Genre innovation and multimodal expression in scholarly communication: Video methods articles in experimental biology

Digital media have the potential to foster genre innovation and change in scholarly communication, by 1) opening up new, diversified audiences to academics, and 2) facilitating the use of a range of multimodal semiotic resources, that combine word and image, in academic writing. However, relatively little applied linguistic research has investigated innovation in research genres, especially high stakes genres like the research article. In addition, some of the existing literature on the topic has concluded that the addition of digital elements to research articles (for example, embedded video) fails to add significant meaning to the genre, perhaps indicating a poor match between the affordances of digital media and the communicative purposes of the academic writers. This exploratory study provides a multi-dimensional genre analysis of a new research genre in the field of science: the video methods article (VMA), published online by the Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE). In order to understand the intertextual communicative context of this genre, community documents were reviewed and two specialist informants were interviewed. A sample of eleven VMAs from JoVE, one per year of publication from 2006-2016, was examined. The multimodal analysis shows how the VMA genre draws on the affordances of digital video in order to meet genuine needs of academic writers. The findings also show some innovation and development in the genre over time, which moves through an initial period of experimentation before settling on a stable generic structure

Proceedings of Abstracts Engineering and Computer Science Research Conference 2019

© 2019 The Author(s). This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. For further details please see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Note: Keynote: Fluorescence visualisation to evaluate effectiveness of personal protective equipment for infection control is © 2019 Crown copyright and so is licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Under this licence users are permitted to copy, publish, distribute and transmit the Information; adapt the Information; exploit the Information commercially and non-commercially for example, by combining it with other Information, or by including it in your own product or application. Where you do any of the above you must acknowledge the source of the Information in your product or application by including or linking to any attribution statement specified by the Information Provider(s) and, where possible, provide a link to this licence: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/This book is the record of abstracts submitted and accepted for presentation at the Inaugural Engineering and Computer Science Research Conference held 17th April 2019 at the University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, UK. This conference is a local event aiming at bringing together the research students, staff and eminent external guests to celebrate Engineering and Computer Science Research at the University of Hertfordshire. The ECS Research Conference aims to showcase the broad landscape of research taking place in the School of Engineering and Computer Science. The 2019 conference was articulated around three topical cross-disciplinary themes: Make and Preserve the Future; Connect the People and Cities; and Protect and Care

Expert range maps of global mammal distributions harmonised to three taxonomic authorities

AimComprehensive, global information on species' occurrences is an essential biodiversity variable and central to a range of applications in ecology, evolution, biogeography and conservation. Expert range maps often represent a species' only available distributional information and play an increasing role in conservation assessments and macroecology. We provide global range maps for the native ranges of all extant mammal species harmonised to the taxonomy of the Mammal Diversity Database (MDD) mobilised from two sources, the Handbook of the Mammals of the World (HMW) and the Illustrated Checklist of the Mammals of the World (CMW).LocationGlobal.TaxonAll extant mammal species.MethodsRange maps were digitally interpreted, georeferenced, error-checked and subsequently taxonomically aligned between the HMW (6253 species), the CMW (6431 species) and the MDD taxonomies (6362 species).ResultsRange maps can be evaluated and visualised in an online map browser at Map of Life (mol.org) and accessed for individual or batch download for non-commercial use.Main conclusionExpert maps of species' global distributions are limited in their spatial detail and temporal specificity, but form a useful basis for broad-scale characterizations and model-based integration with other data. We provide georeferenced range maps for the native ranges of all extant mammal species as shapefiles, with species-level metadata and source information packaged together in geodatabase format. Across the three taxonomic sources our maps entail, there are 1784 taxonomic name differences compared to the maps currently available on the IUCN Red List website. The expert maps provided here are harmonised to the MDD taxonomic authority and linked to a community of online tools that will enable transparent future updates and version control

Genre innovation and multimodal expression in scholarly communication: Video methods articles in experimental biology

