A rhizome has no beginning or end; it is always in the middle, between things, interbeing, intermezzo. … Between things does not designate a localizable relation going from one thing to the other and back again, but a perpendicular direction, a transversal movement that sweeps one and the other away, a stream without beginning or end that undermines its banks and picks up speed in the middle.  (Deleuze & Guattari, 1980/1987, p. 25)

A Herstory of the Process

        Human science research as it is described by van Manen (1990) is rooted in the writing and rewriting process.   As I began to become engaged in this writing process, I found myself chafing at not only the sequential presentation of written text, but the limitation of using only words to describe the experience of students in WCC.  Text has been used quite successfully by phenomenologists to describe and interpret experience, but for me written text limits my interpretation of the experience.  Is there an alternative approach for me to capture in my interpretation of the phenomenon the sensual complexity and interconnected quality of experience?

        Experience is multifaceted with senses woven in complex sets of inter-relationships.  Phenomenological descriptions have been crafted to capture a sense of the experience, but I want to be able to deepen the representation of the experience.  My exposure to the World Wide Web and the ways it represents information with alternative choices through multimedia and hypermedia offers an approach.  As I learned more and worked more with the Web, I began to appreciate how this format could extend my description of experience.   It offers a way to broaden and extend written text and includes multimedia and hypermedia components.  The addition of multimedia as text extends my interpretation of the experience to a broader range of senses, deepening the metaphors and the level of description.  Hypermedia, the linking of text and media within a document space, creates a body of interconnections.

        At first I thought this approach to writing would never be accepted.  It challenges the traditional sequential approach to scholarship and dissertation writing.  Not only is the structure of how information is presented radically changed, but the roles of the reader, writer, and text are reconfigured (Landow, 1997/1992).  In spite of my doubts, I began to imagine how a dissertation could represent experience in a web-based format.  It was time to test the waters or opt for tradition.  I first discussed my idea with a few trusted friends, who were phenomenologists, for their reactions.  They were basically positive, but wanted to see what it would look like.  I then asked members of the Web Collective on campus what they thought.  They were all encouraging, particularly a member of the English faculty.  I decided to ask the graduate school if they would consider a web-based dissertation that would be pressed onto a CD-ROM when it was completed.  University Microfiche Incorporated (UMI) had just completed guidelines for multimedia dissertations on CD-ROM.  It would be accepted as a format for my dissertation.  The next step was to approach my advisor with the idea and then form a committee.

        My advisor wanted to see what I meant by a web-based spatial dissertation.  For my advanced phenomenology class I produced a demo of one theme in the format I had only been able to describe for the class.  It caused quite a stir! While she is a "technologically shy phenomenologist," my advisor decided to leap in with me and help guide me through the creation of this new form. The next step in the process was to choose a committee who would be willing to help nurture this process.  In the end I found five additional faculty members (two from English, two from Education, and one from Art).  It was like a dream come true for me.  I had six educators who believed in what I was trying to do and were willing to help me in the journey.  It was scary and exhilarating at the same time!

        Our first step as a group was a pre-proposal meeting.  It was exciting for me to have a group of individuals I respected think out loud with me about where I needed to go.  I had been thinking about my dissertation in this format alone for a year.  It was amazing to have others discuss the creative possibilities.  The group helped me think about what I had been doing and encouraged me to deepen my application of multimedia and hypermedia.  They posed good questions.  My advisor had been unable to attend the meeting, but listened to the audio tapes of the meeting.  It was clear that phenomenology as a research method was new to the committee members. She suggested I write my proposal in a three chapter format, phenomenologically, to give the committee a better idea of the basis for the multimedia and hypermedia representations.  A couple of examples of multimedia/hypermedia were prepared for the committee to view in the proposal meeting to stimulate discussions on the criteria for evaluating the dissertation.

