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Exploring storytelling in its many forms in this digital age

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80 Days, the Digital Game – a Case Study

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Recently as a part of my studies in Digital Games, Learning, and Pedagogy (ETEC 565S) for my Master of Educational Technology, I was tasked with analyzing a digital game of my choosing by creating a series of game logs reflecting on my experiences with the game. The game I chose to analyze and create a case study around was 80 Days.

You will find a link to each of the game logs I created in my analysis of this game below.

Game Logs from my Analysis of 80 Days

Game Log 1 : First Impressions Before Gameplay
Game Log 2 : First Playthrough
Game Log 3 : Watching Gameplay

80 Days, the Video Game

To briefly introduce 80 Days, it is a digital game released by Inkle and written by Meg Jayanth, based on the Jules Verne novel Around the World in 80 Days.

Image courtesy of Sailko.

First Impression and Trepidations with 80 Days

When I first picked 80 Days for my digital game analysis, I did so with the hope that it would be a little like Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, a favourite digital game from my youth. I wanted a game filled with adventure, mystery, and intrigue. Also, given the current pandemic, I’ve been missing travel, so my hope was that 80 Days would provide me with that and give me the opportunity to learn about the history and culture of different areas around the globe.

I had two trepidations in delving into this game.

  1. The Goal of Attempting to Get Around the World in 80 Days – as I am a slow traveller, who likes to take the time to explore the places I visit, that is what I thought I would wish to do in each city visited in the game. While some travellers are missing the transport of travel in the present pandemic, and modes of transit are certain to be an important aspect to 80 Days, as they were in Jules Verne’s novel, for me it is the place and people that I am missing.
  2. The Presentation / Perception of Women and Different Cultures Around the World – this game was after all based on Jules Verne’s novel Around the World in 80 Days, an adventure undertaken by two European men in 1872 at a time when the British Empire saw themselves as the white saviours and women were portrayed as the weaker gender, who were in need of men to look after them.

I discuss these trepidations in my initial game log and my glimmer of hope that possibly the female writer of the game, Meg Jayanth, who while British, was born in India, had found a way to craft a more worldly perspective on a story of two European gentlemen that was set in 1872, rather than disinterest or as Ian Bogart frames it in How to Do Things with Videogames, a disconnect between violence, sexism, racism, classism, and empathy. I just wasn’t quite sure how she was going to do that and maintain historical accuracy. These are all things I discuss in this video on my first impressions of the game.

First Playthrough of 80 Days

How wrong I was in my initial assumptions! While I did get a game filled with adventure, mystery, and intrigue with 80 Days, I got those things in a very different way from what I was expecting.

You see what 80 Days is an interaction fiction game, like a choose your adventure novel, only with multitudes more choices of directions to take in the game that lead to different plots and narratives. I have to admit that a few weeks ago, I did not understand how a choose your own adventure story could be a game. After playing 80 Days, my perspective on this has changed, as this is most certainly a game (and a story, at the same time). The choices you make at the markets on goods to purchase or sell, routes to take, conversations to have, responses to those conversations, all have an impact on the narrative, plots presented, and upon Fogg’s health within the game. There is strategy in the decisions made, and repercussions to the decisions chosen. And ultimately, the unpredictability of those repercussions and the surprising narratives that ensued are what kept me reading and playing.

In playing, my trepidations disappeared, I discovered I enjoyed the race and was not as prone to dilly dally as I thought I might be. I found that the anticipation of a journey, the sound of a steam whistle, and the chug of an engine all left me with a feeling of anticipation and of nostalgia. By blending the story of Around the World in 80 Days with a reimagined steampunk 1872, it gave writer Meg Jayanth the artistic license to craft a new storyworld with an imagined political climate, new characters, and different gender roles and jobs. While this meant that we interacted with many more women in 80 Days the digital game, then Phileas Fogg and Passepartout did in Jules Verne’s novel, this is not to say that the 80 Days video game avoided real issues around politics, sexism, racism, religious intolerance, classism … etc. Quite the opposite, 80 Days addressed these cleverly throughout the stories of the everyday interactions in travel. I know that I myself, playing the role of Passepartout, have already inadvertently made a woman feel unsafe, and learned that she has in some way been assaulted in the past; have helped a woman captain give birth to her new child, so as not to need to present herself to her crew in a vulnerable state; have been rendered unconscious by a nun, in an attempt to gain my aid in political plots at play; had a bomb explode in my soup, after taking a bit of culinary advice; and been pickpocketed by a little girl in a wheelchair that I thought I was enjoying an innocent exchange with. Needless to say, this is a whole new world from Around the World in 80 Days.

In the debate as Bogart puts it in How to Do Things with Videogames, is this a game or art? It is both a game and art, just as it is both a game and a story.

