UniversityPress receives grant of nearly $25,000 for digital publishing
April 18 | Posted by editor | Lumpkin, News Tags: North Georgia College & State University
Dahlonega, GA – The University Press of North Georgia (UPNG), a scholarly press operated by North Georgia College & State University, has won a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Digital Start-Upgrant for $24,923 to support the press’s exploration of peer review processesfor publishing born-digital book-length scholarly monographs in the humanities toencourage their support, acceptance, and use in academia.
The Press plans to develop and pilot a model for peerreview and eventual electronic publishing of single-author digital monographs.This model will involve sharing resources among small university presses toensure economic viability and to help alleviate the pressures facing academicpublishing.
“Our project will leverage the expertise available atsmall university presses and build their capacity to encourage more scholarlypublishing in the humanities,” said Dr. B. J. Robinson, UPNG director anddirector of the grant project.
Peer review intends to ensure quality scholarship andis a crucial benchmark in the academic review process. It is one of the mostimportant issues in digital humanities, as it potentially affects access toscholarly work and copyright.
“Large university presses, for various reasons,currently demonstrate reluctance to change and innovate in exploringrevolutionizing options for pre- and post-publication peer review, especiallyas applied to digital monographs,” Robinson said. “A small press, like UPNG,can serve as a model to other, larger presses and hopefully work toward asolution that will benefit the entire scholarly community, including scholars,university administrators, editors, librarians, and students.”
NEH Digital Start-Up grants are designed to encourageinnovations in the digital humanities. Level I funding, like that received byNorth Georgia, supports brainstorming sessions, data gathering and initial planning.UPNG plans to seek NEH Digital Start-Up grant Level II funding for up to$50,000 to implement the collaborative model developed in this initial work.
In addition to Robinson, project participants includeApril Loebick, UPNG managing editor; Dr. Markus Hitz, professor of computer sciences; Dr. Chris Jespersen, dean of the School of Arts & Letters; and Dr. DeniseYoung, executive director of institutional effectiveness. Other participantsinclude the directors of the University Press of Akron, the University Press of Florida, and Wayne State University Press.
An advisory board for the project includes KathleenFitzpatrick, director of scholarly communication with the Modern LanguageAssociation; Kathy Kiloh, director of Athabasca University Press; SaskiadeVries, director of Amsterdam University Press; and members of the OpenTextbook Consortium.
Work on the project begins this month withpreliminary data gathering among the consortia. In September 2012, Robinsonwill attend a planning meeting at the NEH offices in Washington, DC, and allproject participants will meet for a workshop in Dahlonega in November. Work onthe project will culminate in July 2013 with a dissemination of researchfindings and a white paper that will be posted on the NEH website.
For more information, please visit the UniversityPress of North Georgia website at www.upng.org.
