Category: Uncategorized

Call to Host

• Proposal Timeline
• Application Criteria
• Required Application Sections
• Past and Future Computers and Writing Locations and Hosts

The CCCC Committee on Computers in Composition and Communication (7Cs) invites all interested institutions to submit proposals to host the onsite Computers and Writing conference(s), which are held annually.

The Computers and Writing Conference is the main conference for those who use computers and networks to teach writing. It brings together scholars, teachers, and professionals from all over the world in an intimate, welcoming setting to discuss the problems, successes, innovations, and logistics of computer and network-based writing instruction.

Since there is no formal organization that oversees the conference and its continuity from year to year, the Computers and Writing community relies upon the generosity of institutions of higher education to host the conference. Typically, these institutions can donate time, personnel, facilities, and limited funding to make the conference a success. Proposals include information about a proposed theme, possible keynote speakers, activities, and innovations that will make the conference a success.

The 7Cs welcomes proposals from individual institutions of higher education as well as those that are collaborative across institutions, including community colleges, K-12 institutions, and nonprofits.

Proposal Timeline

We seek applications two to three years prior to target hosting dates (e.g., for proposing to host C&W in 2024, the application should be completed during 2022; proposals to host in 2025 may be completed in 2022 or 2023).

• May-June (post-C&W): Call for Hosts posted
• June to October: If desired, talk with 7Cs to discuss interest
• November 1: Email of Intent due to Committee chair(s)
• February 15: Applications due
• March-April (at CCCC): Applications reviewed
• May-June (at C&W): Site(s) for conference(s) announced

1. Question period. After the Call for Hosts comes out, look over these guidelines and decide if you need to speak with the 7Cs committee before considering your intent to host. If you have questions about hosting—anything from budgets to locations to technologies used, etc.—email the committee chair with your questions, or request an online meeting. Alternatively, you can meet in person by setting up an individual meeting during the CCCC or C&W, attending the open portion of the 7Cs Business Meeting at CCCC, or attending the 7Cs Open Meeting during the C&W conference that year. Meeting f2f is not mandatory, nor is querying the committee prior to submitting your letter of intent. It’s just in case you have questions.
2. Statement of Intent. By November 1, submit a statement of intent by sending an email to the committee chair. Indicate in the subject line which year you are interested in proposing to host. This statement can be an informal email that allows 7Cs to know who’s interested and who the host-proposal contact person is, in case we have questions prior to the application due date. (This also allows 7Cs time to solicit proposals, if we don’t get any intentions by Nov. 1.)
3. Application. By February 15, email the committee chair with the URL of a web-accessible version or Google Doc responding to the application criteria, listed in the next section. The committee may contact submitters, and in some cases ask for revisions, if it has questions or concerns about a proposal.
4. Acceptance. Following its CCCC Business Meeting, the committee will contact proposers to indicate acceptance status of the proposals. The selected host(s) will be publicly announced at that year’s C&W conference. After that point, the selected host(s) are responsible for all advertising, although the 7Cs is available for help and to answer questions during the lead-up to the conference(s).

Application Criteria

The 7Cs committee will be assessing proposals based on the following criteria:

• The stability, experience, and status of the applicant and identified staff members.
• Evidence of adequate funding and commitment from funding agencies, departments, and so forth.
• Complete budget showing well-thought out and realistic projections.
• Reasonable facilities (rooms, technology, etc.) for conference session accommodations (as well as the quality of the accommodations themselves).
• Reasonable costs for hotel and/or dorm accommodations, including concern for graduate students and others in the community who traditionally have less departmental support for professional development.
• Plans for the conference program that show a theme (if desired), variety of possible keynotes and/or session strands, appropriate focus, clear sense of structure.
• Plans for including hybrid or online participation elements (if applicable).
• Reasonable registration costs that account for multiple kinds of attendees.
• Added value of any sponsoring events (dinners, tours, etc.).
• Facility support for disabled conference attendees and other attendees with special needs.
• Accessibility of site (geographical location) and distance/difference from recent, previous conference sites (when possible).
• Uniqueness, ability to enhance or improve the conference.
• Depth and substance of plans to collaborate with online conference organizers

When applying, consider the above criteria when answering the Required Application Questions in the next section. Your application can include links to material about the speakers, hotel, local attractions, technologies being considered, and so forth. The more information you can provide for the Selection Committee, the better.

