fail?

I would advise Dr. Richer to develop her ethnographic study into a book-length study–or at least into a series of articles.   If she finds this trajectory impossible, I would advise her to seek another position.

What are Richer’s responsibilities?  Which did she/he fulfill?  Fail?

If she finds this trajectory impossible, [she should] seek another position at a two-year college or a university with little interest in scholarly publication.

What went wrong?  What went right?

N/A

CCCC Statement on Globalization in Writing Studies Pedagogy and Research

Conference on College Composition and Communication
November 2017

Executive Summary

The CCCC Strategic Governance Vision Statement includes a mandate to “provide conditions under which teachers and scholars can discuss, build, and practice sustainable, relevant, and ethical models of teaching and learning.” This document works to achieve this mandate by outlining key relationships and recommendations that writing program administrators (WPAs) and scholars and teachers of writing should consider as they respond to globalization. The Appendix provides an extended, albeit limited, bibliography of resources for further reading.

Introduction

Globalization is both a worldwide force and an everyday local phenomenon. Movements of people, ideas, goods, services, and capital under both peaceful and conflict-ridden conditions challenge ways of being that have been traditionally tied to discrete nation-states. Such challenges can be especially apparent in educational institutions, which frequently articulate explicit interests in attracting students with a wider range of cultural and linguistic backgrounds, sending students abroad, and preparing graduates to enter globalizing societies and economies. At the heart of these educational efforts is a conflict: On one hand, colleges and universities may recognize, respect, and respond to the complexities of globalization by reimagining administration, teaching, and research. On the other hand, they may use the pretext of globalization in a limited fashion to enhance institutional reputations, identify new sources of revenue, and entrench received standards.

The implications of globalization for writing pedagogy and research are varied and complex. For writing programs, globalization can increase demands to provide uniform and universally transferable writing instruction to students. For writing teachers and administrators, globalization adds pressure to find low-cost means of addressing the needs of increasing numbers of international students. For writing scholars, teachers, students, and administrators, globalization provides the opportunity to develop alternative perspectives on writing and its study and teaching. Globalization can also encourage the building of new relationships across global and local lines and set new directions for the work of teaching and studying college writing.

Given the ubiquity of both foundational and cross-curricular writing courses, writing programs are often directly and immediately impacted by shifts in educational institutions’ missions. Responses to globalization are no exception. Among the questions facing WPAs and faculty are the extent to which relevant global concerns should be integrated into curricula; whether or how the role of writing in globalization should be articulated to higher-level administrators; what impact globalization should have on graduate education in writing studies; and, understanding that writing is a global research concern, what levels of support or encouragement should be provided to scholars who might pursue relevant objects of study in collaboration with international partners where appropriate.

Defining Globalization

Globalization is tied to questions of (im)migration, (dis)location, (trans)nationalism, and trans- or multilingualism, and therefore the term must be used purposefully, especially at institutions of higher education that are recruiting increasing numbers of international students while espousing relatively uncomplicated notions of the “global” in their educational missions. We define globalization as follows:

Globalization is most often seen as a growing interdependence in the world, fueled not only by the economy but also by the environment, communication technologies, health, energy, politics, immigration, and other forces. Globalization implies less rigidly defined boundaries and a more mobile meshing of cultures, languages, and nationalities. The term is often conflated with internationalization; however, the root of globalization, “global,” implies a whole or universal experience, which, for better or for worse, minimizes the reality of borders and difference and their associated politics. Globalization influences higher education generally, and writing studies more specifically, in many ways, including traditional roles of teaching, research, and service as well as training, communication, recruiting, retention, assessment, and administration. Such influence may come “from above”—for example, as the result of institutional imperatives—or “from below”—for example, as the result of teachers or students raising and investigating questions that tie local issues with global trends.

Globalization in Relation to Writing Pedagogies, Research, and Organizations

Writing Pedagogies

At all levels, in all types of higher education institutions, and in all types of programs and curricula, including first-year/lower-division writing, writing across the curriculum, writing in disciplines, writing centers, and graduate-level writing support programs, pedagogies need to be designed in ways sensitive to the complex effects of globalization.

Questions about writing pedagogies must be considered in terms that account for global movements of people, capital, and goods across borders, including trade, travel, displacement, and forced or voluntary migration. Educational institutions have long responded to and participated in this global movement by sending students abroad and by recruiting and enrolling students from other countries. Educational entities have become participants in globalization by establishing programs and even branch campuses in other countries. At the same time, colleges and universities continue to identify international students as promising sources of enrollments, and they are increasingly partnering with transnational companies that package recruitment, credentialing, support, and even teaching services.

Writing Studies Research

Research on writing and its teaching and learning necessarily contends with the means and effects of global circulation and global geopolitical relations. Even what might appear to be strictly local concerns about writing practices and pedagogy articulate with global and transnational forces and contexts. Further, researchers’ practices—who researches whom and what, how, prompted by what exigencies, with what sponsors, and with what aims—are implicated in global geopolitical relations and the transnational circulation and transformation of writing knowledge. Research in a globalized world demands particular sensitivities.

CCCC and Other Organizations

CCCC encourages the kind of knowledge exchange that will benefit members of CCCC as well as members of relevant organizations outside of North America, and it seeks to build alliances with these organizations. CCCC members will benefit from being aware of the rich traditions and contexts in which writing is taught and studied outside of North America and the numerous organizations outside of North America that aim to promote the study of writing practices and pedagogies in other national and regional contexts.

Recommendations

CCCC makes the following recommendations for researchers, teachers, and WPAs.

Institutional Terminology

When possible, researchers, teachers, and administrators should share examples demonstrating the complexity behind any terminology that is used to describe programs or curricula for cross-border exchange.

Writing Pedagogy and Curriculum

Writing programs should create professional development opportunities that include the study of relevant developments in applied linguistics, English as a lingua franca, foreign language pedagogies, rhetoric and composition, second-language writing, translingual approaches to composition, and related approaches, disciplines, and fields. Writing programs should also prepare teachers to address linguistic and multicultural issues through both graduate seminars and workshops that include interactions with culturally and linguistically diverse students.

Writing program leaders and directors should seek equitable and mutual relations with stakeholders in and outside the university that emphasizes respect for different kinds of knowledge in cross-institutional and transnational curricula. They should also fully involve peer colleagues at partner institutions in articulating cross-institutional and transnational curricula; for example, WPAs could join with English Language Institutes and similar offices to cross pedagogical and disciplinary borders. Leaders of writing programs should push institutions to provide all students (including and especially English monolinguals) with support structures to expand their language repertoires, not only in introductory courses for writing in and across the curriculum and years of study at the institution. And finally, WPAs should devise local assessment tools to evaluate multilingual students’ writing performance that reflect the values of both the institution and individual students and teachers.

Faculty in writing (studies) programs and departments should consider the ways that they might emphasize and invite exploration of a wide range of sociocultural and linguistic experiences and practices. They should also seek access to key university committees and offices involved in internationalization and globalization efforts. Writing faculty should keep all students in mind when selecting teaching materials and pedagogical strategies. Teaching materials should promote intercultural communication and understanding in class and beyond. Pedagogies should take into account students’ prior literacy experiences across languages and dialects, valuing students’ ways of life, ways of knowing, and ways of making meaning. And faculty in writing studies should capitalize on new technologies to conduct collaborative, virtual teaching across national and institutional borders and design those experiences very carefully in the mode of equal exchange.

Graduate programs in writing studies should actively recruit a globally diverse range of students and faculty, including faculty with greater familiarity with a diverse range of traditions in the teaching and study of writing. We also encourage these programs to incorporate attention to writing research from an array of research sites, representing a broad range of research traditions and including publications in diverse languages. Graduate programs should bolster traditional foreign language requirements for advanced degrees in order to ensure students’ meaningful and sustained contact with diverse linguistic populations.

Writing Research

Research is needed on subjects such as the applicability and adaptability (or not) of composition theory across international contexts; writing and writing instruction in languages other than English; how writing studies may transcend “traditional” borders along national, cultural, or linguistic lines; the establishment or growth of North American–style writing programs outside of North America, with comparative analyses, and the exportation and importation of writing curricula across borders; transnational/global/local connectedness in writing programs, perspectives, and approaches, with a focus on cross-language research; writing courses and programs that intentionally work across languages or national boundaries; the ways in which globally networked electronic communities and subcommunities with different purposes and memberships are shifting understandings of writing, teaching writing, and learning writing; cross-cultural graduate education and the experiences of working across differences in language and culture in the teaching and practice of writing; translation as a part of writing; and employment and preparation practices across cultures and national boundaries.