        At the dissertation proposal meeting, faculty had read the proposal and were exposed for the first time to a completed theme, Will Someone Tell Me How to Get In.  They were able to compare the web-based interpretation with a written version.    The committee had tasked me to write evaluation criteria for the web-based interpretive "writing."  The predominant discussion at the pre-proposal meeting was the use of a web-based format.  At the dissertation proposal meeting, the discussion focused on phenomenology as a research methodology.

        The two major concerns about the use of a web-based format.  The first concern was with the "writing" effectiveness of hyper-linking.  The committee members were concerned the reader could easily miss important information which they thought could lead the reader to erroneous conclusions. They felt a traditional textual approach with some media and linking of references would be a more plausible approach.  The second concern was orienting readers before they began interacting with the dissertation.  It was suggested that I include a brief orientation section to prepare the reader.

        The task of the "writing" has taken on a life of its own as most creative efforts often do.  I have found the process of first writing my ideas in draft form and then using the text to hermeneutically turn to the web-format.  The writing-webbing process required a thoughtful approach to file organization, navigation, and indexing.

Creating a Webbed Dissertation Space

        Webbed dissertations are not unusual.  However material is presented in the form of traditional sequential text with hyper linking to aspects throughout the text.  In this way, the text takes advantage of natural links within the material, but still maintains the "look and feel" of a traditional textual document.  My dissertation prototype is an effort to take advantage of what the web does uniquely as an expressive space--how it is different.  With expression comes the need to create a structural support that is taken for granted in textual writing, but must be reshaped and reinvented in a web space.  File organization, navigation in and through the prototype, indexing and orientation, and an exploration of web writing as a form of interpretation are elements of structural support.

Assumptions

Phenomenology as a research method interprets experience to discover what lies beneath.  Experience by its nature is multidimensional.  Our perception, intuition and interactions with others are interconnected in a complex social nexus.  We experience our world spatially.  The web based format of this dissertation allows me to describe and interpret experience more closely to its spatial reality.  I am using images, animations, student voices, poetry, hypermedia text and etymology to interpret the experience of students using WCC.  The only sound that you will hear in the prototype is student voices.  It is their story and their voice that this dissertation is based.

        The overall design of this webbed prototype space is postmodern to take advantage of the multidimensional and alternative sequencing available in a web-based format. This postmodern design suggests that the reader is not only encouraged to start anywhere within the prototype and end anywhere, but also becomes the writer in terms of constructing the dissertation.

The beginning [of a hypertext], then, is the step in the intentional production of meaning....Hypertext makes determining the beginning of a text difficult because it changes our conception of text and permits readers to "begin" at many different points, it similarly changes the points of ending.  Readers can not only choose different points of ending, they can also continue to add to the text, extend it, to make it more than it was when they began to read. (Landow, 1992/1997, p. 78)

        If you think about how you organize your files within your computer, you may choose to loosely structure them in spaces that include most of your files or carefully "file" all of your documents into folders specific to the type or topic of the file.  I quickly discovered in creating my dissertation that I was going to generate hundreds of files that included images, sounds, animations, and hyper linked web pages.  It was apparent at an early stage that a loosely conceived file system would make revision and linking an impossible task.  I revised my file structure for my dissertation three times to find a consistent set of "rules" or decision points for myself.  It was necessary not only for revision and linking, but it projected locations of where future files would be located.

Navigation

        The ability to move in a web-based piece is critical.  Since my postmodern design requires an organic multidimensional navigational look and feel, the structure for the menus is based on animated and spherical symbols.  Lines in the menu structure represent connections.  This structure allows me to emphasize an organic model of choice.  The reader-writer-discoverers can, through choice, construct the dissertation in any manner they choose.  Choices can be made after the conclusion of the menu rotation.  Each reading of the prototype could be conceivably very different.  The prototype has several levels of menu, but there is consistency in the look and feel of all levels.

