WAC Clearinghouse

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The WAC Clearinghouse publishes peer-reviewed, open-access journals and books, as well as other professional resources for teachers and instructional materials for students. Writing-across-the-curriculum (WAC) refers to a formal programmatic approach within contemporary secondary and higher education composition studies that promotes the importance of writing in classes outside of composition.

The WAC Clearinghouse operates as a publishing collaborative, drawing on contributions from more than 200 individuals from six continents serving on the editorial boards of academic journals supported by the Clearinghouse, as editors or reviewers of its book series, as editors of the resource collected in its WAC Repository, and as members of the overall Clearinghouse editorial board. The open-access character of the scholarship available through the Clearinghouse book series provides free access to scholarly monographs, edited collections, conference proceedings, and textbooks, providing students and teachers with an alternative to purchasing scholarly and classroom instructional materials. For individuals and libraries who wish to own print copies of its books, the Clearinghouse works with the University Press of Colorado and Parlor Press to make print books available in low-cost editions. The Clearinghouse also collaborates with other publishers and professional organizations in the field of writing studies, including the National Council of Teachers of English, the Conference on College Composition and Communication, the Association for Writing Across the Curriculum Programs (AWAC), Parlor Press, and Writing Spaces. The WAC Clearinghouse addresses a wide range of disciplinary areas within writing studies, including second-language writing, writing fellows, antiracism, and writing in the STEM disciplines.

History and Resources[edit]

Established in 1997,[1] the Clearinghouse is among the most successful open-access publishing projects in the humanities.[2][3][4]

Journals. The Clearinghouse publishes ten active academic journals, including

  • Across the Disciplines, devoted to language, learning and academic writing;
  • The WAC Journal, focused on WAC theory and ideas;
  • Double Helix, an international journal on writing, critical thinking, pedagogical theory and classroom practice;
  • Journal of Writing Analytics, which focuses on the study of writing processes and written texts through a wide range of analytical tools;
  • Journal of Basic Writing, which publishes articles on theory, research, and teaching practices related to basic writing;
  • Open Words: Access and English Studies, which publishes articles focusing on political, professional, and pedagogical issues within writing studies;
  • Academic Labor: Research and Artistry, which addresses matters relating to tenure and contingency in the academy; and
  • Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios de la Escritura, which publishes articles on writing in Spanish, Portuguese, or English.
  • Prompt: A Journal of Academic Writing Assignments, which publishes academic writing assignments accompanied by reflective essays.
  • WLN: A Journal of Writing Center Scholarship, which promotes exchanges on challenges related to writing center pedagogy and leadership.

In addition, the Clearinghouse provides access to the archives of eleven journals, including RhetNet, an online journal of rhetoric and composition that explores what "net" publishing may be in its natural form and Language and Learning Across the Disciplines.

Books. The Clearinghouse has published more than 115 original scholarly monographs and collections and has made more than 75 out-of-print books available in open-access digital editions.[5] Over the past several years, original books published by the Clearinghouse have earned best-book awards from organizations including the Conference on College Composition and Communication, the Association for Writing Across the Curriculum, and the Council of Writing Program Administrators.

Professional and Instructional Resources. Through its WAC Repository, the Clearinghouse provides access to peer-reviewed resources for teachers who wish to use writing in courses across the disciplines, including collections addressing the use of generative AI and chatbots in writing instruction, an exhibit on the landmark 1966 Dartmouth Conference, a bibliography (published in collaboration with CompPile, which became part of the Clearinghouse in 2018), resource pages on writing fellows programs and second-language learners, conference proceedings, WAC program descriptions, a list of scholarly journals, and the Statement on WAC Principles and Practices, among others.

CompPile Database. The Clearinghouse is also home to the CompPile database, a freely available searchable database of published scholarship in post-secondary composition and rhetoric from 1939 to the present. Founded in 2001 by Rich Haswell and Glenn Blaclock, its coverage of work from 1939 to 1999 is especially comprehensive.

On March 14, 2022, the Clearinghouse celebrated the 25th anniversary of its founding. Since mid-2001, when it began keeping web stats, the Clearinghouse has seen more than 30 million downloads of PDF and ePub documents (as article, complete books, and book chapters). More than 3 million downloads were recorded in the past year. These numbers do not include downloads made through library catalogs, institutional repositories, full-text databases, and learning management systems.

Sustainable Publishing Initiative[edit]

In May 2012, to mark its fifteenth year of operation, the WAC Clearinghouse launched the 25 Collective, a demonstration project for sustainable publishing.[6] The goal of the project was to publish 25 new books for a total expenditure of $50,000―a cost far below that borne by traditional academic presses. Leveraging university resources (office space, computing resources, and web servers), the project operated within its budget and had, by March 2017, reached its goal, producing 29 books at an average cost of less than $2,000 per book. The success of the project led to the launch of the Colorado State University Open Press, a publishing project that supported the use of the publishing collaborative model developed through the WAC Clearinghouse in other disciplines. The Open Press went on hiatus in 2021 following changes in university leadership.

Support[edit]

The Clearinghouse is hosted by Colorado State University. In-kind support is provided by the Department of English and the Division of Information Technology at Colorado State University, University Press of Colorado, Utah State University Press, the National Council of Teachers of English, and the faculty and staff at Colorado State University's Morgan Library, who provide assistance digitizing republished books and cataloging new publications.

Funding for the Clearinghouse is provided through donations to the Colorado State University Foundation's fund supporting the WAC Clearinghouse as well as from sales of print editions of its open-access scholarly books. Donations are used to defray costs associated with honoraria for graduate students who serve as copy editors and designers for Clearinghouse books, for web hosting, for the purchase of ISBN numbers and registration of Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs), and for software and equipment expenses. Interested patrons my donate online or by check through the Clearinghouse website.[7]

External links[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "A Brief History of the WAC Clearinghouse". Retrieved 14 March 2022.
  2. ^ Bazerman, Charles; Blakesley, David; Palmquist, Mike; Russell, David R. (7 January 2008). "Open access book publishing in writing studies: A case study". First Monday. 13 (1). doi:10.5210/fm.v13i1.2088. hdl:10535/3179.
  3. ^ Palmquist, Mike; Mullin, Joan; Blalock, Glenn (2012). "The Role of Activity Analysis in Writing Research: Case Studies of Emerging Scholarly Communities". In Lee Nickoson (ed.). Writing Studies Research in Practice: Methods and Methodologies. Mary P. Sheridan. SIU Press. pp. 231–245. ISBN 9780809331154. Retrieved 21 May 2016.
  4. ^ Palmquist, Mike (2023). "Opening Up: Writing Studies Turn to Open-Access Book Publishing". In Paul M. Rogers; David R. Russell; Paula Carlino; Jonathan M. Marine (eds.). Writing as a Human Activity: Implications and Applications of the Work of Charles Bazerman. The WAC Clearinghouse and University Press of Colorado. pp. 195–226. doi:10.37514/PER-B.2023.1800.2.08. ISBN 9781642151800.
  5. ^ Neff, Joyce Magnotto; Whithaus, Carl (2009). Writing Across Distances and Disciplines: Research and Pedagogy in Distributed Learning. Routledge. p. 239. ISBN 9781135596767.
  6. ^ "The Sustainable Publishing Initiative". Retrieved 22 May 2016.
  7. ^ "WAC Clearinghouse Support Page". Retrieved 19 January 2019.
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