Writing researchers should employ a variety of methods that foster responsive global exchanges among teachers and scholars of writing. Scholars should also conduct research with students to understand their backgrounds, and with faculty to understand what they bring to the project, including dispositions toward language, methods, contexts, and expectations. They should also conduct archival research on teaching traditions across cultures; ethnographic studies to elicit responses from students or colleagues as they discursively map the field by occupying and moving around and through the institutional spaces of international programs and opportunities; and context-specific, nuanced, ethical comparative studies on how we understand the common, shared, or “universal,” particularly in relation to the specific or local, across borders, however we might imagine these in a dynamic, shifting, globalized world.

Writing researchers should also consider how research is represented. When possible, researchers should place the research site and kind of research conducted in the context of globally diverse sites and traditions of writing and writing research. They should also acknowledge, and draw on, a diverse and broad range of available writing research, including research in languages with which the researcher is not familiar. This work should be accessed through collaboration with those familiar with those languages. And researchers should draw from global research traditions in the study of writing and its teaching.

Appendix: Resources for Further Reading

This statement is grounded in the following list of resources. Although the list is not comprehensive, it may provide a useful starting point for further reading on the topic.

Adnan, Z. (2009). Some potential problems for research articles written by Indonesian academics when submitted to international English language journals. The Asian EFL Journal Quarterly, 11(1), 107–125.
Anson, C. M., & Donahue, C. (2015). Deconstructing “writing program administration” in an international context. In D. S. Martins (Eds.), Transnational writing program administration (pp. 21–47). Logan: Utah State University Press.
Arnold, L. R. (2014). “The worst part of the dead past”: Language attitudes, policies, and pedagogies at Syrian Protestant College, 1866–1902. College Composition and Communication, 66(2), 276–300.
Bazerman, C., Dean, C., Early, J., Lunsford, K., Null, S., Rogers, P., & Stansell, A. (Eds.). (2012). International advances in writing research. Boulder, CO: The WAC Clearinghouse; Anderson, SC: Parlor Press.
Bennett, K. (Ed.). (2014). The semiperiphery of academic writing: Discourses, communities and practices. New York: Palgrave.
Braine, G. (2005). The challenge of academic publishing: A Hong Kong perspective. TESOL Quarterly, 39, 707–716.
Breeze, R. (2012). Rethinking academic writing pedagogy for the European university. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Buckingham, L. (2008). Development of English academic writing competence by Turkish scholars. International Journal of Doctoral Studies, 3, 1–18.
Canagarajah, A. S. (2012). A geopolitics of academic writing. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Casanave, C. P. (2012). Writing games: Multicultural case studies of academic literacy practices in higher education. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Desser, D., & Payne, D. (Eds). (2012). Teaching writing in globalization: Remapping disciplinary work. Boulder, CO: Lexington Books.
Donahue, C. (2009). Internationalization and composition studies: Re-orienting the discourse. College Composition and Communication, 61(2), 212–243.
Donahue, C., & Reuter, Y. (2007). Disciplines, language activities, cultures: Perspectives on teaching and learning in higher education from France and the United States. L1—Educational Studies in Language and Literature, 8(2), 1-11.
Foskett, N. (2010). Global markets, national challenges, local strategies: The strategic challenge of internationalization. In F. Maringe & N. Foskett (Eds.), Globalization and internationalization in higher education (pp. 35–50). London: Continuum.
Foster, D., & Russell, D. (Eds.). (2002). Writing and learning in cross-national perspective: Transitions from secondary to higher education. Urbana, IL: NCTE.
Ganobcsik-Williams, L. (Ed.). (2006). Teaching academic writing in UK higher education: Theories, practices and models. London: Palgrave.
Ha, P. L., & Baurain, B. (Eds.). (2011). Voices, identities, negotiations, and conflicts: Writing academic English across cultures. Bingley, UK: Emerald.
Hesford, W., Singleton, E., & Garci´a, I. M. (2009). Laboring to globalize a first-year writing program. In D. Strickland & J. Gunner (Eds.), The writing program interrupted: Making space for critical discourse (pp. 113–125). Portsmouth: Boynton/Cook.
Horner, B., Donahue, C., & NeCamp, S. (2011). Toward a multilingual composition scholarship: From English only to a translingual norm. College Composition and Communication, 63, 269–300.
Horner, B., & Kopelson, K. (Eds.). (2014). Reworking English in rhetoric and composition: Global interrogations, local interventions. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.
Horner, B., & Lu, M.-Z. (2009). Composing in a global-local context: Careers, mobility, skill. College English, 72(2), 109–129.
Horner, B., Lu, M.-Z., & Matsuda, P. K. (Eds.). (2010). Cross-language relations in composition. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.
Horner, B., Lu, M.-Z., NeCamp, S., Nordquist, B., & Sohan, V. K. (Eds.). (2009). Working English in rhetoric and composition: Global-local contexts, commitments, consequences. JAC, 29(1–2).
Horner, B., & Tetreault, L. (Eds.) (2017) Crossing divides: Exploring translingual writing pedagogies and programs.  Logan: Utah State University Press.
Huang, J. C. (2010). Publishing and learning writing for publication in English: perspectives of NNE (non-native English speakers) PhD students in science. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 9(1), 33–44.
International Association of Universities (2012). Affirming academic values in internationalization of higher education: A call for action. https://globalhighered.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/affirming-academic-values-in-internationalization-of-higher-education.pdf
Jenkins, J. (2014). English as a lingua franca in the international university: The politics of academic English language policy. London: Routledge.
Jordan, J. (2012). Redesigning composition for multilingual realities. Urbana, IL: NCTE.
Lillis, T., & Curry, M. J. (2010). Academic writing in a global context: The politics and practices of publishing in English. London: Routledge.
Lu, M.-Z. (2004). An essay on the work of composition: Composing English against the order of fast capitalism. College Composition and Communication, 56(1), 16–50.
Martins, D. S. (Ed.). (2015). Transnational writing program administration. Logan: Utah State University Press.
Matsuda, P. K. (2008). Myth 8: International and U.S. resident ESL writers cannot be taught in the same class. In J. M. Reid (Ed.), Writing myths: Applying second language research to classroom teaching (pp. 159–176). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Matsuda, P. K., Fruit, M., Lee, T. M., & Lamm, B. (Eds.). (2006). Bridging the disciplinary divide: Integrating a second-language perspective into writing programs. WPA: Writing Program Administration 30(1–2).
Miller-Cochran, S. (2012). Beyond “ESL writing”: Teaching cross-cultural composition at a community college. Teaching English in the Two-Year College, 40(1), 20–30.
Milson-Whyte, V. (2015). Academic writing instruction for creole-influenced students. Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press.
Siepmann, D. (2006). Academic writing and culture: An overview of differences between English, French and German. Meta: Translators’ Journal, 51(1), 131–150.
Tang, R. (Ed.). (2012). Academic writing in a second or foreign language: Issues and challenges facing ESL/EFL academic writers in higher education contexts. London: Continuum.
Thaiss, C., Bräuer, G., Carlino, P., Ganobcsik-Williams, L., & Sinha, A. (Eds.) (2012). Writing programs worldwide: Programs of academic writing in many places. Boulder, CO: The WAC Clearinghouse; Anderson, SC: Parlor Press.
Thesen, L., & Cooper, L. (2014). Risk in academic writing: Postgraduate students, their teachers and the making of knowledge. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.
Uzuner, S. (2008). Multilingual scholars’ participation in core/global academic communities: A literature review. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 7(4), 250–263.
Villa, E. X., & Bretxa, V. (Eds.). (2014). Language policy in higher education: The case of medium-sized languages. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.
Whitsed, C., & Green, W. (2014). What’s in a name? A theoretical exploration of the proliferation of labels for international education across the higher education sector. Journal of Studies in International Education, 18(2), 105–119.
You, X. (2010). Writing in the devil’s tongue: A history of English composition in China. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.
You, X. (2016). Cosmopolitan English and transliteracy. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.
Young, V. A., & Martinez, A. Y. (Eds.). (2011). Code-meshing as world English: Pedagogy, policy, performance. Urbana, IL: NCTE.
Zarate, G., Le´vy, D., & Kramsch, C. (Eds.). (2008). Pre´cis du plurilinguisme et du pluriculturalisme. Paris: Editions des archives contemporaines.

This position statement may be printed, copied, and disseminated without permission from NCTE.

Ethical Conduct of Research in Composition Studies

CCCC is committed to supporting research that helps writers, teachers, students, and the general public more fully understand writing, rhetoric, and communication in all forms and contexts. As a professional organization, we also wish to support the ethical conduct of research. Ethical considerations are relevant to all research methods in writing and rhetorical studies. Ethical conduct in research is not just about compliance with policies, regulations, and laws but also about our active and ongoing involvement and responsibility throughout the research process.