        The main menu, which contains what could be thought of as the "chapters" of the dissertation contains seven sections.  The menu is animated. When the mouse is passed over each of the sections a brief description appears to give the reader more information about the section.  When a section is selected by clicking on it, the section rotates to the top of the menu and launches the second level of menus.  The second level menus offer choices of major themes within the section.  When a choice at this level is selected, a third level menu is launched.  At this level, the menu is an index of choices for all of the files associated with a particular theme.  Each theme is organized around specific types of files that include hyper linked text , poetry , etymology  , voice , images , and bibliographic references .  Each of the file types are represented by icons embedded in spheres to provide another level of consistency and recognition for the reader-writer-discoverer.   If there is more than one file of a particular type, then there is a constellation of smaller spheres connected to the larger sphere.  For example, if there are three text files for a theme, then there would be three spheres connected to a large sphere that represents text.

        A second option for navigating in the prototype is provided in the form of an image map for each theme.  It allows the reader-writer-discoverer to go to another section in the dissertation, another theme in the current section the participant is in, or to open another file in the current theme the participant is located.  This option is provided to give the reader-writer-discoverer an easy and quick alternative for changing direction within the dissertation.

Orientation and Indexing

        Closely related to navigation is orientation and indexing.   Critical to the creation of this type of writing is a concrete way for the reader-writer-discoverer to know where they are located in relationship to other portions of the dissertation.  In traditional writing, we have over time created conventions that orient the reader (e.g., sequential presentation, table of contents, chapter headings, page numbers, and an indexing system).   While these same conventions have been used in a more sequential presentation of information  on the web, a multidimensional presentation of information with alternative sequencing requires the invention of a set of conventions to aid the participant to have of a sense of place within the "writing."

        The image maps already discussed offer one way of helping reader-writer-discoverers place themselves within the dissertation.  The use of icons also offer at the level of theme an orientation within the theme.  At the level of each element, I have created an information box that gives the participant information on the section, theme, type of medium, and index number.  A colored sphere offers a quick visual cue to the section the element is located within.  An animated icon  in the left hand corner of every dissertation element opens the information box.

The other orientation device that I have created is an index.  The index is organized by section.  Each section index has a list of files color-coded by theme.  A linked title of the file and an index number with a letter representing the section and a number to distinguish the file from other files for reference is also offered.  The number is assigned, not based on an order of presentation, but is arbitrarily assigned within the section beginning with “1” and continuing until all of the items have a number within each section. In Table 1 below, the indexing convention is described.  The order of the categories in Table 1 is arbitrary.
 
 

The linear representation of the index is arbitrary in terms of order to reinforce the idea that there is no order from which to read the prototype.  The index offers the reader-writer-discoverer a quick way to find and view a specific file.

            The structure that has enabled me to create the prototype has evolved.  As I progressed through the creation process, it became clear that I had to develop conventions that we take for granted in traditional text.  While many of my ideas are cultivated and informed by designs currently being used on the World Wide Web, its specific application to scholarly writing is my own.  Once the structure was put into place, my next task was to develop a way of interpreting using "web writing."

Hermeneutics of Web Writing

    What does it mean to interpret experience through a method of web writing?  It is a basic hermeneutic question.

Hermes is the messenger of the gods, he who brings a word from the realm of the wordless; hermeios brings the word from the Oracle--hermeneueinis primordial interpretation, the bringing into word of what is previously not yet word.  Hermeneutics is the most primitive sense of "to say."  And from this coming to birth of word, language, its derived meanings of explaining as in bringing to understand, and translating, as in making a foreign tongue or meaning familiar to one's own tongue arise....  Hermeneutics had as its task the interpretation of that which was primordial, the coming into being of Word, the event of meaning.  (Ihde, 1999, p. 9)

For Ricoeur as for Heidegger, "Man is language."  But language is enigmatic, often equivocal, and always multidimensional.  This is so for the subject as well, and in this language is "like" the subject.  (Ihde, 1999, p. 21)

Writing, the ancient nonverbal language of texts which posed an ancient hermeneutic problem, is now adumbrated with the equally spatial-temporal reproductions of cinema, television, and tape recorder.  As of yet, there has been no full hermeneutic investigation of this series of embodiments. These new "texts" call for new types of hermeneutics. (Ihde, 1999, p. 23)