In discovering this, I decided to try my hand at creating my own playthrough broadcast, which is not as easy as it might seem, and involves both strategic decision making and storytelling. Gametubers is a niche that I have watched curiously for years, as a digital video creator and having been invited into a number of discord gamer communities, as a result of sharing my videos on Vidme. While I understood from conversations in the discords that there was the potential for generating revenue through gameplay videos, I did not find gameplay videos particularly engaging and had no idea the revenues could be as lucrative as T.L. Taylor cites in her book, Watch Me Play: Twitch and the Rise of Game Live Streaming. This however seemed like a good opportunity to experiment in the niche of gameplay videos, so you can see my first take on such a video below:

Which leads me to …

Watching a bit of 80 Days Gameplay

While being somewhat skeptical of this form of entertainment previously, I have to say, 80 Days and Paragon Plays have converted me. In watching Paragon Plays’ Mutiny Aboard the Waterlily | 80 Days [Interactive Novel Gameplay], you will discover from the video below that I become somewhat of a Gameplay Video Convert. When done well, as is the case of Paragon Plays, this is an art form and a story genre, as pointed out by T.L. Taylor in Watch Me Play: Twitch and the Rise of Game Live Streaming. Having said that – something that is also touched on in Watch Me Play, there is a lot more work that goes into being a financially successful gametuber / streamer than crafting entertaining videos. Gavin of Paragon Plays created wonderfully entertaining videos, yet he never really gained the audience needed to financially benefit from this story niche, which may be why his channel now lies dormant.

Aside from my admiration for Gavin from Paragon Plays’ narration, strategic storytelling in editing his video from both past gameplay and present additions that include backstory to the game, gameplay tips, and story insights from Jules Verne’s Around the Word in 80 Days, I learned a number of things from watching Gavin play that were not expressively told to me. From watching, I observed the benefit in gameplay and broadcast in making quick decisions, I realized that the gameplay and story snippets were richer with familiarity to Jules Verne’s novel, and I gathered that by making bolder choices, the story got that much richer and more suspenseful. In the words of Passepartout in Around the World in 80 Days …

Fortune favours the bold.

Passpartout

I now understand why people both make and watch gameplay videos – for the personalities and storytelling, as well as for tips in terms of gameplay. These observations have made me want to dabble more in the creation of gameplay videos myself. I think what I’d like to do in this bent is to create a serialized ‘bedtime story’ from chapters of a full game playthrough of 80 Days. Thinking this might be especially fun to do as a team project with my nieces and nephews. For the first game playthrough, I think I’d like to follow the route of travel from Around the World in 80 Days to see if I stumble upon any similar plot lines to that of the novel.

Exploring Societal Discomfort in 80 Days

One other thing that struck me in watching Gavin play and reflecting on my own gameplay, was that the player seemed to be rewarded with a favourable outcome when making decisions that respected female characters in the game and that respected different cultures and religions, although only after a number of ‘tests’ as to the player’s sincerity. Despite this being my observation, writer Meg Jayanth does discuss in a talk at the 2015 Game Developers Conference the importance to her that the storylines in 80 Days not lead to the notion of the ‘white saviour,’ like they might have with the story of Aouda, the widowed princess in Around the World in 80 Days, whom Fogg and Passepartout save from her husband, the Raja’s, funeral pyre. Meg speaks about this from 23:37 to 24:43 in the video below.

For me, the placing of the player into scenes of discomfort and moral dilemma is what not only makes 80 Days a nuanced piece of storytelling, but a provocative examination of society, our believes, and our actions and inactions within it, all whilst enjoying a bit of gameplay in an imagined world. This is where the learning happens within the gameplay for me, as in this way 80 Days evokes empathy in it’s players towards the ‘other’ in the game, much as Bogart reflects on in Chapter 2 of How to Do Things with Videogames. I’ll be curious to observe how these moments of discomfort and moral dilemmas impact my nieces and nephews as we play and read together, and the discussions that ensue as a result.

References

Bogost, I. (2011). How to Do Things with Videogames (1st ed.). University of Minnesota Press.

GDC. (2015, November 5). 80 Days & Unexpected Stories [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Apa7Klu8Trg

Jayanth, M. (2015). 80 Days [Interactive Game]. Inkle. https://www.inklestudios.com/80days/

Paragon Plays. (2016, May 23). Mutiny Aboard the Waterlily | 80 Days [Interactive Novel Gameplay] [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orOdVFMydjE

Watch Me Play: Twitch and the Rise of Game Live Streaming

StoryToGo. (2020, August 12). First Impressions of 80 Days [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joSLFXnbkXI

StoryToGo. (2020b, August 21). First Playthrough of 80 Days [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pw3WX7_3tV0

StoryToGo. (2020c, August 30). Embarking on 80 Days with Paragon Plays [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUBMl-yWKok

Taylor, T. L. (2018). Watch Me Play: Twitch and the Rise of Game Live Streaming (Princeton Studies in Culture and Technology). Princeton University Press.

Verne, J. (1873). Around the World in 80 Days. Pierre-Jules Hetzel.

The Power of the Protest – Positive Changes Coming from the June 2020 Black Lives Matter Protests

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One of our Roamancing writer’s recently did the research and wrote a letter to a loved one about Systemic Racism, Police Brutality, and positive change coming from the Black Lives Matter Protests and Marches to explain to them why the current Black Lives Matter protests and marches are needed. As we feel this is an important issue and think she did an excellent job of both researching and addressing the problem, we are sharing her letter in 3-parts, here, on Being Emme, and on Roamancing. Her research is focused on the United States, but as is evident in the news in recent weeks, this is very much an issue that needs addressing here at home in Canada too. You can read the first part of her letter by clicking here and the second part of her letter here.