The following guidelines apply to research efforts by scholars, teachers, administrators, students, and others that are directed toward the publication of a book or journal article, presentation at a conference, preparation of a thesis or dissertation, display on a website, public-facing work, or other general dissemination of the results of research and scholarship. These guidelines apply to formally planned investigations, and they likewise apply to emergent studies that discuss writers and writing that researchers encounter in other ways, such as when teaching classes, holding student conferences, directing academic programs, conducting research in nonacademic settings, or going about their professional, civic, and personal lives. It is important to remember that ethical research practices do not end with following policy but should be at the foundation of how a researcher orients their work to the responsible stewardship of humans and their data generally.

Read the full statement, CCCC Guidelines for the Ethical Conduct of Research in Composition Studies (November 2003, revised March 2015, Revised March 2025)

CCCC Ethical Conduct of Research Involving Human Participants: A Bibliography

This bibliography presents sources that composition researchers can use to supplement the “CCCC Guidelines for the Ethical Conduct of Research in Composition Studies.” (November 2003, Revised March 2015, Revised March 2025)

Associations’ Statements of Ethics

American Anthropological Association. “Principles of Professional Responsibility.”   https://americananthro.org/about/policies/statement-on-ethics/.

American Educational Research Association. “AERA Code of Ethics.” http://www.aera.net/AboutAERA/AERARulesPolicies/ProfessionalEthics/tabid/10200/Default.aspx.

American Folklore Society. “A Statement of Ethics for the American Folklore Society.” http://www.afsnet.org/?page=Ethics&hhSearchTerms=%22statement+and+ethics%22.

American Historical Association. “Statement on Standards of Professional Conduct.”
https://www.historians.org/resource/statement-on-standards-of-professional-conduct/.

Association of Internet Researchers. “Ethics.” http://aoir.org/ethics/.

American Psychological Association. “Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct 2010.” http://www.apa.org/ethics/code/.

American Political Science Association. “A Guide to Professional Ethics in Political Science.”  https://apsanet.org/Portals/54/diversity%20and%20inclusion%20prgms/Ethics/APSA%20Ethics%20Guide%20-%20Final%20-%20February_14_2022_Council%20Approved.pdf?ver=OshhbBcL94mq7VQiYkp9vQ%3D%3D.

American Sociological Association. “Code of Ethics.” http://www.asanet.org/about/ethics.cfm.

Modern Language Association. “Statement of Professional Ethics.” http://www.mla.org/repview_profethics.

Oral History Association. “Oral History and Best Practices.” http://www.oralhistory.org/about/principles-and-practices/.

Society of American Archivists. “SAA Core Values Statement and Code of Ethics.” http://www2.archivists.org/statements/saa-core-values-statement-and-code-of-ethics.

Society of Professional Journalists. “SPJ Code of Ethics.” http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp.

Human Subject Research and Academic Freedom

Abbott, Lura, and Christine Grady. “A Systematic Review of the Empirical Literature Investigating IRBs: What We Know and What We Still Need to Learn.” Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics, vol. 6, no.1,  2011, 3–19.

Boateng, Boatema. The Copyright Thing Doesn’t Work Here Anymore: Adinkra and Kente Cloth and Intellectual Property in Ghana. U of Minnesota P, 2011.

Office for Human Research Protections. “Federalwide Assurance (FWA) for the Protection of Human Subjects,” 17 June 2011. http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/assurances/assurances/filasurt.html.

Tierney, William G., and Zoë Blumberg Corwin. “The Tensions Between Academic Freedom and Institutional Review Boards.” Qualitative Inquiry, vol. 13, no. 3, 2007, 388–98.

Law, Copyright, and Intellectual Property

Biagioli, Mario, et al., editors. Making and Unmaking Intellectual Property: Creative Production in Legal and Cultural Perspective. U of Chicago P, 2011.

Butler, Paul. “Copyright, Plagiarism, and the Law.” Authorship in Composition Studies, edited by Tracy Hamler Carrick and Rebecca Moore Howard, Wadsworth, 2006, pp. 13–27.

“Copyright Office Basics.” US Government. July 2006. https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ01.pdf

Hassel, Holly, and Cassandra Phillips. Materiality and Writing Studies: Aligning Labor, Teaching, and Scholarship. NCTE, 2022.

Herrington, TyAnna K. Intellectual Property on Campus: Students’ Rights and Responsibilities. Southern Illinois UP, 2010.

Hobbs, Renee. Copyright Clarity: How Fair Use Supports Digital Learning. Corwin, 2010.

Intellectual Property Caucus of the Conference on College Composition and Communication. “The CCCC-IP Annual: Top Intellectual Property Developments of 2013” [and all years back to 2005].  Available from /cccc/committees/ip.

Kennedy, Krista, and Rebecca Moore Howard. “Introduction to the Special Issue on Western Cultures of Intellectual Property.” College English, vol. 75, no. 5, 2013, pp. 461–469.

Ladson-Billings, Gloria. “From the Achievement Gap to the Education Debt: Understanding Achievement in U.S. Schools.” Educational Researcher, vol. 35, no. 7, 2006, pp. 3–12.

Lessig, Lawrence. Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy. Penguin Books, 2009.

Pfannenstiel, A. Nicole. “Digital Literacies and Academic Integrity.” International Journal of Educational Integrity, vol. 6, no. 2, 2010. http://www.ojs.unisa.edu.au/index.php/IJEI/article/view/702

Rife, Martine Courant. Invention, Copyright, and Digital Writing. Southern Illinois UP, 2013.

Rife, Martine Courant, et al., editors. Copy(write): Intellectual Property in the Writing Classroom. Parlor Press, 2011.

General Disciplinary Discussions of Research Ethics

Barton, Ellen. “Further Contributions from the Ethical Turn in Composition/Rhetoric: Analyzing Ethics in Interaction.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 59, no. 4, 2008, pp. 596–632.

Barton, Ellen, and Susan Eggly. “Ethical or Unethical Persuasion? The Rhetoric of Offers to Participate in Clinical Trials.” Written Communication, vol. 29, no. 3, 2009, pp. 295–319.

Dieterle, Brandy. “People as Data? Developing an Ethical Framework for Feminist Digital Research.” Computers and Composition: An International Journal for Teachers of Writing, vol. 59, Mar. 2021. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compcom.2021.102630.

Denzin, Norman K., and Yvonna S. Lincoln, editors. Handbook of Qualitative Research. 4th ed., SAGE, 2011.

Hesford, Wendy S., and Eileen E. Schell. “Introduction: Configurations of Transnationality: Feminist Rhetorics.” College English, vol. 70, no. 5, 2008, pp. 461–470.

Kirsch, Gesa E. “The Challenges of Conducting Ethically Responsible Research.” Practicing Research in Writing Studies: Reflexive and Ethically Responsible Research, edited by Katrina M. Powell and Pamela Takayoshi, Hampton Press, 2012, pp. 409–414.

Lamos, Steve. “Institutional Critique in Composition Studies: Methodological and Ethical Considerations for Researchers.” Writing Studies Research in Practice: Methods and Methodologies, edited by Lee Nickoson and Mary P. Sheridan, Southern Illinois UP, 2012.

Mahboob, Ahmar, et al. “TESOL Quarterly Research Guidelines.” TESOL Quarterly, vol. 50, no. 1, 2016, pp. 42–65.

Nickoson, Lee, and Mary P. Sheridan, editors. Writing Studies Research in Practice: Methods and Methodologies. Southern Illinois UP, 2012.

Penman, Will. “A Field-Based Rhetorical Critique of Ethical Accountability.” The Quarterly Journal of Speech, vol. 104, no. 3, Aug. 2018, pp. 307–28. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1080/00335630.2018.1486032.

Powell, Katrina M., and Pamela Takayoshi, editors. Practicing Research in Writing Studies: Reflexive and Ethically Responsible Research. Hampton Press, 2012.

Powell, Katrina M., and Pamela Takayoshi. “Accepting Roles Created for Us: The Ethics of Reciprocity.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 54, 2003, pp. 394–421.

Ridolfo, Jim. “Delivering Textual Diaspora: Building Digital Cultural Repositories as Rhetoric Research.” College English, vol. 76, no. 2, 2013, pp. 136–51.

Royster, Jacqueline Jones, and Gesa E. Kirsch. Feminist Rhetorical Practices: New Horizons for Rhetoric, Composition, and Literacy Studies. Southern Illinois UP, 2012.

Schneider, Barbara. “Ethical Research and Pedagogical Gaps.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 58, no. 1, 2006, pp. 70–88.

Traywick, Deaver. “Preaching What We Practice: RCR Instruction for Undergraduate Researchers in Writing Studies.” Undergraduate Research in English Studies, edited by Laurie Grobman and Joyce Kinkead, NCTE, 2010, pp. 51–73.

