Open Social Scholarship Annotated Bibliography/Prototyping

Category Overview
Prototyping, or the modeling of digital objects, has proliferated within and outside of scholarly environments for the last two decades. The resources in this category generally fall under experimental and product-based prototyping (Ruecker 2015). The former model is often adapted in academic contexts, namely approaching prototyping as a research endeavor that aims to manifest a thought process, explore a concept, or answer a question. The latter is aimed at generating a robust product that is published and used. These two can overlap: in experimental prototyping, the digital object often moves through stages of development and is eventually disseminated for use by others; product-oriented prototypes often maintain an element of experimentation in order to deliver refined objects to their users. The research prototypes in this category experiment with conventional forms of scholarly communication by offering alternative modes of production and dissemination that are supported by the digital medium (Belojevic 2015; Saklofske 2014 2016; Siemens et al. 2009). The more product-oriented prototypes explore alternative design methods to ensure usability and access for their users (Given et al. 2007; Ruecker et al. 2007; Ruecker, Radzikowska, and Sinclair 2011). Despite the end goal, all prototypes in this category carry an experimental quality and seek to innovate particular aspects of their respective fields.

Annotations
** Belojevic, Nina. 2015. “Developing an Open, Networked Peer Review System.” Scholarly and Research Communication 6 (2): n.p. http://src-online.ca/index.php/src/article/view/205.
 * Belojevic presents the Personas for Open, Networked Peer Review wireframe prototype – an open, networked peer review model initiated by Belojevic and Jentery Sayers in 2013 that was further developed by the Electronic Textual Cultures Laboratory, in partnership with the University of Victoria Libraries, the Humanities Computing and Media Centre, and the Public Knowledge Project. In this environment, articles undergo open peer review and can be commented on by a specific group of reviewers or the public. The prototyping process followed an approach similar to the one described in Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman’s Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals in which they outline common game design principles. Belojevic describes how the project moved from iterative prototyping to agile development, an approach that permits researchers to break down the project into smaller chunks. The approach allows stakeholders to ensure that their goals are being met at every stage, and scholars and researchers to maintain the quality of the project. Further research will focus on determining the aspects of agile development that are adaptable for the project in order to facilitate a balance between project development and deliverables, while being flexible enough to pursue and integrate novel insights that may appear during the prototyping process.

Given, Lisa, Stan Ruecker, Heather Simpson, Bess Sadler, and Andrea Ruskin. 2007. “Inclusive Interface Design for Seniors: Exploring the Health Information-Seeking Context.” Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 58 (11): 1610–17.
 * Given, Ruecker, Simpson, Sadler, and Ruskin demonstrate a prototype of a web-based resource for identifying and providing information on medications for senior citizens with an image-based retrieval system interface. This prototype stems from a lack of research on the usefulness of existing web-based resources and an understanding of the complexities that arise in accommodating the various needs of seniors. The authors conduct a case study on twelve people, six men and six women aged between 65 and 80, who are comfortable with using computers; they are asked to search for, identify, and find information on a number of medications using two different resources: a more traditional commercial consumer-driven database (www.drugs.com) and the prototype used in this case study. In the former, participants were unable to identify the proper medication and generally found the platform to be crowded and confusing, with a lack of images to disambiguate between the forms and colors of medications. Given et al.’s prototype, by contrast, was built with usability theory in mind—an approach that sets users’ needs at the forefront of the design process and is meant to accommodate users with various impairments and abilities in a straightforward, simple, and effective manner. Most of the participants were able to find information on the medications using the prototype, and reported it being easier and more straightforward to use. However, certain drawbacks still exist, such as the general overflow of information and the ambiguity in relation to the exact physical attributes of the medication, such as the color and shape. Further studies will work on ensuring that the prototype goes further in aiding the needs of its potential users.

Ruecker, Stan. 2015. “A Brief Taxonomy of Prototypes for the Digital Humanities.” Scholarly Research and Communication 6 (2). http://src-online.ca/index.php/src/article/view/222.
 * Ruecker’s paper intervenes at the intersection of digital humanities and design as he presents a taxonomy for project prototyping. Ruecker begins by acknowledging the wide variety of prototype taxonomies that have been previously proposed before turning to his own. Ruecker suggests that prototypes should be categorized based on the kind of project they are supporting: production-driven, experimental, and provotypes (provocative prototypes). Ruecker recognizes that prototyping is defined and understood differently depending on the community and uses various examples, such as Xinyue Zhou’s nationalist baby bottles and Juan Salamanca’s crosswalk, to illustrate different types of prototypes and to trace their evolution. Ruecker argues that any of these categories of prototypes can be used effectively for pedagogy. In conclusion, Ruecker argues that clearly distinguishing the purposes of different prototypes can help manage and encourage their use.

Ruecker, Stan, Lisa Given, Heather Simpson, Bess Sadler, and Andrea Ruskin. 2007. “Design of a Rich-Prospect Browsing Interface for Seniors: A Qualitative Study of Image Similarity Clustering.” Visible Language 41 (1): 4–22.
 * Ruecker, Given, Simpson, Sadler, and Ruskin apply inclusive design delivery by designing an interface for access to healthcare resources for seniors. Their goal is to test whether an alternative visual browsing interface would be helpful to seniors in pill identification. They detail inclusive design principles and pose research questions that address the effect of interface design on usability of online drug databases. The authors discuss their results by comparing interfaces, looking at search task results from www.drugs.com and the prototype produced, and reading into implications for design. They also highlight their future research plan, which includes an expansion of search features for drug databases and the development of interfaces that adhere to inclusive design theory.