We chose StoryToGo to share the final part of Alex’s letter, as it shows the powerful and positive impact that one form of storytelling can have – that of the protest. These are also stories that we wish to share further, and by sharing them in 3-parts that span 3-different sites with 3-different communities of readers, we hope that Alex’s research and words will resonate further.

June 2020 Black Lives Matter Protests in Phoenix, Arizona.

Dear …

I took your advice and have been doing a lot of research and reading on the subject and I wanted to share with you what I’ve found.

It’s okay if we don’t see everything the same way – I’ll always listen and think about what you have to say and hope you’ll do the same for me! Because what’s the point of having a brain if I don’t use it for critical thinking? You taught me that. 

Anyways love you lots and hope you’ll read with an open mind.

Alex Charters

Below is a continuation of Alex’s letter that began with the sobering facts on police brutality and a brief history of systemic racism.

A poignant question at the Black Lives Matter March in Phoenix, Arizona (June 2020).

I understand a lot of what you said on Sunday and agree that Canada is not America. We have our own problems that we need to face but I think supporting the Civil Rights Movement in America is very important right now. (And added by the editor similar issues do exist in Canada, particular towards our Indigenous people.)

The international support and media attention have forced America to take action and start making real change.

Alex Charters

Positive Changes Coming From the Black Lives Matter Protests:

Re: George Floyd

Photo care of Lorie Shaull

Derek Chauvin was arrested and charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter of George Floyd. This is almost unheard of with 99% of officers getting no charges in the shooting of suspects. 

Re: Breonna Taylor

The ‘no-knock” warrants that allow police officers to enter homes without providing any notice will now be regulated. 

Re: Michael Brown

Ferguson (where Michael Brown was murdered) just elected its first black mayor and she is also the first female mayor.

Other Positive Moves

Black Lives Matter Protests in Phoenix, Arizona – June 2020
  • In California, prosecutors are lobbying the state bar to ban district attorneys from accepting money from police unions.
  • In Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced that he will “seek to identify $100 million to $150 million in cuts from the LAPD,” and that the funds will funnel into different areas such as jobs, health care and education.
  • In New Jersey law enforcement will be adding mental health professionals, as well as other reforms.
  • In San Diego police end the use of carotid restraint.
  • In Colorado a bill was introduced to address abusive law enforcement.
  • Unanimous passing of mandatory police education and bias training passed through Michigan’s Senate.
  • Minneapolis City Council voted unanimously to require police officers to intervene anytime they see unauthorized use of force by another officer and to ban police chokeholds altogether. 
  • In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio pledged to redirect some of the New York Police Department budget toward youth and social services. De Blasio also committed to repealing Section 50-A, which prevents the public from accessing disciplinary records of police officers.
  • The US Marine Corps released guidance on the removal of public displays of the Confederate battle flag. 

I think the problems black Americans are facing are very real and these protests are an extension of the Civil Rights movement from the 1960’s. These movements are pivotal in making change.

Alex Charters

For a first hand account from the Black Lives Matter protests and marches in the United States, read Lori’s experiences partaking in the marches in Arizona, as an interracial family.

References

River Revery – a Sustainable Funding Case Study

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River Revery is a community-based, collaborative project of two London, Ontario  writers, artist/educator, poet Penn Kemp and media artist and educator, Mary McDonald. River Revery addresses the artists’ concerns with the health of the habitat surrounding the Thames / Deshkan Ziibi River. In addressing local environmental concerns in an artistic and poetic way, and through inviting community participation, they aim to engage with global, universal concerns for the environment.

Story Wall River Revery

River Revery’s Transmedia storytelling initiative, #RiverReveryLdn invites Londoners to join in “knowticing” intricate details of beauty in London’s natural world surrounding our beloved Thames/Antler/Deshkan Ziibi River. These small moments of beauty help to remind us to celebrate and care for the beautiful and fragile environment within which our community is held.

Creators

Mary McDonald, MultiMedia Artist, marymcdonald.ca

Penn Kemp, Poet, http://pennkemp.weebly.com/

Country

Canada

Link to project

RiverRevery.ca

The Creators

Poet Penn Kemp, and editor of Pendas Productions

Pendas Productions is a micro publishing company publishing artbooks of poetry and drama, often in combination with CDs. Since 1977, Pendas has produced 30 poetry artbook/CD and DVD combinations often in collaboration with musicians and artists with editor Penn Kemp. We have featured more than 20 Souwesto authors and produced several anthologies.

Penn writes: “Poetry is an essential expression of the human spirit: collaborating with Mary extends poetry’s possibilities and audience to the wider community. I believe that poetry is a path to environmental activism and change”.

Media artist Mary McDonald

I am passionate about community participation in arts and the ways in which new media and accessible creative technologies can make that happen. I create interactive Augmented Reality installation and transmedia storytelling using accessible digital mobile technology to show, share, invite and empower others to bring and contribute their artistic responses to “Become Part of the Story.”

I have been very active in the London arts community for a number of years, through a number of artistic disciplines. Through these projects and through my development as a multimedia artist, my passion for bringing community together through the arts, creating opportunities for contributions of the community to the arts and inviting their interaction and engagement has become increasingly important to me and a foundation of my work.