Williams, Bronwyn T., and Mary Brydon-Miller. “Changing Directions: Participatory-Action Research, Agency, and Representation.” Ethnography Unbound: From Theory Shock to Critical Praxis, edited by Stephen Gilbert Brown and Sidney I. Dobrin, State U of New York P, 2004, pp. 241–58.

Discussion of Ethics in Creative Nonfiction

Bloom, Lynn Z. “Living to Tell the Tale: The Complicated Ethics of Creative Nonfiction.” College English, vol. 65, no.3, 2003, pp. 276–89.

Bradley, William. “The Ethical Exhibitionist’s Agenda: Honesty and Fairness in Creative Nonfiction.” College English, vol. 70, no. 2, 2007, pp. 202–15.

Cheney, Theodore A. Rees. “Ethical Considerations.” Writing Creative Nonfiction: Fiction Techniques for Crafting Great Nonfiction. Ten Speed Press, 2001, pp. 222–36.

Williams, Bronwyn. “Never Let the Truth Stand in the Way of a Good Story.” College English, vol. 65, no. 3, 2003, pp. 290–304.

Conducting Studies Involving Digital Media

Adkins, Tabetha. “Researching the ‘Un-Digital’ Amish Community: Methodological and Ethical Reconsiderations for Human Subjects Research.” Community Literacy Journal, vol. 6, no.1, (2011, pp. 39–53.

Augustine, Nora. “A Private Conversation in a Public Place: The Ethics of Studying ‘Virtual Support Groups’ Now.” Peitho: Journal of the Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric & Composition, vol. 25, no. 3, 2023, pp. 157–68.

Buck, Amber M., and Devon F. Ralston. “I Didn’t Sign Up for Your Research Study: The Ethics of Using ‘Public’ Data.” Computers and Composition: An International Journal for Teachers of Writing, vol. 61, Sept. 2021. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compcom.2021.102655.

Cavaliere, Cam, and Leigh Gruwell. “Developing a Feminist Mentorship Praxis for Digital Aggression Research.” Peitho: Journal of the Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric & Composition, vol. 25, no. 3, 2023, pp. 104–16.

Enoch, Jessica, and David Gold. “Introduction to the Special Issue on the Digital Humanities and Historiography in Rhetoric and Composition.” College English, vol. 76, no. 2, 2013, pp. 105–14.

Flores, Wilfredo. “Researching on the Intersectional Internet: Slow Coding as Humanistic Recovery.” Peitho: Journal of the Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric & Composition, vol. 25, no. 3, 2023, pp. 117–28.

Hoover, Ryan. “The Impact of NSF and NIH Websites on Research Ethics.” Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, vol. 40, no. 4, 2010, pp. 403–27.

Kelley, Brit. “Emotioned Research Methods: The Ethics of Online Fanfiction Research.” Loving Fanfiction. Routledge, 2021.

Kelley, Brit, and Stephanie Weaver. “Researching People Who (Probably) Hate You: When Practicing ‘Good’ Ethics Means Protecting Yourself.” Computers and Composition, vol. 56, June 2020, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compcom.2020.102567.

McDuffie, Kristi, and Melissa Ames. “Feminist Internet Research Ethics [Special Section].” Peitho: Journal of the Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric & Composition, vol. 25, no. 3, 2023, pp. 94–183.

McKee, Heidi. “Ethical and Legal Issues for Writing Researchers in an Age of Convergence.” Computers and Composition, vol. 25, no. 1, 2008, pp. 104–22.

McKee, Heidi, and Danielle Nicole DeVoss, editors. Digital Writing Research: Technologies, Methodologies, and Ethical Issues. Hampton Press, 2007.

McKee, Heidi, and James E. Porter. “The Ethics of Digital Writing Research: A Rhetorical Approach.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 59, no. 4, 2008, pp. 711–49.

———. “Legal and Regulatory Issues for Technical Communicators Conducting Global Internet Research.” Technical Communication, vol. 57, no. 2, 2010, pp. 282–99.

McKee, Heidi A., and James E. Porter. The Ethics of Internet Research: A Rhetorical, Case-Based Process. Peter Lang, 2009.

———. “The Ethics of Conducting Writing Research on the Internet: How Heuristics Help.” Writing Studies Research in Practice: Methods and Methodologies, edited by Lee Nickoson and Mary P. Sheridan, Southern Illinois UP, 2012, pp. 245–60.

Rose, Jeanne Marie. “When Human Subjects Become Cybersubjects: A Call for Collaborative Consent.” Computers and Composition, vol. 24, no. 4, 2007, pp. 462–77.

Takayoshi, Pamela. “Methodological Challenges to Researching Composing Processes in a New Literacy Context.” Literacy in Composition Studies, vol. 4, no. 1, 2016, pp. 1-23–23. licsjournal.org, https://doi.org/10.21623/1.4.1.2.

Taylor, Hannah. “Beyond Text: Ethical Considerations for Visual Online Platforms.” Peitho: Journal of the Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric & Composition, vol. 25, no. 3, 2023, pp. 129–39.

Williams, Bronwyn T., and Mary Brydon-Miller. “Ethics and Representation.” Sage Handbook of Digital Dissertations and Theses, edited by Richard Andrews et al., Sage, 2012, pp. 181–97.

Conducting Studies Using Archival Work

Cohen, Daniel J., and Roy Rosenzweig. Digital History: A Guide to Gathering, Presenting, and Preserving the Past on the Web. U of Pennsylvania P, 2005.

Enoch, Jessica, and Jean Bessette. “Meaningful Engagements: Feminist Historiography and the Digital Humanities.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 64, no. 4, 2013, pp. 634–60.

Enoch, Jessica, and David Gold, editors. Special Issue. “The Digital Humanities and Historiography in Rhetoric and Composition.” College English, vol. 76, no. 2, 2013.

McKee, Heidi, and James E. Porter. “The Ethics of Archival Research.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 64, no. 1, 2012, pp. 59–81.

Morris, Charles E. “Archival Queer.” Rhetoric and Public Affairs, vol. 9, no. 1, 2006, pp. 145–51.

Powell, Malea. “Dreaming Charles Eastman: Cultural Memory, Autobiography, and Geography in Indigenous Rhetorical Histories.” Beyond the Archives: Research as a Lived Process, edited by Gesa Kirsch and Liz Rohan, Southern Illinois UP, 2008, pp. 116–27.

Purdy, James. “Three Gifts of the Digital Archives.” Journal of Literacy and Technology, vol. 12, no. 3, 2011,  pp. 24–49.

Ramsey, Alexis E., et al., editors. Working in the Archives: Practical Research Methods for Rhetoric and Composition. Southern Illinois UP, 2010.

Ridolfo, Jim, et al. “Rhetoric and the Digital Humanities: Imagining The Michigan State University Israelite Samaritan Collection as the Foundation for a Thriving Social Network.” The Journal of Community Informatics, vol. 7, no. 3, 2011.

Tarez, Samra Graban. “From Location(s) to Locatability: Mapping Feminist Recovery and Archival Activity through Metadata.” College English, vol. 76, no. 2, 2013, pp. 171–93.

Tesar, Marek. “Ethics and Truth in Archival Research.” History of Education: Journal of the History of Education Society, vol. 44, no. 1, 2015, pp. 101–14.

Theimer, Kate. “Archives in Context and as Context.” Journal of Digital Humanities, vol. 1, no. 2, 2012.

Collaborating with Undergraduate Students

Allan, Elizabeth G. “‘Real Research’ or ‘Just For a Grade’? Ethnography, Ethics, and Engagement in the Undergraduate Writing Studies Classroom.” Pedagogy, vol. 18, no. 2, 2018, pp. 247-77.

DelliCarpini, Dominic​, et al., editors. The Naylor Report on Undergraduate Research in Writing Studies. Parlor Press, 2020.

Collaborating with Graduate Students

APA. “Tips for Determining Authorship Credit.” https://www.apa.org, 2015, https://www.apa.org/science/leadership/students/authorship-paper.

MLA Task Force on Ethical Conduct in Graduate Education. Report of the MLA Task Force on Ethical Conduct in Graduate Education. 2021, https://www.mla.org/content/download/124589/file/Ethical-Conduct-Graduate-Education.pdf.

CCCC Guidelines for the Ethical Conduct of Research in Composition Studies

Conference on College Composition and Communication, November 2003, Revised March 2015, Revised March 2025

Preamble

CCCC is committed to supporting research that helps writers, teachers, students, and the general public more fully understand writing, rhetoric, and communication in all forms and contexts. As a professional organization, we also wish to support the ethical conduct of research. Ethical considerations are relevant to all research methods in writing and rhetorical studies. Ethical conduct in research is not just about compliance with policies, regulations, and laws but also about our active and ongoing involvement and responsibility throughout the research process.

