Chronicle of Higher Education: Readers Not Wanted: Student Writers Fight to Keep Their Work Off the Web

Andrea L. Foster

16 May 2008

Excerpt:

"Mark Brazaitis worries that his university may sabotage the literary careers of his students.

As director of the creative-writing program at West Virginia University, Mr. Brazaitis oversees the training of about 30 graduate students, who hope to become published authors. At the end of their three years in the program, they hand in their magnum opuses, master's theses that could one day appear in print in literary journals or books.

For now, creative-writing students can submit their theses on paper. But starting next fall, the coordinator of the campuswide electronic-thesis program wants to require those students, like others at West Virginia, to submit their writing projects electronically and make them publicly available after five years.

That policy could hurt students, says Mr. Brazaitis, an associate professor of English, because publishers will not accept poems, short stories, or novels that are already freely available for everyone to read online."

The squabble at West Virginia is unlikely to be resolved quickly.

John H. Hagen, the electronic-thesis coordinator, who is also a library administrator, insists that online distribution enhances students' publishing prospects rather than thwarts them.

... full article at Chronicle of Higher Education [local PDF copy]