Having revisited and then categorised the data from the seven interviews, I've rewritten the my original research questions (submitted within my 17 December Research Proposal). On reflection, questions 2 and 3 from my Research Proposal cover too much of the same ground. Also, the questions ignore the conditions that promote/discourage multimodal approaches to assignments, which has been one of more interesting themes to emerge from both the data and my lit review. I think the new combination of questions are also more able to directly address my overarching question posed within the dissertation. Anyway, I have gone...

From this:

...to this:

I was tidying up some of the papers from my Lit Review last night and rediscovered these three that I need to revisit when/if time allows. I've snapped them and put the reminder here so I don't overlook them again. A visual reminder.

Following on from my previous post (about McEwan Hall entrance) here's a picture I took of an (old) University crest attached to a wall on Bristo Square. I'm not sure where this will come into my dissertation (if at all) however I'm adding it here as a reminder, and also because I like the photo. Actually, the ideal place for this would be within the Literature review when I'm talking about Ray Land's reflections on university crests. Perhaps I include the static image alongside the text. Or perhaps I develop it in some animated way. Or both.

Jeremy has been kind enough to respond with the requested reading list for the relevant section of the IDEL course, as follows:

All of the names here are familiar and I think I've read most of the resources on the Additional list. The Fitzpatrick however is new to me and was also recommended by Sian at our last meeting, so that's useful. 

I'm indebted to Marshall for making me aware of yesterday's Conference. In particular, Ray Land's presentation was directly relevant to my research as it touched on digital scholarship, the history of texts in Western universities, multimodality and other themes. Here are my frantically-typed-at-the-time notes:

I've e-mailed Marshall this evening to see whether I can get a copy of the full slides from his presentation.

Meanwhile, I've had a look at Ray Land's profile on the Durham University website and includes his publications list:

One of my tasks for this week will be to go back and reflect on some of the themes he touched on and consider how they might inform my lit review or research in general.

I came across this potentially useful resource today:

It looks like a nicely prepared document, perhaps even a lit review. I'll come back to this later on.

I've been a bit slow on this. Here are the notes from last week's meeting with Sian where we discussed my second draft lit review, dissemination, data analysis and a few other bits and pieces.

Some general comments:

• Really well written
  
• Nicely critical
  
• Done a great job on affordances – managed to say a lot in a short space
  
• Thorough
  
• Nicely structured
  
• Basically, it’s great and I should feel really good about it. It reads like a piece of scholarly work.
  

Gaps, weaknesses and room for improvement:

• There’s nothing on print dominance including the history. There is an identifiable print dominance in education. This needs to be acknowledged in my exposition section. If I’m going to make the point that it’s not all about print, I first have to recognise that it is significant. There’s a gap otherwise. What is essayistic linearity? Reshaping academic composition from what?
• Also in terms of historical context, maybe I need to talk in more detail about the way that texts were multimodal.
• I need to have more about the characteristics of multimodal text. What does multimodality do to text? This is what it can be like. I’ve only touched on authorship and there’s room for more.
• How have other people looked at how we assess multimodal artefacts? There might be some stuff out there. Worth looking for this, though. This should go within the ‘decomposing artefacts’ section.
• I need to write more directly in relation to my own research. At times it’s like I’m shying away from it. It’s OK to write directly – and in the first person – about the research project and questions within the lit review. I’m situating myself as a researcher, not aspiring to be objective – I’m doing some more interpretative.
  

Fitzpatrick?

• Is it worth looking at other examples of multimodal literature e.g. Darius Glass, Alisdair Gray, Tristam Shandy? I could maybe use screen shots.
  
• The dissertation form should reflect the content. Ideas should be presented in a particular way for a reason. For instance, there needs to be some significance to the use of soundtrack, even if it might take the reader some time to work it out.
  
• Is it risky to go for multimodal dissemination? No, it’s essential to present ideas multimodally considering my topic. Have a look at Matthew Preston’s web essay from IDEL a few years back (it will be on course gallery). Incorporates music. 
  
• Considering there are relatively few interviews, investing time in Dedoose might not be worth the effort as its purpose is to deal with data collaboratively. It also costs.
  
• Hyperresearch might be a better option than Dedoose, but maybe I should just use MS Word with hyperlinks for transcription.
  

Things to leave out:

• Stick to summative assessment frameworks, rather than trying to cover formative and summative.
  
• It’s OK to leave out the counter-linguistic turn due to lack of space
  
• Don’t go into digital authorship unless it’s a major theme
  

I've had a quick look at the literature review from Michael's dissertation. The subject matter is entirely different to my own, however I'm interested in style, structure and length. 

It will be useful to see how this compares with other literature reviews.

Last Friday afternoon I caught up briefly with Jeremy to get his thoughts on preparing a lit review, based upon his own experience of completing the MSc dissertation. Here are a few of the key points:

• The lit review is basically about showing that I've done the key reading within the field
  
• It would be appropriate within the lit review to define key terms related to my research project e.g. multimodality

Jeremy has since sent me a link to his dissertation, although he notes that his entire dissertation was a lit review i.e. entirely desk bound research based upon the theory.

Over lunch I'm reading Carey Jewitt's 'Rethinking Assessment: Multimodality, literacy and computer mediated learning (2003). It's a really good (and relevant) read, even if the focus is upon high school study of a CD-Rom version of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. 

Using the celestial metaphor of stars within a constellation. The autor created the all the individual elements of the multimodal assignments. These might be images, sound clips, passages of written text, animation. These are the stars. They are projected onto the canvas by the author. The author intends to demonstrate his understanding or world view through this assesmblage of stars.

The reader has a gazes upon the different stars glistening on the black canvas overhead. She then follows her own path between the different stars, studying one element, then another and then another. She follows her own path between the stars. She might return to a star of pariticular interest. She might do this more than once for, having seen subsequent stars the first star might make more sense. She is making sense of the relationship between the elements. She tries to make sense of the the elements by making sense of the combined knowledge they project. She is intepreting meaning from the assemblage of image, text and sound. She attaches meaning to this constellation based upon the unique journey she followed between them.

The reader/astronomer has followed her own path, not a trajectory proposed by the author. She is not receiving the message transmitted by the stars (author), she is constructing meaning upon what has been projected onto the sky canvas. As such she is a producer - she is constructing information. She negotiates this meaning with the author.