Fulcrum as a Publishing Platform for Open Access Books
This video presents a new platform for Open Access ebooks, Fulcrum (https://fulcrum.org/) developed at the University of Michigan. It is particularly geared toward the publication of long-form digital scholarship and supports restricted access as well as open access publications.
Published
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What Fulcrum does is it gives us 00:00 - digital capability that we haven't had before. 00:03
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Fulcrum can help authors make their work 00:05 - more accessible. 00:08
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For me as a writer the ability to 00:09 - know that my reader will hear what I'm talking 00:13
- about allows me to make my writing more like my teaching. 00:15
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For dance a still image can't really 00:18 - convey the movement and the choreography 00:20
- and so that makes a huge difference for us. 00:21
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With Fulcrum it's changed the way 00:28 - that we've published with authors. 00:30
- Now we have a way to organize and display 00:32
- all of their digital materials together 00:35
- and to make them accessible with visually impaired 00:38
- and hearing impaired users and people 00:41
- who use assistive technology 00:44
- and to also let them do more complicated things 00:45
- that they wouldn't be able to do 00:48
- just with a general website, 00:50
- so having things like 3D models, 00:51
- interactive maps, interactive timelines 00:54
- and those sorts of things that tie directly into 00:57
- their book and relate back to their book. 00:59
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Scientists all over the world can easily now 01:02 - through Fulcrum access our data and use it. 01:04
- They can access it directly in Fulcrum, 01:08
- they can download, it's an extremely important, 01:10
- powerful research tool for the museum 01:12
- that our colleagues all over the world 01:15
- can go online, go to my edition of Fulcrum 01:17
- relating to my research, access that data, 01:20
- use it, publish with it, produce new knowledge. 01:25
- I mean this is exactly what the mission 01:27
- of our museum is. 01:29
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Fulcrum is really exciting for me 01:31 - because I work on the performing arts 01:33
- and so we always want to readers 01:35
- to have access to visual material, 01:37
- whether that's photographs or performance programs 01:39
- or actual video of the performances 01:42
- that we're analyzing, so having the digital platform 01:44
- is really wonderful because we can upload 01:47
- our own material that's not already accessible 01:50
- and we can also link to materials. 01:51
- Now that we have so many videos 01:53
- circulating on the internet, 01:56
- it's very helpful for readers to know 01:57
- which video is the right one to watch 01:58
- and also because I work across different languages 02:01
- a lot of videos are only searchable 02:03
- if you type in Chinese characters 02:05
- and so being able to link directly 02:07
- to those videos is really essential 02:09
- for readers who can only read or type in English. 02:11
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This opportunity with the University of Michigan Press 02:14 - has allowed me to think as I'm writing 02:16
- about what music I want my reader to hear 02:19
- and then embed it in the book. 02:22
- For me what Fulcrum has meant is 02:23
- that as I'm writing I can think 02:27
- in terms of audio, I can think 02:29
- about what I need my reader to notice 02:31
- and hear instead of thinking about 02:34
- what I need to write that will clarify 02:36
- the sound of the music without them hearing it, 02:40
- so being able to make that assumption 02:42
- about what's available to my reader 02:45
- helps me tell the story in a more natural way. 02:47
- I don't think I'm going back from here. 02:50
Comments
This is an interesting project. The captions for the visually impared go a long way toward making this content universally accessible too.