Refract: An Open Access Visual Studies Journal

Refract: An Open Access Visual Studies Journal

Imagining the Future of Digital Publishing | Volume 5 | Issue 2

Table of Contents

As a journal founded by graduate students in one of the few visual studies programs in the United States, Refract has always sought to consider its own role within its relatively new and often-contested disciplinary field. This focus on the possibilities and limitations of visual studies methodologies is exemplified by our Voices of Visual Studies section, an ongoing, cross-volume conversation between diverse practitioners. However, we have had fewer discussions about the implications of our open access digital publication method, despite the fact that such a format also represents a relatively novel approach to scholarly production. While Refract’s founding editors debated the merits and drawbacks of digital publication, the majority of our conversations in subsequent years have centered on the goal of increasing accessibility: our digital team has worked to ensure that Refract’s format is compatible with evolving screen reader technology and that we are producing effective alt text, for example.

For my digital monograph I worked with a traditional academic press to get my work peer-reviewed by colleagues in my field. But the digital aspect certainly added new wrinkles to that process. The peer reviewers evaluating my work did so before the final version of the project was ready—they did an early review of the written manuscript, images, and some videos, but they weren’t reviewing the fully final published project with all the interaction that was part of the final web-based publication. So I think it is clear that making a direct one-to-one transition between traditional book publishing and web-based publishing doesn’t necessarily work.

In 2016, when my colleagues and I founded Refract: An Open Access Visual Studies Journal, we spent several sessions making mind maps to generate and settle upon a name for the journal. “Refract” is where we landed, aptly reflecting our aim to break up and reallocate how we produce, present, and grapple with the dissemination of ideas. The element of the title that did not require extensive discussion was “open access.” We instinctively knew that we wanted the journal’s content, contributors, and readership to be as broad and inclusive as possible. Because of that, we prioritized publishing on a digital platform. Digital publishing is an inherent characteristic of open access. But what exactly is open access? How does it encourage innovative scholarship? How does it perpetuate or dissolve academic gatekeeping?

First off, we acknowledge that digital publishing can take many forms, from standard article or book formats that are enhanced by digital visualizations or interactivity to a variety of less text-centered formats. Likewise, digital projects may enter the world by means of self-publishing (Daniel’s main area of expertise) or through more established academic and commercial publishers (Martha’s main area of expertise). Peer review will shake out differently across these contexts, as will other factors around digital publishing, with each presenting its own challenges and opportunities.

Though it may seem counterintuitive to digital publishing, reflecting on analog bookmaking practices underscores the multimodal potential that has always underpinned the production of scholarly communications. In a medieval manuscript, for example, the content on a page might include text, illustration, marginalia, commentary, and rubrication, and the relationship between these elements shapes the way in which the narrative is understood and approached by readers; any modification to these formal features could alter how the content is interpreted, and indeed, scholarship exists that addresses the consequences of such changes from one edition of a text to the next.

Publishing in many arts disciplines is enriched by, and may rely on, the use of images. Authors have long found the hurdles and the fees for using these images to be daunting, and the move to digital publishing can make this problem worse. Open-access publishing can prove even more challenging. If scholarship in art history, art criticism, visual studies and other fields is going to thrive in a future where digital and open-access publishing are the norm, we need better options. Fortunately, we have already seen signs that a better future is possible, and communities have been creating resources to make it more likely. Raising the awareness of the individuals and organizations in the art scholarship publishing ecosystem about these resources is a crucial first step toward a shared vision for scholarly publishing in the arts: one that encourages academic freedom and broad engagement through openness and a better understanding of the law.

As an exercise, take a moment to consider: What is the most innovative eBook or electronic publication that you have read in the past couple of years? Alternatively, what is the most innovative electronic publication, broadly speaking, that you have ever read? You might be asking, what does innovative have to do with it? Isn’t an eBook essentially the same as print book, just one that you can read on a mobile device? How do you define innovative in terms of electronic publications? The mere fact that you are reading this, however, may predispose you to have some idea, or recollection, of something pioneering and inventive in the realm of digital texts.

Peer review has long been held as the gold standard for article evaluation. At its simplest, the goal of peer review is to ensure that a published article in a journal has been appropriately vetted by qualified scholars. Traditional models require that this process is either single- or double-blind; the editor assigns reviewers based on subject expertise and either/or reviewer and author names are hidden. In an ideal scenario, this fosters open and unbiased commentary, but attempts at evaluation and rigor can soon become gatekeeping and exclusion. The reality of peer review is often fraught with issues, including biases toward race, gender, and language proficiency.

As a journal founded by graduate students in one of the few visual studies programs in the United States, Refract has always sought to consider its own role within its relatively new and often-contested disciplinary field. This focus on the possibilities and limitations of visual studies methodologies is exemplified by our Voices of Visual Studies section, an ongoing, cross-volume conversation between diverse practitioners. However, we have had fewer discussions about the implications of our open access digital publication method, despite the fact that such a format also represents a relatively novel approach to scholarly production. While Refract’s founding editors debated the merits and drawbacks of digital publication, the majority of our conversations in subsequent years have centered on the goal of increasing accessibility: our digital team has worked to ensure that Refract’s format is compatible with evolving screen reader technology and that we are producing effective alt text, for example.