Ruecker, Stan, Milena Radzikowska, and Stéfan Sinclair. 2011. Visual Interface Design for Digital Cultural Heritage: A Guide to Rich Prospect Browsing. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
 * Ruecker, Radzikowska, and Sinclair apply a rich-prospect browsing approach to the design of cultural heritage collections—a methodology that involves the investigation of an entire collection rather than focusing on search-oriented interfaces that have traditionally been used in the past. The authors dedicate the book to explaining the various affordances of rich-prospect browsing by laying out the theoretical framework for such an approach and balancing it with various prototypes and examples. They also address some central principles of rich-prospect browsing, such as the importance of meaningful representation of each item in the collection and what the most beneficial affordances for various audiences are. The book includes a total of nine prototypes that test rich-prospect browsing by balancing theory and practice; together, these are meant to serve as a guide for those who might want to implement this approach in their projects. They specifically address how to determine the type of affordances to include and how to steer them toward the potential audiences for their cultural heritage artifacts collection.

** Saklofske, Jon. 2014. “Exploding, Centralizing and Reimagining: Critical Scholarship Refracted Through the NewRadial Prototype.” Scholarly and Research Communication 5(2): n.p. http://src-online.ca/index.php/src/article/view/151.
 * In light of the focus of the Implementing New Knowledge Environments (INKE) focus on the ways in which digital environments affect the production, dissemination, and use of established venues for academic research, the NewRadial prototype has been extended for further investigation of this research direction. NewRadial is a data visualization environment that was originally designed as an alternative way to encounter and annotate image-based databases. It allows users to engage with humanities data outside of scholarly paradigms and the linear nature of the printed book and encourages user contributions through collective commentary rather than isolated annotation. This prototype investigates a number of questions, such as whether the aforementioned venues can coexist in their present form, what are the ways in which scholarship can be visualized through time and space, how are critical ideas born and evolve, and whether the collaborative elements of Alternate Reality Games and Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games can be adopted into the peer review process and secondary scholarship. The prototype is a response to the established view of a finished work existing in a print-based format and is rather a way of experimenting in an interactive and dynamic digital environment that invites dialogue and collaborative curation, as well as numerous alternative narrative opportunities.

** Saklofske, Jon. 2016. “Digital Theoria, Poiesis and Praxis: Activating Humanities Research and Communication through Open Social Scholarship Platform Design.” Scholarly and Research Communication 7(2): n.p. http://src-online.ca/index.php/src/article/view/252/495.
 * Sakolofske states that although research has drastically changed in the last two decades, scholarly communication has remained relatively stable, adhering to traditional scholarly forms of publication as a result of materialist economies. Saklofske argues for the necessity of innovating digital means of scholarly communication with theoria, poiesis, and praxis in mind. He offers a number of case studies that experiment with unconventional ways of carrying out research that utilize these concepts, among which is the NewRadial prototype: an online environment that brings in secondary scholarship and debate, where outside information can be added to and visualized with the primary data without affecting the original databases. NewRadial is taken as a model for other spaces that facilitate such dynamic organization and centralized spacing as an alternative solution to traditional isolated forms of monographs and linear narrativization. Saklofske, who is a proponent of open social scholarship, argues that this type of scholarship is an essential part of the transformation of scholarly research and communication in a way that would take advantage of the digital medium rather than propagating traditional forms of knowledge creation into this environment. This type of research platform is also more inclusive and public facing.

** Siemens, Raymond G., Claire Warwick, Richard Cunningham, Teresa Dobson, Alan Galey, Stan Ruecker, Susan Schreibman, and the INKE Research Group. 2009. “Codex Ultor: Toward a Conceptual and Theoretical Foundation for New Research on Books and Knowledge Environments.” Digital Studies / Le champ numérique 1 (2). n.p. http://www.digitalstudiesdoi.org/ojs/index.php/digital_studies/article/view/177/22010.16995/dscn.270.
 * Siemens, Warwick, Cunningham, Dobson, Galey, Ruecker, Schreibman, and the INKE Research Group investigate the “conceptual and theoretical foundations for work undertaken by the Implementing New Knowledge Environments research group” (n.p). They address the need for designing new knowledge environments, taking into consideration the evolution of reading and writing technologies, the mechanics and pragmatics of written forms of knowledge, and the corresponding strategies of reading, as well as the computational possibilities of written forms due to emerging technology. The authors highlight the importance of prototyping as a research activity and outline corresponding research questions, which target the experiences of reading, using, and accessing information, as well as issues of design. They discuss their research methods, which include digital textual scholarship, user experience evaluation, interface design prototyping, and information management. Siemens et al. conclude that the various reading interface prototypes produced by INKE allow a transformation of engagement methods with reading materials.

Stafford, Amy, Ali Shiri, Stan Ruecker, Matthew Bouchard, Paras Mehta, Karl Anvik, and Ximena Rossello. 2008. “Searchling: User-Centered Evaluation of a Visual Thesaurus-Enhanced Interface for Multilingual Digital Libraries.” In Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries, 117–21. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Heidelberg: Springer Berlin.
 * Stafford, Shiri, Ruecker, Bouchard, Mehta, Anvik, and Rossello conduct a user-centred evaluation using Searchling, an experimental visual interface that combines a thesaurus, query, and document space, and is based on rich-prospect and metadata-enhanced visual interfaces for an improved search experience. The study is carried out with fifteen participants, most of whom are mostly researchers at the University of Alberta primarily studying the usefulness of understanding different types of information clustering and the relationships between them. The assigned task asks participants to select as many possible features on the interface without paying particular attention to the content. The study is based on both a qualitative feedback and on a user rank of items using a 5-point Likert scale. Results show that among the numerous positive impacts, the most useful feature of the interface is that it solves the problem of formulating queries, which is considered the greatest problem with other search tools. According to the participants, the most prominent limitation is that Searchling fails to isolate keyword search terms on a specific topic.