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Dr. Cheryl E. Ball (center), associate professor of digital publishing studies at West Virginia University, opened her visit in Zachery Koppelmann's ENG 411 Business & Technology Writing class in Hays Hall.

Her talk focused on digital collaborations. She said, 'Comuunication over long distances is hard. Tone, which is so important, is often lost.'

'Think about how you are communicating with groupmates. Different discussion groups communicate differently. The words (used) don't always mean the same thing,' said Ball.

Ball asked the students present, 'How would you describe this project over dinner to your grandmother? In that situation you cannot use jargon.'

'The glossary (of shared terms) is important for people to know,' said Ball. 'It is a way for you to figure out the stable footing that allows you to communicate with progremmers, but also the public outside.'

Computers can easily facilitate global group collaborations.

Ball warned students, 'Be careful how you build community.'

Ball delivered a lecture Monday evening in Baxter Hall titled, 'Digital Publishing as a Liberal Art.'

As he told of her start as a teenager, Ball said, 'All I had to do was look around, see what needed to be done, and do it. I was good at getting things done. I had great mentors.'

'Projects came into my field of vision 25 years after I was told to take initiative. Publishing studies brings all of the liberal arts together,' she said.

Ball is also an editor of Kairos, a journal of rhetoric, technology, and pedagogy, the longest continually published peer-reviewed journal on the internet. Here she chats with Terrell Russell '18 (left). Ball says of Kairos, 'It has a rigorous peer-review process. We have to do it to legitimize ourselves. There are three stages to our process: our staff reviews it, the second tier is a collaborative reading by the editorial review board, and the third tier is a one-on-one staff review.'

Ben Cramer '17 (right) and Ball share an interest in digital publishing. 'I gather readers by making my work open and accessible. Every video has a transcript, every image has a description. We (Kairos) make everything open and free.'

Ball also sat in on Crystal Benedicks' ENG 302 Writing in the Community: Grants & Non-Profits class in Baxter Hall.

She said of grant writing, '(It) is presuading your audience -- not the client -- that you know what you are talking about. Given the resources, what is achievable?'

'You cannot be a poet when you write a grant, but you do need to leave in the passion...it's how you tell your story.' Professor Benedicks followed, 'It's the exact opposite of academic writing.'

Ball said, 'I love talking to classes like this because you are writing for real audiences. The stakes are so high.'

Here, Dr. Ball listens to Shamir Johnson '17 during the in-class discussion.