The following guidelines apply to research efforts by scholars, teachers, administrators, students, and others that are directed toward the publication of a book or journal article, presentation at a conference, preparation of a thesis or dissertation, display on a website, public-facing work, or other general dissemination of the results of research and scholarship. These guidelines apply to formally planned investigations, and they likewise apply to emergent studies that discuss writers and writing that researchers encounter in other ways, such as when teaching classes, holding student conferences, directing academic programs, conducting research in nonacademic settings, or going about their professional, civic, and personal lives. It is important to remember that ethical research practices do not end with following policy but should be at the foundation of how a researcher orients their work to the responsible stewardship of humans and their data generally.

Historically, composition research began with investigations conducted in college writing classrooms. Early research did not always seek to obtain informed consent from participants or permission to publish student writing. Today, we hold more rigorous standards as a professional organization and as journal editors, instructors, researchers, and readers. Institutions where we work also insist now on researcher training and neutral, third-party review of research involving human participants.

These guidelines are meant to provide newer CCCC members and long-standing CCCC members with information pertinent to the ethical conduct of research in writing and rhetoric studies. Please note that these guidelines are only a starting point for such consideration. They should be supplemented by texts listed in the selected bibliography and other materials relevant to the research. While research involving living human beings may require extra considerations and approvals, ethical considerations pertain to the conduct and representation of all research in our field. Various research methods investigate questions about writing and rhetoric, some drawn from the humanities and others from social sciences. No matter what methods we employ, writing and rhetoric researchers should take care to recognize and acknowledge the limits of their subjectivities, confirm and verify to the extent possible their conclusions by consulting multiple sources, and represent the words, ideas, and experiences of others with accuracy, fairness, dignity, and respect.

Research that involves living human beings often must be reviewed by an Institutional Review Board1 (IRB) to ensure researchers receive proper training in the ethical conduct of research involving human subjects, comply with existing federal and institutional regulations of this research, and not leave the determination of ethical conduct solely in the researcher’s hands. This document is designed to supplement IRB guidance on the ethical conduct of research by expanding research to include methods that may not involve human participants and to provide discipline-specific guidance, especially where local IRBs determine that composition research does not qualify for their purposes as “research” or where a researcher is working in a context without an IRB formal review.

CCCC represents numerous subfields, such as computers and writing, technical and professional communication, writing centers, applied linguistics, and second language writing, many of which have also issued their own ethical statements and have published commentary about conducting research that should be consulted if you are working in that field of specialization. Furthermore, the nature of writing and its influence on other disciplines often situates us as transdisciplinary research centers, bringing together multiple research traditions and writing practices. As CCCC members, we are committed to protecting the rights, privacy, dignity, and welfare of persons involved in our studies, whether as participants or coresearchers. We recognize that this commitment balances formal and legal guidelines deductively implemented via Institutional Review Boards and broader ethical frameworks inductively gathered from the values and norms of our field as expressed through our historical, current, and future guideline statements. This document is intended to assist researchers in fulfilling both levels of this commitment.

Suggestions and Recommendations

Ultimately, research is a conversation that builds between scholars and practitioners in a field, representing their values, knowledge, and goals. To this end, we offer some pragmatic suggestions that researchers working in composition and communication might consider as they frame their projects.

  1. Public Perception of Higher Education: A significant gap has emerged between how the public perceives the value of higher education (now largely negative) and what academics and researchers at colleges and universities know to be true about the great value of higher education (Fabricant and Brier; McMahon; Newfield). We invite researchers to keep this gap in mind and to design projects that will help demonstrate to a wide public audience the many personal, social, and civic benefits of a college education and advanced literacy training (“Is a College Degree Worth It in 2024?”). There is a significant need for replicable, aggregable, and data-supported research (Gonzales and Kells; Hassel and Phillips 37–78; Jackson et al.; King et al.; Meltzer 1–5).
  2. Local and Transnational Partnerships: Whenever possible, we urge researchers to actively seek to collaborate with local and transnational literacy colleagues, including high school English teachers and faculty, and staff at access institutions, including two-year colleges, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs), tribal colleges, Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), Asian American and Pacific Islander–Serving Institutions, and international institutions. Community-building research practices like this will allow local literacy teachers to meet and work together and help offset the often significant material differences in institutional resources and formal training in research practices that staff at access institutions often do not have. Collaboration across institutional and national boundaries will help the discipline develop a more accurate understanding of writing studies that do not rely almost exclusively on research “centered on students at selective universities” (Hassel and Phillips 3). We call on our colleagues at R1 universities to provide the leadership for this paradigm shift in our research practices (because they have the institutional resources and professional training to do so) and, possibly, to look at other international institutions that may offer new approaches neglected in the US context. Following Hassel and Phillips, we believe there is a “moral mandate” to engage in this kind of community building and diversification of our research practices.
  3. Leadership in Transdisciplinary Research: Many of our most pressing issues that require research are problems that span multiple fields. As composition and communication specialists, we are uniquely positioned to facilitate research that brings together many different types of expertise, expanding traditional research beyond the academy and reducing the barriers that institutional silos present to making progress toward our goals. Given our expertise in using evidence, writing across disciplinary perspectives, and centering power in conversations about research, we have an opportunity to play an important role in redefining the future of research in a way that makes room for different and varied voices. Transdisciplinary research is presented in both scholarly and public spaces. We cordially invite all researchers in our field to seek new ways to cross institutional and disciplinary boundaries and to make our work more inclusive and collaborative across disciplines and institutions.
  4. Digital and AI-Focused Research: As researchers and professionals, our voices are essential to the conversation about AI and best practices related to ethical research and writing related to emerging technologies. We invite our discipline to critically engage, explore, and question digital resources, AI tools, and other emerging technologies that impact writing pedagogy and research. We encourage projects that pay special attention to these applications, including an awareness of power dynamics, impact on curriculum and pedagogy, job markets, ethical limitations, etc.
Positionality and Power

As producers and consumers of writing and rhetoric research, we must consider the power relations between those we study, those we represent, and those we wish to address. This issue is one reason why research involving human participants should take care to ensure participants understand their rights (e.g., their participation is voluntary, can be withdrawn at any time without penalty, will not affect their grade in a course if it plays a role in the study, and will not cause them foreseeable harm). However, this is also an important consideration in research using archival methods or data publicly available on the internet (where permission may not have been required, for example, or unpublished materials found in an archive, if brought to further light through our research, may have unintended effects on living relatives or acquaintances of the writer we study; or that further broadcasting and amplifying a publicly available post on a social media or archive site may cause unintended harm to the poster or others). It is important to consider whether sharing participants’ stories, even anonymized ones, could be traced back through context in ways that could potentially inflict harm. The researcher’s job is to protect participants first and foremost, even if that means not using a particularly compelling artifact.

Power dynamics should be considered in authorship and participation. In some circumstances, it may be ideal to involve those we study in our analysis and writing. Where those we study may not have a forum to respond or offer a counterstory to our interpretations, such involvement may be especially beneficial and serve as a check on researcher biases and the oversights these biases inevitably produce. In some such instances, researchers may collaborate with those they study, involving and listing participants as coauthors. Graduate students who contribute to research and corresponding publications should receive authorship credit. However, there are also circumstances where researchers must work to preserve and even defend their voices and the interpretations of their findings. It may be the case that researchers offer alternative views that powerful individuals, groups, or majorities find threatening. It may also be the case that researchers themselves are more vulnerable and less powerful than those they study and, therefore, need protection from forces seeking to silence their findings or interpretations.

Researchers and readers should ask, whose voices are being silenced by this research? Whose voices are amplified? Are voices that have been traditionally marginalized made a priority, and is there a focus on listening to and amplifying these voices? Are they represented fairly and sufficiently? As with most ethical considerations, there is no one way to answer these questions for all research projects.

Working with Your IRB

As researchers, we learn about and comply with all policies, regulations, and laws that apply to our studies. Many institutions have an Institutional Review Board (IRB) or alternative review process to which we submit our plans for advance review and approval. We then conduct our studies using approved research plans. We also confirm with the IRB or alternative review committee if a proposed study should be exempt from review. If we work at or are students at an institution without an IRB or alternative review process, then we contact colleagues at other institutions to learn about and follow procedures that IRBs require. If working on projects that span multiple institutions, researchers must consider whether it is appropriate to have one IRB of record or other configurations that meet the needs of the research team and represented institutions (for more information about the SMART IRB integration system, visit https://smartirb.org/).