I plan to leverage River Revery as a way to connect our community, our artists into a creative collective. Bringing our attention and our intention to our natural environment is of paramount importance to me. What we care about is what we will care for. Using artistic responses, new medias and accessible, mobile creative technologies, enables people to bring their attention to the beauty around them, to “knowtice” it with intention, which creates in turn, collective environmental action.

Through interactive guided Augmented Reality poetry/art walks and participatory exhibitions, walking workshops and in-place workshops focussing on how to create transdisciplinary art with accessible, mobile digital creative technologies the community of London will be invited and empowered to become part of the story of River Revery, uniting community and artists into a creative, collective, generative response to the environment which envelops London.

Screenshot of RiverRevery.ca website

The Project

River Revery is a collaboration of  London, Ontario artists — poet and activist Penn Kemp, and multimedia artist, Mary McDonald. River Revery received a City of London’s Community Arts Investment Program grant (CAIP grant) from the city of London through the London Arts Council. This collaboration was designed for building community engagement around the appreciation and protection of the Thames/Antler River that runs through London and involves community arts participation through transmedia storytelling. 

Wishing Well AR Artwork
AR artwork for Wishing Well

The project includes an Augmented Reality moveable art exhibit which is a series of artworks with embedded QR codes, printed and mounted on aluminum plates. These hang on free standing metal easels, which allows the freedom to have the exhibit to occur in any location, including in natural locations outside such as along the river, at the Forks, and in conservation areas. The visual art is linked through QR codes (a very simple but accessible and effective method of AR) to Mary’s multimedia sound and visual interpretations of Penn’s poems. The project also includes a website on which the Community Story Wall features community participation in arts, the text of the poems and the sound and poetry film interpretations as well as hosting the OER components and community workshop materials. 

The main goals of the project are to leverage River Revery as a way to connect the community, our artists, our schools to celebrate and “knowtice” the beauty around London, our River…to “knowtice” is to acknowledge the value, appreciate and care for the natural ecosystem London sits within.

As well, the artist aims to break down the barriers between artist and “audience” to become a collective community, all active participants, caring, creating, sharing and learning with accessible creative technologies, art, and transmedia storytelling. connected and acting through art, and transmedia storytelling.

Story Wall at RiverRevery.ca
Instructions can be found linked on the Story Wall at RiverRevery.ca

Road to Sustainable Funding: 

Free/OER Elements:

The text and the poetry films are freely available on the website. Print versions of the entire poetry book which includes some photographs and QR codes to the online AR films and sound explorations are available for purchase. Also available to purchase are prints of photographs and a DVD of the poetry films. 

OER downloadable and remix visuals including film segments will be available on the community workshop resources page on the website. Also included here will be plans and curricula for community workshops for participatory and engaging art projects utilizing mobile, accessible creative technologies. 

Developing a Multiyear Plan:

River Revery  — Become Part of the Story

River Revery at London, Ontario 2018 Wordsfest.
Premiere exhibit of River Revery, Centre at the Forks, Museum London for Wordsfest 2018.
  • 2018 Creation of River Revery
  • 2019 Community Engagement
    • walks and workshops
    • possible partners: Thames Talbot Land Trust, UTRCA, Fanshawe, Antler River Rally, Western Serves student volunteers, London Public Library, Centre at the Forks 
  • 2020 Bring in other artists for collaborative, curated events and explore other partnerships
    • “Bring the Outside In” (working title) large, curated transdisicplinary event(s) bringing together community, artists, environmentalists

Developing River Revery’s Broad Community Engagement, a Multi-year Plan:

  • 2018 Creation of River Revery —
    • 4 AR visual artworks have been printed and mounted on aluminum plates which can hang from free standing metal easels such that the exhibit can be placed anywhere — including outside along the river, in the park at the forks of the river in the centre of downtown…
    • These artworks are linked to 4 poetry films which are sound and visual interpretations of Penn’s poems which I have created with accessible mobile technology
    • 4 artworks remain to be printed and mounted, (cost exceeded well beyond capacity)  linked to 1 more poetryfilm and 3 sound and music interpretations
    • Community Story Wall and transmedia storytelling #RiverReveryLdn is live and there has been some initial engagement with the project through the initial exhibition of the work as well as volunteer Western University students who raised awareness by distributing invitation cards and engaging with the public.
    • All of the elements are free to access. They are not openly licensed as the poet is a strong believer in Access Copyright. In Canada, the majority of the literary community are advocates of Access Copyright.
    • OER: The workshop materials I create, located on the Resources page, with the Community Story Wall, are OER and will include workshop plans along with art only — downloadables — images, video, nature and music sound clips to jumpstart or remix projects
  • 2019 Broad Community Engagement — walks and workshops
    • There is a possibility of partnering this year with the Thames Talbot Land Trust, to provide guided AR poetry walks in conjunction with their “Mood Walks,” a partnership they have with the local chapter of the Canadian Mental Health Association, as well as other walks and events they program such as their volunteer BBQ — possibly funded through a second Community Arts Investment Program grant
    • Explore and implement “Advertising through Arts Partnerships” initiatives — local businesses pay to “host” the AR Artwork for River Revery with the promotion of this multiple location “River Exhibit” done through the London Arts Council, the City of London, Tourism London etc which often offer free promotion of cultural and artistic events
    • Possible other partners include the local Conservation Authority, Fanshawe/Komoka Provincial Parks, Antler River Rally group, Western Serves student volunteers
    • The London Public Library has expressed interest in a proposal for a series of community workshops in partnership with their new emerging media lab — focussing on community participation in art with accessible mobile creative technologies 
    • The London Public Library has also expressed interest in hosting an exhibit and interaction with the AR participatory installation, Still/ed Here which includes the poetry film and AR installation, On the Margin of History
    • Possible additional workshop partner: Museum London’s Centre at the Forks emerging media labs
  • 2020 — Beyond River Revery to expand out into larger events that Mary would curate
    • “Outside In/Inside Out” (working title) large, curated transdisicplinary event(s) bringing together community, artists, environmentalists
    • I have discussed the possibility of launching these in connection with London Arts Council’s new social enterprise — Culture City X Tours — some funding through the London Arts Council
    • Lead AR poetry walks and walking workshops for the Thames Talbot Land Trust Passport to Nature program, which is funded through their corporate, community and private sponsors
  • Additional funding partnerships to pursue: City of London, tourism London, local businesses and foundations, private donations, patronage, “adoption”/sponsorship of events/artworks 
  • Explore and implement ecosystem that connects local businesses with artworks to benefit from “Advertising through Arts Partnerships” in which a reverse advertising model is implemented — the local business pays the artist to host/rent the artwork (AR artwork in the case of River Revery) and this hosting, perhaps as part of a temporary, or on-going exhibition of single or multiple locations is promoted as an arts and cultural event, perhaps in conjunction with a regional arts venture, by the artist and the arts organizations they partner with — thus leveraging the arts and culture networks developed in a city/region for the benefit of both local businesses and artists (producing thriving cities)
  • I am also exploring other ways to connect local businesses in support of the arts — either through in kind donations, supporting live or online events, sponsoring the mounting of artwork …other ways to include local businesses within the funding “ecosystem” beyond simple advertising or patronage. *Building the value and vested interest into the partnership so that it becomes a reciprocal, multiplying  partnership
  • Other possible sources of revenue include sales of poetry books for Penn and printed photos and artwork, DVDs of the poetry films for Mary.
  • Additional opportunities to investigate include sales of other printed items with digital art/photo art/ AR art through online companies like Redbubble and links on the site to purchase prints, the book of poetry, photography and QR codes, and even possibly other things like clothing/home decor w the visual art and/or the QR code triggers to the AR.

Lessons learned, tips for success:

  • Key takeaway: the larger the project became, the more people it could impact and involve not only increased the value of the project to the community but opened up new opportunities and avenues for funding to pursue
  • It’s very difficult to be creating the art at the same time as you are trying to promote and arrange events and collaborations. Ideally these time periods are separated and/or some of the legwork or preparation for crowdfunding, developing sponsorship and partnership relationships ahead of creating time.
  • Looking at all the elements with a “whole value” mindset is essential — aspects of the work may be fuelled solely by passion and driven by determination and my own money and time — however, the exchange value of this work or these aspects of a project may prove just as, or more valuable in terms of future connections in the long run — keep my eyes on the big picture
  • Continue to look at each project as a stepping stone to the next “level”, the next vantage point from which it is possible to see or launch your next project
  • Expanding the project also allowed me to expand into other ways of funding — moving towards a more sustainable funding model
  • However, as I move forward with more and more projects, I am developing my “pie in the sky” approach — one that allows for continual spiralling iterations of a project that at the same time allows for funding “slices” to be added in to the pie as it grows
  • Think Creatively — financial support opportunities are directly linked to the numbers of people impacted and reached which often has at least an incidental corresponding relationship with the cultural value of a work — as the community reached, impacted, connected with, around a project grows, so too doors to potential funding opportunities open.

Open Stax – a Sustainable Funding Case Study

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Open Stax has been producing OER textbooks since 2012 when they published their first 5 titles. They have 32 titles today, with 6 more coming within the next few months. 2.7 million students in the States use their content per term, and their textbooks are in 58% of degree granting academic institutions in the States. 

Creators:

Interview with Daniel Williamson, Managing Director

Country:

Houston Texas, US.

Interview Date: 

March 22, 2019

Link to Project: 

https://openstax.org

Funding Methods:

Non-profit

Ecosystem model involving for-profit partners who sell value added services who then give back a “mission support fee” along with sales of print versions of the textbooks.

Open Stax is a part of Rice University and is supported by foundations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, the Hewlett Foundation along with others.

Textbook content is written by paid educators and experts.

The Project:

Open Stax provides free web-based, post-secondary level OER textbooks. 

As cost is one of the number one drivers for the use of Open Educational Resources, so if we can target those high enrolment, high expense courses, we tend to have really high traction.

Daniel Williamson

Open Stax textbooks have been localized for use throughout the US, in Canada, and in Poland.

Broadly, because these are OERs, we see this content used everywhere.