Required Application Sections

If a section or item isn’t applicable, please indicate so.

Background Information

1. Date Application Posted
2. Name of Organizing Committee Chair/Lead Applicant
3. Institution (if applicable)
4. Postal and Email Address
5. Phone
6. Name, Affiliation, and Contact Information for All Other Organizing Committee Members
7. Year Proposed

Conference Funding

1. Source of funding
2. Amount of funding
3. How will you allocate funding? (Please attach detailed preliminary budget)
4. Approximately what will you charge for registration? What will additional events (e.g., special tours or trips) cost?

Conference Facilities

1. In the past, up to 400 people have registered for the Computers and Writing onsite conference. Please list hotel(s) or dorm(s) and number of rooms to be set aside for attendees.
   a. Main facility providing accommodations
   b. Number of rooms reserved
   c. Additional Hotels
   d. Number of rooms reserved
2. What will you do to provide a location and adequate exposure for affiliate groups? How will you guard against uneven placement and ensure traffic for the exhibits?
3. What will be the cost of hotel or university accommodations for attendees?
4. Why are you a good site for the conference in terms of excellence of faculty planners, computer/conference facilities, and accommodations?
5. How far is the conference site from a major transportation hub? Identify any potential travel agency connections.
6. What computer support can you provide for attendees drafting papers, printing documents, checking email, and so forth? Are labs available on campus? What kind of Internet access will be available?
7. The ideal site will be in a location that offers a safe environment for conference attendees regardless of their race, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religious belief, or cultural background. To your knowledge, are there any legal, social, or cultural reasons that your site may pose a problem? How does your site ensure accessibility?

Conference Program and Events

1. Past conferences have sponsored as many as 55 hour-and-15-minute sessions over a two- or three-day period. These are concurrent sessions with approximately four speakers for each session. Conferences have commonly begun with workshops, registration, and (sometimes a) keynote or reception on Thursday, held concurrent sessions all day Friday and Saturday and on Sunday morning, and occasionally ended with a brunch or lunch and final speaker on Sunday, followed by an open 7Cs meeting and/or area tours. Briefly describe your plans for the conference program—its structure, focus, and/or theme.
2. Briefly describe any plans to include hybrid and/or online conference participation. What support structures are in place to ensure their success?
3. Who will you ask to review proposals to ensure high quality?
4. Are you planning on sponsoring other events (dinners, tours) that attendees might participate in? If so, please list, with cost above in the Funding section.
5. What specific features are you planning to make your meeting unique or to improve or enhance the Computers and Writing conference?

Conference Management and Staff

1. What kind of help or advice from past organizers would you find most useful?
2. Would you be willing to serve as a non-voting member on the CCCC’s Committee on Computers and Composition for the year preceding and following your hosting the conference, to receive and then provide counsel about hosting the conference?
3. Which previous Computers and Writing Conferences have you and/or your Co-Chairs attended?
4. Please add any other comments you might have regarding plans for Computers and Writing.

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View videos related to content published in College Composition and Communication (CCC).

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Editor:

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A conversation with Courtney L. Werner, author of “How Rhetoric and Composition Described and Defined New Media at the Start of the Twenty-First Century” (20:26)

Courtney L. Werner is an assistant professor of English at Monmouth University. She teaches courses on composition, digital composition, and linguistics. Her work has appeared in various collections as well as Computers and Composition and CEA Forum, and she is currently studying digital rhetoric in the writing center.

A conversation with Jessica Pauszek, author of “’Biscit’ Politics: Building Working-Class Educational Spaces from the Ground Up” (11:38).

Jessica Pauszek is an assistant professor of English and the Director of Writing at Texas A&M University-Commerce. Her work appears in Literacy in Composition Studies and Reflections. She is managing editor for New City Community Press and a coeditor of the Working and Writing for Change series with Parlor Press.

Louisville, Kentucky

In March, the Intellectual Property Caucus met in Louisville, KY at the annual Conference on College Composition and Communication. Open to all registrants at the CCCC, the yearly meeting of the caucus provides an opportunity for participants to learn about intellectual property (IP)-related developments during the previous twelve months as well as to join in roundtable discussions about continuing or pending IP issues likely to affect instructors and students.