We also strongly encourage following the guidelines established by US federal policies, regulations, and laws on the ethical conduct of research. Researchers who conduct studies with institutions that do not have their own IRB should abide by the research guidelines of the partnering institution’s IRB. Researchers who conduct studies internationally or transnationally should also refer to the policies, regulations, and laws governing the locales where the research occurs. Although following these formal policies is a central concern when conducting research, it is important to note that IRB guidelines vary institutionally and may change depending on the context and articulation of the guidelines as per the institution of record. The US Office of Human Research Protections lists international standards that may be consulted.

We recommend following the IRB guidelines of the researcher’s institution and the required training for human subjects research. We recommend the following resources for those who would like to learn more about IRB processes and protocols:

IRB Process and Mentorship

Like any genre, IRB protocols are rhetorical, representing a negotiation in constructing meaning between multiple parties. Because every protocol looks different but acts as a legally binding document, approaching IRB paperwork for the first time, or even at a new institution, can be intimidating, confusing, or overwhelming. Relying on fellow researchers, institutional representatives with experience negotiating IRB at your institution, and others in the field to share advice and encouragement will increase the chances that the research makes it through IRB. This process generally begins with becoming CITI certified, laying out a detailed plan for your research and interaction with participants (including documents related to recruitment and consent, etc.), submitting your materials, and (as with all writing) receiving feedback and multiple rounds of revisions. While every process is different, adjusting your work to meet the needs of your review board is common and not a reflection of the quality or importance of the research.

Research is how disciplinary knowledge is created, and we thank you for doing this vitally important work for our profession and students. We encourage researchers to think boldly and creatively about their research projects. We also encourage you not to be disheartened by the IRB approval process and, instead, to persevere and do what you must to get approval. In the long run, the IRB will help make your projects stronger. Scheduling a meeting with your IRB representative or seeking advice from those at your institution who have been through IRB can help with the process.

The CCCC Research Committee recommends that researchers seek to mentor or serve as mentors through informal or formal programs to facilitate conversation, stay up to date with best practices, and share experiences to build a robust network of scholars in the field.

Consulting and Staying Informed

US federal policy allows an exception for studies that researchers conduct solely to improve their practice or discuss within their institution, often referred to as assessment or evaluation. Researchers should follow local review processes to confirm that a study falls under this exception. Moreover, even in studies granted an exemption, CCCC members must carefully protect their participants’ and coresearchers’ rights, privacy, dignity, and well-being.

Although we must comply with the final decision of our IRBs or alternative review processes, we recognize that review committee members may need to be educated about the particular methods and methodologies of writing research. As researchers, we have a responsibility to negotiate with committees about IRB requirements and restrictions that unnecessarily hamper research without benefiting participants. Moreover, our discipline must continue to engage in ongoing conversations with regulatory agents and agencies to advise them in developing policies, regulations, and laws that consider the methods and methodologies of writing research.

Research guidelines and frameworks are living documents that adjust to the times and trends in professional standards. For that reason, it is important to maintain awareness of this ongoing process of reflection and revision and adjust for changes in compliance. As researchers, we strive to refine our competence and to keep apprised of ongoing ethical discussions for several reasons:

  1. Understandings of and definitions of ethical research practices are constantly negotiated among members of a discipline or subfieldand, therefore, are subject to periodic change;
  2. New experiences among researchers and participants may raise new ethical issues; and
  3. Formal policies, regulations, and laws continually evolve. (Please see the “Selected Bibliography” section for evidence of this process in action.)

It is our responsibility to ensure that we and our coresearchers and assistants are appropriately trained and prepared to conduct the studies we undertake. Training and preparation may include class enrollment, review of relevant published research and methodological discussions, and consultation or collaboration with other experienced researchers.

As researchers who often supervise and collaborate with novice researchers, we understand the importance of maintaining frequent and open discussions of research procedures. This engagement is crucial to continue as the studies are conducted and disseminated. As noted above, ethical conduct in research is not just about compliance with policies, regulations, and laws but also about our active and ongoing involvement and responsibility throughout the research process.

Recruiting

Some studies may include populations who may be considered vulnerable and protected, including but not limited to minors, K–12 students, prisoners, pregnant people, military veterans, disenfranchised groups, persons with disabilities, Indigenous populations, undocumented (im)migrants, and adults with legal guardians. In these cases, as researchers, we consult carefully with the IRB/reviewing agencies, colleagues, and (when allowed) prospective participants to develop a protocol that protects their rights, privacy, well-being, and dignity.

Particular attention must be given when conducting studies with individuals perceived to have less institutional power or whose well-being depends on the researcher’s opinions, decisions, or actions. In these cases, we take special care to protect prospective participants from the adverse consequences of declining or withdrawing from participation.

To avoid situations in which students feel that their decision to participate in a study might affect their instructor’s treatment of them, we recruit participants from other classes or other sources when possible. If the research topic or other special circumstances require that the study involve our students, then we use measures to avoid coercion or perceived coercion, such as confirming students’ voluntary participation after grades are submitted or asking colleagues to conduct the actual data collection.

Obtaining Informed Consent

When asking people to volunteer to participate in (or in the case of coresearchers or novice researchers, collaborate in the design and execution of) a study, we, or a third party in the case of classroom research, provide participants a copy of a consent document and explain the study in a way that enables the participants to understand the following:

  1. The purpose of the research and its possible benefits.
  2. Why the participant was recruited.
  3. What the participant will be asked to do and how long it will take.
  4. What we plan to do with the information or data obtained from participants.
  5. Any potential discomforts, harms, or risks one might incur as a result of participating and how we plan on minimizing any potential discomforts, harms, or risks.
  6. Any potential benefits (including compensation, if any) participants may experience from the study.
  7. Whether or not we intend to include data in research reports that would render participants identifiable. (We always honor participants’ requests that disseminated reports contain no personally identifiable information, including data that would make them identifiable to persons familiar with the research site. We acknowledge that sometimes a conflict may emerge when some participants want to remain anonymous and others want to be recognized. We resolve the issue before presenting, publishing, or reporting on the study.)
  8. How confidential data will be stored and who will have access to confidential data and materials, particularly in the case of research teams/coresearchers. If data and materials are to be included in an archive, we receive explicit consent. (See “Conducting Studies Involving Archival Work.”)

In addition, we emphasize the following points:

  1. Participation is completely voluntary.
  2. Participants can decline to answer any questions instead of withdrawing from the study.
  3. Participation is an ongoing and constantly negotiated process between the participants and the researcher or research team.
  4. If anonymity for participants is not possible, then we are explicit about this constraint.
  5. Participants may withdraw at any time without penalty or loss of benefits to which they are otherwise entitled.

For studies involving vulnerable populations with parents or legal guardians, we obtain written permission from the parents or legal guardians in addition to the prospective participant’s assent or seek permission from IRBs for a waiver of consent. We also gain permission from collaborating institutions, such as public schools, prisons, or private workplaces, if required. We are careful to determine that whatever terms of access we agree to are consistent with the stipulations of applicable IRB regulations and the provisions of these guidelines.

We always give those invited to participate in a study opportunities to ask questions. When asked questions by participants during or after a study, we reply in a timely manner. In classes in which undergraduate and graduate students collaborate on research projects, we guide their work toward best practices and acknowledge their collaboration in any presentation, publication, or report. These guidelines concerning informed consent are intended to complement (not replace) any additional requirements of applicable policies, regulations, and laws.

Obtaining Informed Consent

When asking people to volunteer to participate in (or in the case of co-researchers or novice researchers, collaborate in the design and execution of) a study, we provide participants a copy of the consent document and explain the study in a way that enables the participants to understand the following points:

  1. The purpose of the research and its possible benefits.
  2. Why the participant was recruited.
  3. What the participant will be asked to do and how long it will take.
  4. What we plan to do with the information or data obtained from participants.
  5. Any potential discomforts, harms, or risks one might incur as a result of participating and how we plan on minimizing any potential discomforts, harms, or risks.
  6. Any potential benefits (separate from compensation, if any) participants may experience from the study.
  7. Whether or not we intend to include data in research reports that would render participants identifiable. (We always honor participants’ requests that disseminated reports contain no personally identifiable information, including data that would make them identifiable to persons familiar with the research site. We acknowledge that sometimes a conflict may emerge when some participants want to remain anonymous and others want to be recognized, and we resolve the issue before presenting, publishing, or reporting on the study.)
  8. How confidential data will be stored and who will have access to confidential data and materials, particularly in the case of research teams/co-researchers. If data and materials are to be included in an archive, we receive explicit consent (see “Conducting Studies Involving Archival Work”).

In addition, we emphasize the following points:

  1. Participation is completely voluntary.
  2. Participants can decline to answer any questions instead of withdrawing from the study.
  3. Participation is an ongoing and constantly negotiated process between the participants and the researcher or research team.
  4. If anonymity for participants is not possible, then we are explicit about this constraint.
  5. Participants may withdraw at any time without penalty or loss of benefits to which they are otherwise entitled.