Digital media have the potential to foster genre innovation and change in scholarly communication, by 1) opening up new, diversified audiences to academics, and 2) facilitating the use of a range of multimodal semiotic resources, that combine word and image, in academic writing. However, relatively little applied linguistic research has investigated innovation in research genres, especially high stakes genres like the research article. In addition, some of the existing literature on the topic has concluded that the addition of digital elements to research articles (for example, embedded video) fails to add significant meaning to the genre, perhaps indicating a poor match between the affordances of digital media and the communicative purposes of the academic writers. This exploratory study provides a multi-dimensional genre analysis of a new research genre in the field of science: the video methods article (VMA), published online by the Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE). In order to understand the intertextual communicative context of this genre, community documents were reviewed and two specialist informants were interviewed. A sample of eleven VMAs from JoVE, one per year of publication from 2006- 2016, was examined. The multimodal analysis shows how the VMA genre draws on the affordances of digital video in order to meet genuine needs of academic writers. The findings also show some innovation and development in the genre over time, which moves through an initial period of experimentation before settling on a stable generic structureLos medios digitales pueden propiciar la innovación de géneros textuales y cambios en la comunicación académica por dos vías: 1) proporcionando a la comunidad científica públicos nuevos, más amplios y diversos, y 2) facilitando el uso de una gama de recursos semióticos multimodales que combinen palabra e imagen. La Lingüística Aplicada, sin embargo, ha estudiado poco la innovación en los géneros textuales empleados en la investigación, especialmente en aquellos que, como el artículo científico, revisten una importancia fundamental. Parte de la literatura especializada, además, ha llegado a la conclusion de que añadir elementos digitales a los artículos científicos (insertando vídeos, por ejemplo) no aporta ningún significado adicional de interés, lo cual tal vez sea indicativo de un desfase entre el potencial tecnológico del medio digital y el propósito comunicativo del autor. El presente artículo analiza, desde una perspectiva multidimensional y exploratoria, un nuevo género de investigación científica: el vídeo-artículo de métodos (VAM), que publica en Internet la revista especializada Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE). Para comprender el contexto comunicativo intercultural del género, se han revisado los documentos de una comunidad disciplinaria, se ha entrevistado a dos informadores especialistas y se ha examinado una muestra de once VAMs de JoVE, uno por cada año de publicación de 2006 a 2016. El análisis multimodal muestra cómo el género del VAM recurre al potencial del vídeo digital para satisfacer las necesidades comunicativas genuinas de los autores académicos. Los hallazgos del estudio evidencian asimismo cierta innovación y desarrollo del género a través del tiempo, desde un período experimental inicial hasta la consolidación de una estructura retórica establ

Corpus tools as an affordance to learning in professional legal education

Considerable research has now been undertaken into the development of different approaches to exploiting language corpora for pedagogic purposes in the context of ESP. The question of how language corpora might be utilized by students beyond the immediate language-teaching context is, however, one as yet seldom addressed in the literature. This study attempts to explore the relationship between student use of online corpus tools and academic and professional discourse practices in the context of a professional legal training course at The City University of Hong Kong. Students enrolled in this course were given instruction in how to consult an online concordancer as language support when completing their legal writing assignments. Drawing on narratives of student experience, and other informant data including detailed logs of searches and the outcomes of assessments of English language proficiency, the paper discusses the ways in which students make strategic use of the corpus tools provided to develop competence in writing for legal purposes. The paper concludes by appraising the potential of corpus-based methods as an affordance for studying the practice of Law, in particular as a means of enhancing the acquisition of professional expertise by novice lawyers.16 page(s

Engaging with digital literacies in TESOL

This symposium brings together a number of international scholars to discuss the topic of digital literacies in TESOL. We asked each of the contributors to comment on a particular area of inquiry, providing a definition of the concept of digital literacies and commenting on the role that research into digital literacies might play in the future development of TESOL.4 page(s