Peer review innovations in Humanities: how can scholars in A&H profit of the "wisdom of the crowds"?

Though supported by a large number of scholars in Scientific, Technical, and Medical (STM) disciplines traditional peer review does not live up to the needs of an efficient scholarly communication system and of quality research control. Therefore journals in STM are experimenting different forms of refereeing in combination with more traditional peer review system. Such is the case of PLoSONE, Biology Direct, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Electronic Transactions on Artificial Intelligence, and JIME. However in STM disciplines public peer review is not regarded an alternative to more traditional quality certification forms. It may be the case in the Arts & Humanities. In A&H publishing system peer review is by far a less common practice. Therefore the adoption of a social peer review process could be very useful to foster research in humanities. Scholars in A&H can profit of the interactive evaluation forms of the public peer-review to strengthen the scholarly debate, to foster active international and interdisciplinary discussions, to focus social attention on topics in Humanities, to broaden the borders of the cultural and intellectual discourse among non-scholars (public debate). This paper will provide some examples of how social peer review has been adopted by innovative communities of scholars in humanities to publish new experimental digital book models. In the digital environment the concepts of “document”, of “completeness of a document” and of “evaluation” is fast changing. In a close future in scholarly publishing it might become possible to overcome the rigid distinction between ex-ante and ex-post evaluation as the evaluation process might become an enduring part of the text itsel

Teatro di Narrazione e scrittura scenica

Il teatro di narrazione nasce in Italia sul finire degli anni Ottanta, costituendosi come genere drammatico a partire dalla metà degli anni Novanta. Sebbene sia stato salutato come prolifica antitesi all’estetica del Nuovo Teatro, che veniva riconducendo la sostanza linguistica dello spettacolo all’evento scenico, vogliamo qui sottolineare come il rinnovato interesse per la parola drammatica non escluda il genere dalle medesime dinamiche soggiacenti a tutto il teatro iscritto nella pratica della "scrittura scenica". Se il teatro della scrittura scenica porta alle estreme conseguenze l’opera di decostruzione e disarticolazione spettacolare, analizzeremo quanto e se il teatro della performance epica si sia confrontato con questi medesimi andamenti

PowerPlaylist: A Collaborative Web Application That Aims to Give Everyone a Voice

PowerPlaylist is a client-server based online collaborative playlist that allows guests of a party to have private access to the hosts playlist. Guests can access the queue of songs, request songs, or up-vote or down-vote songs already requested by other guests. Before PowerPlaylist, there was no musical platform that allowed guests at an event to express his or her opinions on what music should be played without distracting the host or DJ. This web application platform solves that problem while requiring little authentication, and not requiring any software downloads in order to be used. PowerPlaylist aims to give every guest a voice

Preliminary soilwater conductivity analysis to date clandestine burials of homicide victims

This study reports on a new geoscientific method to estimate the post-burial interval (PBI) and potential post-mortem interval (PMI) date of homicide victims in clandestine graves by measuring decomposition fluid conductivities. Establishing PBI/PMI dates may be critical for forensic investigators to establish time-lines to link or indeed rule out suspects to a crime. Regular in situ soilwater analysis from a simulated clandestine grave (which contained a domestic buried pig carcass) in a semi-rural environment had significantly elevated conductivity measurements when compared to background values. A temporal rapid increase of the conductivity of burial fluids was observed until one-year post-burial, after this values slowly increased until two years (end of the current study period). Conversion of x-axis from post-burial days to 'accumulated degree days' (ADDs) corrected for both local temperature variations and associated depth of burial and resulted in an improved fit for multiple linear regression analyses. ADD correction also allowed comparison with a previous conductivity grave study on a different site with a different soil type and environment; this showed comparable results with a similar trend observed. A separate simulated discovered burial had a conductivity estimated PBI date that showed 12% error from its actual burial date. Research is also applicable in examining illegal animal burials; time of burial and waste deposition. Further research is required to extend the monitoring period, to use human cadavers and to repeat this with other soil types and depositional environments

Consorzi di biblioteche a confronto: a Parigi l'undicesimo ICOLC autunnale

Report of the ICOLC Fall Meeting, Paris, 25-28 October 200

Escritura escénica y Posmodernidad

Speaking of «escritura escénica» means to show the pluricodic and plurimaterial character typical of theatrical events, as well as to describe the passage of the analysis from the text to the scene, that can be read like a tridimensional page of script. What we propose here is to relate all of this to the advancement of postmodern thought, especially in regard to the crisis of fundamentum thought raised by Lyotard and other philosophers such as Baudrillard and Vattimo. We observed that the same plurality operating in the contemporary scene works in other fields of knowledge, revolutionizing the way of conceiving knowledge, its transmission and above all the perception of identity. Postmodern thought represents a functional point of view allowing a practical analysis of the problematization of questions like the collapse of progressive as achievement, which has interested both the drama and the «performative » art, sometimes taking radical positions, such as the rejection of theater as representation.Hablar de escritura escénica significa mostrar el carácter de pluricódigo y de plurimaterialidad que tiene el hecho teatral, así como dar cuenta del paso del análisis del texto al de la escena, entendiendo esta última como una página tridimensional de escritura. Lo que aquí nos proponemos es relacionar todo ello con el avance del pensamiento posmoderno, sobre todo por lo que tiene que ver con la crisis del pensamiento del fundamentum planteada por Lyotard y por otros pensadores, como Vattimo o Baudrillard. Hemos observado que la misma pluralidad que parece investir la escena contemporánea opera, con fuerza semejante, en otros campos del conocimiento, revolucionando la manera de concebir el saber, su transmisión y, de forma todavía más relevante, el ser. El pensamiento posmoderno representa un punto de vista particularmente funcional con respecto al análisis de la puesta en tela de juicio de la razón funcional (Zweckrationalität), hecho que ha interesado tanto a la dramaturgia como al arte «preformativo», adoptando a veces posiciones muy radicales, como el rechazo del teatro como representación

Il ruolo del bibliotecario nei depositi istituzionali

Institutional repositories are a set of services for authors. Notwithstanding librarians'role to advocate and to promote IRs, to contact and inform authors, to support self-archiving, to curate data and metadata, to address copyright issues is a key factor for the scholarly success of the IRs

Peer-review innovations in Humanities: how can scholars in A&H profit of the “wisdom of the crowds”?

Though supported by a large number of scholars in Scientific, Technical, and Medical (STM) disciplines traditional peer review does not live up to the needs of an efficient scholarly communication system and of quality research control. Therefore journals in STM are experimenting different forms of refereeing in combination with more traditional peer review system. Such is the case of PLoSONE, Biology Direct, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Electronic Transactions on Artificial Intelligence, and JIME. However in STM disciplines public peer review is not considered an alternative to more traditional quality certification forms. It may be the case in the Arts & Humanities. In A&H publishing system peer review is by far a less common practice. Therefore the adoption of a social peer review process could be very useful to foster research in humanities. Scholars in A&H can profit of the interactive evaluation forms of the public peer-review to strengthen the scholarly debate, to foster active international and interdisciplinary discussions, to focus social attention on topics in Humanities, to broaden the borders of the cultural and intellectual discourse among non-scholars (public debate). This paper will provide some examples of how social peer review has been adopted by innovative communities of scholars in humanities to publish new experimental digital book models. In the digital environment the concepts of “document”, of “completeness of a document” and of “evaluation” is fast changing. In a close future in scholarly publishing it might become possible to overcome the rigid distinction between ex-ante and ex-post evaluation as the evaluation process might become an enduring part of the text itself