For studies involving vulnerable populations who have parents or legal guardians, we obtain written permission from the parents or legal guardians in addition to the assent of the prospective participant or we seek permission from IRBs for a waiver of consent. If required, we also gain the permission of sponsoring institutions, such as public schools or private workplaces. We are careful to determine that whatever terms of access we agree to are consistent with the stipulations of applicable IRB regulations and the provisions of these guidelines.

We always provide those invited to participate in a study an opportunity to ask questions. When asked questions by participants during or after a study, we reply in a timely manner.

In the case of classes in which undergraduate and graduate students are collaborators in research projects, we guide their work toward best practices and acknowledge their collaboration in any presentation, publication, or report.

These guidelines concerning informed consent are intended to complement (not replace) any additional requirements of applicable policies, regulations, and laws.

Types of Studies
Conducting Studies Involving the Classroom

When conducting studies involving the classroom, we give primary consideration to the goals of the course and fair treatment of all students. Toward that end, we take the following measures, whether the students are members of our classes or are from classes taught by colleagues:

  1. We design our studies to be free of coercion.
  2. We assure participants that volunteering, declining to volunteer, or deciding to withdraw after volunteering will not affect a student’s grade.
  3. We assure participants that pursuing our research goals will not hinder achievement of the course’s educational goals.
  4. We ensure that all students receive the same course attention, instruction, support, and encouragement. For example, studies may be conducted so that instructors do not know who participated or not until the class is over.
  5. We ensure that reports on the research do not include information about students who did not volunteer.
  6. If there is a possibility that one or more of the volunteering students have changed their minds since the study began, we obtain confirming consent at the end of the course.
  7. In the case of classes in which undergraduate and graduate students are collaborators in research projects, we guide our work toward best practices and acknowledge their collaboration in any publication.
  8. In courses where data is collected, instructors must ensure that anonymity is respected or must engage a third party to avoid any coercion or negative impact on the students.
Conducting Studies Outside the Classroom

When conducting studies in sites outside the classroom, we give primary consideration to the contexts of our research and the fair treatment of all participants. Toward that end, we take the following measures:

  1. We design our studies so that participation is completely voluntary.
  2. We assure participants that volunteering, declining to volunteer, or deciding to withdraw after volunteering will not affect participants or a participant’s standing at the research site.
  3. We ensure that pursuing our research goals will not hinder the achievement or operation at our research site.
  4. We coordinate and discuss our research plan with site leaders/administrators before proceeding with research.
  5. We ensure that reports on the research do not include information about participants who did not volunteer.
  6. In the case of research projects in which participants, undergraduate, and/or graduate students are collaborators, we guide our work toward best practices and acknowledge their collaboration in any publication.
  7. When conducting research with protected/vulnerable populations, we follow federal guidelines to ensure our research is ethical and legal.
Conducting Studies Involving Digital Media

When conducting studies involving digital media and AI technologies2, various important variables must be considered. These include the researchers’ and participants’ expectations regarding the public or private nature of the artifacts, published versus unpublished documents, informed consent, the data’s sensitivity, the participant’s vulnerability, the data’s identifiability, and other variables. We recognize that these variables are often contingent and may shift in response to revised trajectories in disciplinary research practices; newly introduced, innovative technologies; and the multifaceted histories that specific digital communities have experienced. Using AI to analyze or report research findings should include careful consideration, particularly where participant privacy concerns are in play. For example, researchers should proceed with extra caution concerning protected data and participant responses, which are not always appropriate to upload to generative AI programs, as that information can be saved and used in other contexts. Because AI and privacy issues are evolving, staying updated on policy regarding how to best protect participant data is essential. In all cases, we should explicitly justify our research choices and our positioning as researchers when we plan, conduct, and publish our studies.

We do not assume, for example, that all digital communications are available for research studies simply because they can be accessed. Nor do we assume that we must always receive express permission from authors before citing their digital materials. A balance must be struck between these extremes, a balance that is informed by institutional regulation, consultation with published research and other researchers, discussion with members of the online communities themselves, and sensitivity to and understanding of the expectations that authors (including student authors) may have had in posting their materials.

We also know that promising participants anonymity may be impossible when conducting certain digital studies. Communication technologies may not be secure enough for discussing sensitive topics. Likewise, search engines have become increasingly powerful in locating text strings. Materials protected behind a firewall or password today may become readily available tomorrow as passwords are compromised, the mode of access changes, a database is archived, or other technological modifications occur that are beyond the researcher’s control. To address these potentially fluid conditions, we may need to integrate practices that take into account these possibilities, such as finding alternate means of communicating with participants, turning off the collection of IP addresses in online survey services, asking participants’ permission to use real names or screen names, allowing participants to review interview data before employing them, and so on.

Researchers interested in digital media are encouraged to consult the more extensive ethical guidelines published in these subfields, including those by the Association of Internet Researchers. They are also encouraged to consult the many discussions in the bibliography we have provided.

Conducting Studies Involving Archival Work

As researchers, we often consult library resources, museums, and other archives. These materials are not governed by IRB review. However, we know that some archival materials may have been assembled without ethical consideration for all cultural stakeholders and that the understanding of ethical standards may shift over time. As researchers, we are alert to these concerns and debates. When we use these archival materials, we strive to represent them and their multilayered, multivoiced contexts accurately and fairly. Researchers working with archival materials should be mindful of the potential effects of unearthing and disseminating materials on descendants and others and, as in all research decisions, attempt not to harm.

The following guidelines speak to studies involving living participants and the intent to generate, construct, and curate an archive. Such a study typically requires approval from an IRB committee. For example, as researchers, we may collect and analyze a large sample of student or professional documents and then make the documents available for use by other researchers. When we plan to build a new archive as a component of a study, we need to negotiate several considerations:

  1. As researchers, we are sensitive to our participants’ cultural stakes in a long-term materials archive. We explicitly ask permission to include participant materials in an archive. In some cases, stakeholders may actively collaborate to build the archive. Negotiations over what materials to include and exclude should be explicit, and they may need to consider the archival materials’ impact on the descendants of those whose work is included.
  2. Libraries and other institutional repositories may not be able to accept materials from studies involving human participants unless their versions of permission forms are collected in addition to informed consent letters. (These additional permissions often address intellectual property and access issues.) As researchers, we consult early in the process with the intended host to determine what conditions may apply and what procedures to follow.
  3. We must balance accessibility to the archive with the participants’ and the future researchers’ rights to privacy. When we create archives, we organize the artifacts and the information about their provenance to make the organization clear and consistent. If we create or adopt data-mining tools for digital archives, we facilitate access to the artifacts without violating the researchers’ privacy. When we compile culturally sensitive records, we are careful to follow procedures to maintain participants’ anonymity when permission to use real names is not granted (for example, by removing identifying information and/or by embargoing materials until an agreed-upon date).
  4. We acknowledge the impact that different cataloging, data-mining, coding, and other software may have in shaping our access to and interpretation of archival information. When building an archive and reporting on materials in an archive, we explicitly name and justify the relevant software used.
  5. We strive to ensure the proper long-term storage and preservation of artifacts, whether physical or digital.
  6. We respect copyright laws.
Conducting Studies Involving Assessment Data

Studies involving assessment data may include outcome data, portfolio evidence, survey data, directed self-placement scores, interviews, and so on. According to US federal policy, if such studies are conducted for internal assessment (e.g., placement testing, improving a program), they are typically considered exceptions to IRB approval. As researchers, we should confirm the exception (request an exemption) and discuss local requirements (e.g., data anonymity) with our IRB/review committee.

If we plan to present, publish, or report on assessment data beyond the local institution, we should submit a protocol for advance review and approval by the IRB/review committee.

Research Best Practices

Using Unpublished Writing Collected Outside of an IRB-Approved Study

When studying unpublished writing samples that have been collected outside of a study approved by an IRB or other process, we (and, when applicable, our undergraduate/graduate researchers, collaborators, and colleagues) determine whether our planned use of these samples is consistent with the policies governing research at our institutions and, if different, the institution at which the samples were collected.

When using unpublished writing samples for reasons outside of research purposes (e.g., textbook samples, writing samples collected for writing consultant or teacher training), IRB should be consulted to determine whether our use of these samples is consistent with the policies governing student privacy at our institutions, and, if different, the institution at which samples were collected. In all cases, we should attempt to gain the writers’ permission.

We continue to apply the same ethical guidelines to these materials we employ when analyzing and reporting on data collected under the auspices of an IRB-approved study. We are also mindful that copyright regulations may apply to these materials.

Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Reporting Statements

In our publications, presentations, and other research reports, we quote, paraphrase, or otherwise report unpublished written statements only with the author’s permission. That permission may be indicated by written consent, through click-through approval on a form in digital/online research, and/or through another procedure approved by an IRB or alternative review process. We likewise seek permission to quote, paraphrase, or otherwise report a spoken statement that a participant has made with the expectation that it will remain private. US federal policy allows an exception for spoken statements made while participants are speaking in or attending a public forum (the definition of which may be contingent upon institutional regulation, previously published research, and the expectations of the participants involved).

When quoting, paraphrasing, or reporting unpublished writing and reporting (with permission) oral statements made in private, we respect the writer’s or speaker’s wishes about whether or not to include the writer’s or speaker’s name or identifying information. When the writer or speaker is a member of a vulnerable/protected population with a parent or legal guardian, we must obtain permission from a parent or legal guardian in addition to the assent of the prospective participant. When we use an informed consent process approved by an IRB or similar committee, we have obtained the necessary permission.

We do our best to represent language/meaning accurately, understanding that meaning making is often negotiated, shifting, multivoiced, and changeable over time. We report written and spoken statements in ways consistent with the collected data and avoid deliberately misrepresenting participants’ words. We provide contextual information, enabling others to understand the statements the way the writer or speaker intended. When in doubt, we check the accuracy of the reports and interpretations with the writer or speaker. We are especially sensitive to the need to check interpretations when the writer or speaker is from a cultural, ethnic, or other group different from our own.

When discussing the statements we quote, paraphrase, or otherwise report, we do so in ways that avoid harm.

Using Video, Audio, Photographs, and Other Identifiable Representations of Participants

Because video, audio, photographs, and other representations (e.g., cartoons) of participants in the studies that we conduct allow individuals to be identified, we include them in conference presentations, publications, or other public displays only with written consent (or other approved procedure for receiving consent) from all persons whose voices and/or images were recorded or shown. When the person recorded is a member of a vulnerable/protected population with a parent or legal guardian, we obtain permission from the parent or legal guardian in addition to the assent of the prospective participant. When we use an informed consent process approved by an IRB or similar committee, we have obtained the necessary permission.

One exception allowed by US federal policy is when the recording was made while participants were speaking in or attending a public forum (the definition of which may be contingent upon institutional regulation, previously published research, and the expectations of the participants involved).

Working with Coresearchers and Coauthors

Research studies often rely upon the assistance of many people, not only the participants but also those who organize and perform data collection and those who assist with coding and analysis. We invite researchers to be generous in acknowledging these contributions, whether by name or general category (e.g., manuscript reviewers).

In some cases, participants and/or other contributors to a study should be considered coresearchers and/or coauthors. Determining who should be a coresearcher and/or coauthor depends on disciplinary convention, institutional regulation, and local expectations. Ideally, participants who become coresearchers and/or coauthors benefit, learn, and gain insight/knowledge through the collaborative process. We strive for reciprocal relations. Participants who become coauthors should be made aware that a designated “author” on a publication has legal privileges (e.g., copyright) and ethical obligations for acceptable conduct, representation, and/or dissemination.

Coresearcher status and/or coauthorship may be determined at the beginning of the study or emerge during the study. In either case, expectations about who can use what data and under what circumstances should be negotiated and made explicit. Many institutions have a representative, committee, or office (such as the IRB office or Ombuds Office) that can assist in negotiating these expectations to avoid conflicts.

Working with Editors/Publishers

  • When accepting manuscripts for publication or other public display, editors and publishers should help maintain ethical standards without unduly burdening the researcher. For example, editors/publishers should double-check for instances where identifying information has been incorporated accidentally into a manuscript or for representations of participants that may be misunderstood. Policies regarding generative AI and its use in research vary depending on the publisher. Any guidance offered should be followed by the researchers producing manuscripts. Communication regarding AI, including policies on data mining and protection or sharing of authored materials, should be made clear to parties on both sides of the publication process.

Publishers also recognize the difference between informed consent letters (approved by an IRB or other reviewing committee) and copyright release permissions. If participants have been promised anonymity, requesting copies of the signed informed consent letters is inappropriate. Follow local and national guidelines to indicate possible financial conflicts of interest.

Selected Bibliography

CCCC has compiled a selected bibliography of sources on the ethical conduct of research involving human participants.

Notes

1An institutional review board is a committee established under the federal regulation to protect research participants (45 CFR 46). Each IRB is legally responsible for ensuring that all research involving human participants conducted under the aegis of its institution complies with this regulation. For more information, visit the website of the federal Office for Human Research Protections: http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/.

2This section has been informed by work by Heidi McKee & James E. Porter. “The Ethics of Digital Writing Research: A Rhetorical Approach.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 59, no. 4, 2008, 711–749, and by the Association of Internet Researchers’ 2002 and 2012 reports on ethical decision-making and Internet research, located at http://aoir.org/ethics/.
Researchers may also be interested in the Statement of Principles and Best Practices by the Oral History Association, located at http://www.oralhistory.org/about/principles-and-practices/.

Acknowledgments

This statement was generously revised by the CCCC Research Committee. The members of this committee include:

Rebecca Day Babcock
Samira Grayson
Rochelle Gregory
Kathryn Lambrecht
Ligia A. Mihut (Co-Chair)
Christina Saidy
Patrick Sullivan (Co-Chair)
Laura Wilder

This position statement may be printed, copied, and disseminated without permission from NCTE.

First Time at the Convention?

Resources for First-Time Convention Attendees
From the CCCC Newcomers’ Welcoming Committee:

With pleasure, the CCCC Newcomers’ Welcoming Committee welcomes all of you to the 2025 CCCC Annual Convention, but especially new members and first-time attendees. We have planned several events that we hope will help you get the most out of this Convention. (These events and their locations are listed in the Special Events schedules in the program.)

On Wednesday, our committee will host an Orientation Session (5:15–6:15 p.m., Room 307, Level 300, Baltimore Convention Center), where we will discuss how to navigate the Convention, how to use the program effectively, how to participate in the Convention’s many events, and how to meet others. We also look forward to meeting you at the Newcomers’ Coffee Hour on Thursday (7:30–8:15 a.m., Otterbein Lobby, Level 200, Baltimore Convention Center), a congenial start to the first full day of activities, where you can begin the kinds of professional conversations that have made this Convention one of the high points of the year for each of us.

We also hope that you will attend the Think-Tank (Thursday, 3:15–4:30 p.m., Room 337, Level 300, Baltimore Convention Center) for proposing presentations and panels for the 2026 CCCC Annual Convention. At this session, you will have the opportunity to brainstorm initial ideas regarding papers and sessions, meet with other newcomers interested in similar topics, and also meet with established scholars in our field with expertise in the various program clusters in rhetoric, composition, and communication studies. These scholars will serve as facilitators, helping you conceptualize and frame your proposals.

Throughout the Convention, the Newcomers’ Welcoming Committee members will wear specially marked badges. Please say hello; we are happy to listen to your concerns or answer any questions you have.

With warm good wishes,

The CCCC Newcomers’ Welcoming Committee
Megan Busch, Chair
Jessica Jorgenson Borchert
Alex Evans
Michael Harker
Travis Margoni
Ben McCorkle
Sean Morey
Eliot Parker
Ellen Payne
Michael Rifenburg
Matt Rome
Katie Silvester
Christine Tulley

Pack Your Bags for CCCC 2016!

Pack Your Bags Suitcase ImageCCCC 2016 is just a few weeks away! It’s time to start thinking about what to bring to make this a fantastic Convention experience.

Some “must haves” to help you make the most of your CCCC experience:

  

   

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Your commitment to writers and writing!

Your values and passion will form a foundation for your thinking at CCCC 2016!

 

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Your issues!

You’ll have lots of opportunities at CCCC 2016 to develop systematic strategies for taking action: the Taking Action Workshops, stations in the Action Hub, sessions, caucuses, SIGS, and more!

 

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Your writing or research to make a difference!

Attend the Framing Messages Taking Action Workshop (Sessions B, E, H, J), or visit the Knowledge Shaping and Writing for Change Stations in the Action Hub to learn to frame,  produce, and deliver even more effective messages about writing, writers, or issues related to writing instruction!

 

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Your ideas to pitch!

Bring your ideas and visit the Pitch Practicing station in the Action Hub to practice talking to audiences outside of the field! (Check out this video for examples!)

 

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Your curiosity!

CCCC 2016 is a great opportunity to learn about new ideas, or to learn more about ideas you already have!

 

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Your collegiality!

Over 3,500 people will attend CCCC 2016. Reach out and meet someone new!

  

Of course, you’ll also want to include things to make you comfortable in your travels around CCCC 2016, too:

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Comfortable shoes for moving around the convention venue and Houston

A water bottle to stay hydrated

An extra tote bag for books you’ll get in the Exhibit Hall!

  
 

Copyright

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