        What is this hermeneutic of web writing?  How does one interpret an experience using web writing?  It is a creative process that involves a matrix of considerations with each piece informed by a different set of literature.  A rich set of theory has been developed around the notions of writing and hypertext  (e.g., Barthes, 1993; Bolter, 1991; Aarseth, 1997; Joyce, 1995; Landow, 1997/1992 and 1994; Synder, 1996) that
are tied to the postmodern philosophers Deleuze and Guattari.  The visual dimension of interpretation has been explored for centuries within art and art history.  Graphic artists continue the discussion in terms of presentation of information in the modern venues of advertising (Taylor& Saarenin, 1994).  Human computer interface designers consider and discuss topics such as screen real estate, navigational conventions, iconic conventions, etc. (e.g., Laurel, 1993; Shneiderman, 1998).  Multimedia interaction and design has a history of discussion within the development of educational computer products (e.g.,
Schwier & Misanchuk, 1993; Nix & Spiro, 1990; Salomon, 1994; etc.).  Since the proliferation of the Web, a rash of popular books are proliferating on effective writing and design using this format (e.g., von Wodtke, 1993;  Vaughan, 1996; Kololenko, 1997; etc.).

        My intention is not to give a complete literature review here, but to illustrate the complexity of web writing.  In my prototype, I began to consider how text, images, animations and sound could be used to interpret the lifeworld experience of students in WCC.  How does one use a multidimensional environment that offers alternative sequencing to interpret experience in this new way of "writing?"  I am still discovering the process.

        Text in this environment can be represented differently than the constraints offered by a traditional page.   It can morph and change its shape dynamically.  It can be formed into a web through links to other pieces of text located in another file.  It can represent time in terms of immediacy or past through screen location or animation.  A sense of page is missing and the screen becomes only a momentary limitation to confine the information.  I can click on a link and immediately be whisked to other text.  Or, I can scroll through an entire text that in printed form could be a hundred pages.  How does one represent text in spatial web writing?  Since screen resolution does not lend itself to reading lengthy pieces, it became important to recast a sense of page into another form.  The initial decision I made was to modularize the text--to present it in pieces that have integrity in and of themselves, yet fit within a whole in some logical way.  To bring a sense of continuity to the text, I changed a sense of page into a graphic space.  The text is set within a graphic representation that is congruent with the theme.  In addition to recasting the text within a graphic, the texts are connected in a complex matrix or web of inter-relationships determined not only by hyperlinking, but also by linking modules through an organic menu structure.  Traditional phenomenological conventions of poetry, etymology and interpretation are restructured into interpreting through a different form enabled by a web format.

Images change interpretation not only in terms of recasting "page" as described above, but provide depth and movement to the interpretation.  The old adage "a picture is worth a thousand words" captures the power of imagery in interpreting experience.  A web format provides an easy way to incorporate images as background to text, integrated within text, iconic linked navigational conventions, and movement. Images and animations become metaphors of interpretation as text has been used to interpret our everyday experiences.  Animated images offer a level of expression that captures not only a new sense of space, but also time.  Where several postmodern writers have sought to represent text differently on the page to give graphic representation to multiple voices, animation gives representation of movement and time.  Text and image can change within the same space with animation.  Images in web writing retain their power as visual metaphor, but have the added dimension of movement and inter-connection.

The only way sound can be included in traditional writing is in a metaphoric or descriptive sense.  Traditional dissertations describe what a participant said by quoting from an interview.  What is lost is the nuance of the voice and what it reveals about the participant's description.  Conversations are often audio recorded and then put into textual transcripts for analysis.  In a web format, the voices can become part of writing.  A transcript can be read while hearing the voice of the student with a mere click of the mouse.   As a reader-writer-discoverer, I am offered an entirely new level to interpret and perceive participants’ comments.  The sound no longer is imagined, but becomes attached to a real person.  I have a better sense of "who" the person is who has had this experience.  While sound could be added to the dissertation in a variety of ways, I have chosen, as I mentioned in the assumptions, to limit it to student voices.  I want their voice to be the only sound that is heard since it is from their voice that this dissertation
arises.