Daniel Williamson

UNICEF told Daniel about Learning Equality’s use of their content. Learning Equality is a group that works in crisis and conflict zones, they have been loading all our content onto their portable internet for use by post-secondary learners in these situations. 

https://learningequality.org/about/

The Creators: 

I spoke with Daniel Williamson, Managing Director for Open Stax who described to me the mission and goal of Open Stax, their business model and their insights for sustainability of OER as well as their hopes and goals for the future.

The Road to Sustainable Funding

The business model for Open Stax was designed from the very beginning for Sustainability. Open Stax has built an ecosystem style model.

In this ecosystem, Open Stax produces the core content. For profit partnering companies offer for cost, value added technology services such as virtual simulations, and clicker apps with are integrated with the content of our textbooks. These partnering companies then pay Open Stax a portion of the fee that has been charged to the student which then goes back into Open Stax to support their sustainability, and to keep the content up to date. This ecosystem model brings the benefit of co-marketing to their partners as well as giving them access to high quality educational content.

Open Stax looks at and targets the highest value to decide which textbooks to produce, although their goal is to have a much more comprehensive library. They look at the size of the market and the number of students who would be impacted and at the cost of the resource for students and balance these. As the point of Open Stax is access for students, and to make education more affordable, the partnering companies are mandated to keep their fees to the students low.

As well, print versions of the textbooks are produced for sale at a low cost by Open Stax and that revenue is fed back into the system to develop further textbooks and to keep the content fresh and current. “As there are so many students using the content, we are able to bring the unit costs down.”  

Daniel describes his key thoughts on sustainability:

You need to build in sustainability from the beginning as it’s really difficult to retrofit these things. Most of the OER players are reliant upon grant funding — but you can’t wait until the grant runs out to figure out a sustainable way forward.

There are two aspects to sustainability — fiscal and the people. The money makes it possible but it’s the people who are actually going to take and give this content a life of its own. So we really need to feed both of these.”

Daniel Williamson

Sustainability is somewhat controversial — Stick to your guns. There will be people who might not like what you’re doing and that’s ok. It’s good to challenge each other. As long as you are really connected to that mission which we here at Open Stax believe our mission is to improve access and improve learning for all..that you’re going to be guided by those mission principles which will lead you in the right direction. 

Daniel Williamson

Into the Future

Daniel believes that by ensuring that the Open Stax content is high quality while keeping the content generic, this allows Open Stax textbooks to serve as the foundation for localization. 

If we can reduce the barriers to entry for people to OERs, then we’ll see more and more people participate.

Daniel Williamson

When talking about sustainability, Daniel mused that there’s a lot of interesting models emerging, and that we’ll see which models survive.

The thing that I dream of is the day we’re not just sustainable, we’re in perpetual growth.

Daniel Williamson

In thinking about what that perpetual growth model might look like, Open Stax is calculating how many titles they need to have produced and generating revenue, to allow them stability and sustainability enough to invest in continuously growing their library and to react to changes in the market.

Now what we’re thinking is about how can we both spur greater ownership and creativity where people take and think what ca we do next…I think there’s a lot of ways that can lead to expansion…

Daniel Williamson

Key Opportunities:

I think OER really unlocks the ownership piece. It allows content to become this foundational knowledge that is infrastructure which brings us to this opportunity which now we can build upon. We can start having a research infrastructure that allows us to start diving deeper into how humans learn, and how can we help them learn most efficiently and effectively instead.

Daniel Williamson

A lot of tremendous opportunity there to move beyond just consumption of content to really thinking about it as research infrastructure for understanding how we move the state of the art in terms of education forward.

Daniel Williamson

Swaddled – a Sustainable Funding Case Study

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Swaddled is a community driven, crowd sourced series of art collages. Swaddled began from a call from the group, Making Grey-Bruce Home, for  a project which involved creating an online resource for newcomers to Grey-Bruce county and to Canada.

Creators:

Jennifer Hicks

Country:

Canada

Interview Date: 

April 4, 2019

Links to Project: 

https://hicksinthesound.simdif.com

Instagram at Woodchuckandbrush

https://www.instagram.com/woodchuckandbrush/

https://www.instagram.com/p/BxuYb_uFoBc/

Funding Methods:

Artist fees for exhibitions

Sales of artwork

Subsidizes artwork by providing services such as facilitating workshops around her participatory art

Hicks shares her artwork, much of which is self-funded, freely as it is an investment to build an audience and to leverage for future projects and exhibits.

The Project:

Swaddled is a touring, community driven, crowd-sourced series of collages. Each work begins with the text. These texts are newspapers in other languages, from other cultures, donated to her by friends and family. This text forms the background which Jennifer then collages over based on the stories she receives from friends, family and viewers. 

After the exhibit was shown for the first time in Owen Sound, I received feedback from the people who saw it, who are strangers to me but who have experiences in those places or with that culture. And then their stories get landed on top of the artwork in the form of collage — additional symbols, icons, words, to represent their reality with that language, and that culture.

Jennifer Hicks

The Creators:

Jennifer Hicks is a Canadian visual artist and teacher. Her artwork includes the participatory works — Swaddled and Turtle Island Footprints. 

I think this is the way artists, teachers, facilitators need to be — open to what comes, and chase all leads — if we choose to live this way.