Summary of Roundtable Discussions
Among the roundtables this year was one at which participants discussed the uploading to instructor-rating sites of materials generated by college instructors (e.g., study guides and exams) and the impact of such uploading on the instructors’ intellectual property rights. This table also discussed the issues that may arise when K-12 teachers sell lesson plans. Do such materials fall into the category of work for hire, which may imply that these lesson plans are not theirs to sell? The question suggests the importance of intellectual property agreements even on the K-12 level.

Another roundtable discussed corporate pressure on YouTube that may lead to unwarranted restrictions on the fair use of copyrighted materials by educators and students. For example, the automated application of Content ID technology can prevent students from posting montages and can result in the unexpected disappearance of materials that instructors were planning to make use of in their classes. As it happened, only days before the caucus the organizers of this roundtable were presented with a perfect example of the misuse of Content ID when a lecture by Lawrence Lessig, noted authority on intellectual property issues, was pulled by YouTube.

Among the issues addressed by other roundtables: the relationship between fair use and our students’ growing exploitation of visual rhetoric; the impact of open access archives on higher education; and the need for educators to advocate for and implement open source software solutions. Participants debated the circumstances under which educators should encourage students to participate in the Creative Commons enterprise. They wondered what students could be encouraged to publish without either students or instructors running afoul of copyright restrictions. They discussed the need for educators to provide unrestricted access to data through the creation of open access archives where both scholarship and student work could be deposited. Participants at roundtables also brainstormed a number of specific IP resources that could be created for educators and students, such as an open source ‘starter kit’ with links to open source software as well as to instructions and tutorials for such software.

An Action Item from this Year’s Caucus
One specific step that participants were able to take at the caucus itself was the drafting of a letter in answer to a request in the Federal Register for public comments on the issue of strengthening U.S. enforcement of IP rights. This call for public comments was in response to a requirement in the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2008 that the federal government develop a strategy for protecting IP rights. Caucus participants were concerned that the call for comments in the Federal Register focused exclusively on the interests of copyright holders even though the wording of the U.S. Constitution implies that sometimes such interests must yield in favor of the promotion of learning.  Participants therefore expressed their hope that the office charged with developing an IP strategy would be mindful of the ways in which the enforcement of copyright may adversely affect the educational community. In support of its request that this concern be taken into account, the letter pointed to situations in which “over-zealous and improper enforcement” have interfered with — or even prevented legitimate use of copyrighted material for educational purposes. Before this appeal was sent on to the United States Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, it was submitted to the Committee on Intellectual Property of the CCCC, which joined the Intellectual Property Caucus in endorsing it. The larger CCCC organization supported the letter as well as did almost 100 other individuals and organizations who attached their signatures to the letter.

Members of the caucus will continue to follow the process by which the federal government develops its intellectual property enforcement strategy in hopes of keeping the needs of students and educators in the forefront.

Next Year’s CCCC-IP Caucus – Atlanta, Georgia 2011
Caucus members are also in the process of preparing proposals for roundtables for the 2011 caucus, which will take place at next year’s CCCC in Atlanta, GA. Coordinator of the proposals is the new senior chair of the caucus, Traci Zimmerman, an associate professor in the School of Writing, Rhetoric, and Technical Communication at James Madison University, where she teaches courses in authorship, literacy, and rhetorical theory. In addition to chairing the caucus, Traci serves on the Editorial Board for the NCTE IP Committee/Caucus Inbox Project.  Anyone with questions about the caucus and its plans for its annual meeting in 2011 can contact Traci at zimmerta@jmu.edu.

Kim D. Gainer
Associate Professor
Department of English
Radford University
Radford, VA
kgainer@radford.edu

Intellectual Property Reports Main Page

Workshop Reports of the 1951 Conference on College Composition and Communication Meeting, March 30-31, Morrison Hotel, Chicago.

A conversation with Sarah Klotz, author of “Impossible Rhetorics of Survivance at the Carlisle School, 1879–1883.” (10:37)

Sarah Klotz is currently research assistant professor at the Center for Urban Education at USC’s Rossier School of Education. Prior to her current position, she was an English professor at Butte Community College in Northern California, where she taught first-year composition, basic writing, and Native American literature courses. Her research focuses on the intersections of race and literacy education in the United States. She is currently completing a monograph titled Decolonizing Developmental Writing: A Rhetorical History of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, which has been awarded funding through an Emergent Research/er Grant from the Conference on College Composition and Communication.