Conclusions

In this essay I have tried to describe the ways in which a new from of scholarly discourse can be sculpted. Although the scope and length of this work does not make it an appropriate forum for discussing in detail the impact or methodology of this new form of discourse, my aim is to highlight the need and possibilities that new technologies provide and which cannot be ignored if scholarly discourse is to fit into the daily lives of students, researchers and academics who exist in the wider and fast-moving multi-modal world.


There will be many issues in crafting new forms of expression. The first and most obvious will be in the assessment and planning of work in multi-modal presentation formats: this is necessarily more complex than writing a traditionally structured essay and, initially, takes some additional time for establishing structures, adding links, creating non-textual content etc. There are however compensating benefits for this work: a more engaging and absorbing work; a longevity beyond a project's first use; the ability to publish widely and add value to and/or edit the project over time (as long appropriatte!).


Not only will there be technical and time issues but there are also broader issues to consider which will include the role of visual communication, media skills, VLEs (which are rarely platform neutral nor open and interoperable), the role of open access materials and it's relationship to trends in Open Access publishing, intellectual property rights and copyright, statistics (both for resource management and, potentially, for trackings-based assessment), and the role of for-profit but free at the point of use web services as providers of "mission critical" information services.

However the idea of a new form of scholarly discourse, particularly for educational purposes, links into a broader scholarly environment which should include the regular addition of value-adding content such as linked citations, dynamic and interactive graphs, social networking features, etc. This discourse must also encompass factors which are important to academic institutions and and their staff and users: free or inexpensive access, good interface design, easy access.

This could be achieved by a move towards the semantic web in the long run. This must be alongside the acceptance of new technologies and the adoption of programmes such as Library Learning 2.0 (Hastings and Newman 2008) to foster a new understanding of new structures and multi-modal communication styles in scholarly discourse in the shorter term.