Jennifer Hicks

Road to Funding Sustainably

Services —Jennifer’s funding model includes revenue comes from offering added value workshops around her participatory artworks. Building a community around her work as well as community co-creation and collaboration are keys to her funding model.

Sales of artwork — When Swaddled goes to its next exhibition location, the Japanese piece which has been sold, will be replaced by a piece in another language and about another culture. “We’ll see, it depends on what viewers recommend and offer, from their stories, their experiences. 

Art fees for exhibitions of work — Jennifer looks for places to exhibit her work, aiming for locations that will pay artist fees, while keeping in mind the other kinds of value she gains from exhibition in places where they don’t pay artist fees. These other kinds of promotional value include community building and networking, which may lead to future paid exhibitions 

Partnering — Jennifer partners with groups such as Influencers Motivate/Influencers Motivating Influencers for paid opportunities to work and travel, connect, and to promote self as artist, teacher and facilitator. Influencers Motivating Influencers is a group who arrange tours through remote Northern Canadian communities, focussing on arts and wellness. https://www.facebook.com/InfluencersMotivate/  https://www.instagram.com/influencersmotivate/ 

Into the Future

A really important piece to it is — you choose who align yourself with so that you’re not spinning your wheels putting out artwork to every juried exhibit that comes along or applying just anywhere to show your artwork. It is a thoughtful, meditative process where…having this exhibit at Hamilton Turner Park Library is not a paid gig. However, it makes sense to be there for future, down the road networking and possible other exhibits that will be paid. It’s a tricky situation where you need to learn to be a good thinker, and promoter and networker and those things will lead to the money that you need to keep going.

Jennifer Hicks

Providing Swaddled was a community service. It was healing for me and great for the community and led to this really neat community powered feedback opportunity for the viewers.

Jennifer Hicks

Jennifer is currently looking for a new home for Swaddled. She is hopeful it will exhibit each year in a new city, at least once a year, and ideally exhibited in a place where they pay artist fees.

Facilitating workshops is a key part of Jenifer’s funding model. She would like to provide workshops around the Swaddled series and feels this would add value to the exhibit wherever it goes

Granting process is only accessible if you have access to the technology needed to apply. 

Obtaining funding, applying for grants is difficult for collaborative groups in terms of the scope needed to meet deadlines. Communication amongst members and meeting timelines can be a challenge. 

Keys to Success to Carry Forward

Tips for Emerging Artists: 

Instagram has been a good place for Jennifer to promote her work, to develop art-related projects, and for connecting with other artists and possible jobs.

Sarah advises that one possibility is to go to your local city or town hall. They often employ someone (with a small budget) to do a yearly juried art exhibit in the city hall. 

Poet Laureates ..why don’t we have artist in residence for each city or town?

Motion Poems – a Sustainable Funding Case Study

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A match made in creative heaven.

Motion Poems is a non-profit dedicated to the creation and free distribution of “motion poems” — poetry films. Motion poems started with animator Angella Kassube and poet, Todd Boss. Angella approached Todd after a poetry reading and said she would love to animate one of his poems. 

It took me half a second to say, Sure! I’ll send you everything I’ve ever written.  Within a week and a half she came back with all of these cool drawings and ideas.

Todd Boss

Motion Poems began as a self-funded collaboration between a poet and an artist, then branched into a matchmaking service for artists and poets to connect and collaborate. Todd Boss, Co-founder Executive and Artistic Director could see great potential in growing the genre of “motion poems” and embarked upon the route of setting up a non-profit organization to make this happen.

Creators: 

Todd Boss — Co-founder, Executive, Artistic Director

Country:

Minneapolis, Minnesota, US

Interview Date:

March 12, 2019

Link to Project:

Motion Poems

Funding and Business Model:

501c non-profit managed by a Board of Directors with the co-founder, executive and artistic director, Todd Boss

The Creators:

Motion poems started with Angella Kassube and Todd Boss. They met when Todd was reading his poems at a poetry reading.  Angella approached him afterwards and said she was an animator and would love to animate one of his poems. “It took me half a second to say, Sure! I’ll send you everything I’ve ever written.  Within a week and a half she came back with all of these cool drawings and ideas.” 

Together, the pair started the project as a “matchmaking service” — she reached out to animators and filmmakers and he reached out to poets to see who wants to play.

Todd came from a non-profit arts administration background and so saw the value and potential in having a wider impact of developing motion poems/poetry films as a genre. He wanted to formalize the project as a non-profit, get some funding, and be able to get themselves paid. Todd got the papers together, got a board together,  and gathered people with a background in non-profit experience to help guide and direct them. They were fortunate and landed some big grants right away. Angella is not as much involved in the project currently. She was not interested in expanding and developing the project in this way. 

The Project:

Motion Poems is a non-profit organization that partners and collaborates with filmmakers, producers, for-profit and non-profit publishers and literary organizations and educators. They produce and freely distribute motion poems — films created as interpretations of poems. 

Motion Poems hires a guest producer each season and partners with publishers and literary organizations to obtain free rights to the poems. Filmmakers are offered a small stipend of $1000 per film, although they hope to be able to offer more to filmmakers in the future. They also create lesson plans in-house which they freely share. On their website, they share lesson plans created and sent in by teachers who utilize their poetry films as educational resources as well as films created by students.