Establishing Evaluation Criteria

        How does one evaluate this type of scholarly writing?  Since the web hermeneutic employs a variety of expressions, what criteria should be used?  The faculty on my committee wanted me to establish the criteria from which this type of phenomenological and hermeneutic work can be evaluated.  The development of evaluation criteria for this dissertation will include the criteria developed by van Manen (1990) for any phenomenological dissertation described earlier in this chapter, as well as criteria specific to writing in a web format.   I expect this section to change and grow as the prototype "writing" process develops.   Web format criteria will involve content, interactive structure, interface design, and hyper-linking and multimedia (Stansberry, 1998).  At this point, I have suggested several criteria to guide the use of each set of criteria.

Content

1. The content is accurately represented in the combination of text, multimedia, and hypertext.

Interactive Structure

1. The reader is free to "chart alternative courses through the wordmass [I] fabricate" (Taylor & Saarinen, 1994, p. 13).
2. The path choice is clear for the user.
3. The interactive structure is used to pace the reader.

Interface Design

1. The interface is visually coherent.
2. The textual and visual elements blend.
3. "The work is riddled with gaps, spaces and openings that invite the reader to write.  White spaces becomes the site of transaction in which the event of understanding occurs" (Taylor & Saarinen, 1994, p. 13).
4. The navigational conventions are easy to understand.
5. The reader has a sense of location within the dissertation.
6. The navigational system visually supports the overall dissertation.
7. Each screen follows basic graphic design principles (e.g., color, placement, etc.).

Hyper-linking

1. The links within the "text" are well placed and connected.
2. The text is presented in the first four levels in manageable chunks and linked to other chunks.

Multimedia (images, animations, and audio)

1. The text is expressed as media through the use of font, motion, placement and size.
2. Media is used to express ideas better than they could be expressed in words.
3. Multimedia supports and adds to the understanding of the theme.
4. Multimedia is thoughtfully used to enhance a particular theme.
5. Multimedia is used to add novelty to the representation of the content.

Collaborating Online

        Criteria assumes that there is a mechanism to receive feedback.  Initially, my proposal was on paper and it was possible to write comments in the margins.  But in a web-based environment, I had to devise another method since there are no margins to write comments.  To establish this vital part of the dissertation process, I have linked each element of the dissertation to an online web discussion space in HyperNews.  HyperNews is a web-based software that offers threaded discussion space.  The space is password protected and only faculty members and student participants will be allowed into the discussion.  Each faculty member will be able to provide input on the item, read the messages of other faculty members on the item, and have an asynchronous discussion with other members if they choose.

        At the bottom, usually on the left of the dissertation element is a button for  HyperNews .  When the button is clicked, it launches a separate browser window in HyperNews directly connected to the dissertation item in view.  The HyperNews window can be minimized and both HyperNews and the dissertation element can be viewed, while at the same time providing ease of comment for those participating in the dissertation process.  Faculty participation has been slow to evolve although other
interested commentators who have either asked or been invited to comment have started to interact with this part of the dissertation.

        The mix of participants in the collective are crucial for me in the evolution of this new way of writing.  The faculty on my committee are the experts I have chosen to help me work through the process.  In phenomenology, the research participants are partners in the process of writing.  I have subscribed the students in this commentary to give me feedback on my interpretation of their experiences.  Additional readers who are interested or who have expertise have been invited to also participate in the process.  It is through this encounter that I am refining my work.  The comments spur in me additional
perspectives of viewing and interpreting.

        My research is phenomenological in its methodology, but unique in my web-based approach.  While the gathering of information will be consistent with van Manen's research process, the method of writing and rewriting will take place in a web format.  The "text" is expanded to include hypermedia and multimedia.  The interpretation will approach the experience of web-based computer conferencing from a multidimensional structure that offers alternative choice rather than a sequential presentation.