As a historiographic tool, LWP is poised to reveal paradigms of information migration by developing an understanding of intellectual impact that extends beyond traditional bibliometrics and citation analysis. These methods allow us to trace intellectual circulation beyond traditional publications; however, they also require a kind of crowd-sourcing in order to provide a snapshot of what intellectual influence looks like at any moment in time. In this project, we strive to develop a platform that will allow researchers to crowd-source their efforts, effectively working beyond siloed paradigms, to better trace this intellectual circulation.
Through user-centered and participatory design approaches (including semi-structured interviews and focus groups), we have solicited participation from rhetoric and writing studies scholars, feminist rhetorical historians, and other researchers whose work aligns with LWP. As a result of this participatory design, LWP is now building data sets to help achieve the following goals: (1) distinguishing between “big data” and “small data” approaches; (2) becoming more sensitive to the unique needs of crowdsourced and co-designed projects that invite peer collaboration; and (3) enabling users to identify shared or common interests through interacting with the site.