Todd explained that each guest producer, always a woman, brings her own ethos to the project, reaching out to her filmmaking community. “This is a way of keeping things fresh and new and changing and expanding their roster each year.” They also partner with new publishers and literary organizations each year. With the material they gain access to through these partnerships —  “we shovel the poems out to the filmmakers — dozens and dozens until they fall in love with something.”

The filmmakers have full creative control over the films. It’s always a surprise for the poet, usually not a good surprise, which we prepare them for. But it’s a gamble they are willing to take. It’s one person’s interpretation, not a translation of the poem.

Todd Boss

Angella, co-founder with Todd, envisioned a project and place where artists and filmmakers could express themselves creatively. Filmmakers and animators often have to support themselves with daily jobs which don’t allow them to have full creative direction. Motion Poems offers this creative space. 

Filmmakers go to art school, filmmakers are artists, but in the necessary jobs they do day to day, the creative direction isn’t theirs, it’s from the client, to the client, for the client…and it drains the soul from their artistic practice. MP gives them full creative control.

Todd Boss shares Angela’s secret

Filmmakers are given a small stipend of $1000 which Todd acknowledges is nowhere near enough for the creative resources they are pouring into it, but it’s at least a little bit. They have hopes to someday be in a position to be able to pay the filmmakers more. MP puts on an annual premiere for them, promotes them through the monthly launches and through their Facebook. Poets walk away with a film, exposure, and people who have engaged with their work. MP gives the filmmakers access to a poem as script which is rights free and that’s really important to them. MP has tapped into a need, a creative need for filmmakers. Every week, a filmmaker is reaching out to Todd to collaborate with them. 

Into the Future — New Ventures

Poetry will always be at the core of what we do — it’s surprising/unexpected that it’s poetry that has worked as the core of these ventures.

Todd Boss

This is a transition year, Todd said, shifting from what they have always done which is creating films. They are going to continue creating films but are now branching out into public art. 

They’ve created an app, in partnership with a local media company who’s very excited and interested to partner with them and their innovative ideas. MoVA is a moving virtual art museum for the rapid transit line in Minneapolis-St. Paul. During the ride, viewers can hold their phones to the windows. In this AR experience, viewers will see what they could be passing, what they could be seeing out the window — artworks bigger than can fit in a museum. 

Motion Poems is putting out the call soon to artists for innovative, creative art for this initiative. “It’s not a difficulty of partnering with artists and having to tell them what to do, the artists will come up with the wonderful ideas, it’s just a matter of partnering with great artists.” 

Todd Boss

They are hoping to launch the app this summer. This venture came from the project, Chaos on the Green Line which was a VR experience using Google Cardboard. During the ride, the GPS triggered the Virtual Reality experience and you moved through it, virtually in a 360 environment. That was highly intensive. 

MoVA is an AR experience. Todd has reached out to the local art museums, hoping to partner with them so that someday, “this line is sponsored by this museum”…. As Todd envisions it, the museums could use these as annexes for artwork that is bigger than can fit into a gallery. Todd feels this experience could expand beyond this rail line . “Flip the right switch and this could work on a New York transit line”. 

Other smaller new ventures

Hot House — a 48 hour pairing of 4 poet/filmmaker teams. This initiative was funded through a Kickstarter campaign. Teams were challenged to create a moving poem within that time frame.

It’s an effort to capture some of the thrill and the surprise of the collaboration that happens between poet and filmmaker.

Todd Boss

Eppy awards — first ever Epiphany awards. Poetry filmmakers from outside Motion Poems collaborations have been invited to submit up to 3 films each. Six prizes of $500 each will be awarded in three commentaries — adaptation, innovation, production. 

It’s a shift year, not sure in the end which initiatives will turn out to be the most sustainable, most successful ventures.

Todd Boss

Road to Sustainable Funding

Todd has learned that it’s Important to have a diverse mix of funding — corporate, foundation, personal, earned income.

It’s a constantly evolving, changing landscape, it’s important to be able to pivot and reach out to new partners and opportunities.

Todd Boss

He notes, It’s always a struggle to keep enough money coming in — “Priorities change, it’s a challenge in contested election periods, year after year,… and with natural disasters and humanitarian crises, people are giving money to those causes of course”(Todd Boss).

Todd has found that it’s easier to get funding for new initiatives — grants for flashy, sexy big immersive and augmented reality projects. It’s an ongoing struggle to maintain operating costs. 

Diverse Mix of Funding

Recently, they have been able to get earned revenue from consultations and speaking, which is increasing the organization’s sustainability. In addition, they have a support button and a list of their donors on the website.

Funding partners include state, corporate sponsors, foundation grants, arts organizations and personal donations. Motion Poems is funded, in part, by an appropriation from the Minnesota State Legislature with money from the State’s general fund. They list sponsors of specific seasons: 

“Season 5 is sponsored in part by contributions from HDMG, Gentleman Scholar, The Mill, and MPC. Season 6, an all-female-poet season, is sponsored by VIDA: Women in the Literary Arts. Season 7 is sponsored by Cave Canem.”

Major Funding Contributors

Horncrest Foundation, John S. and James L. Knight 1Foundation, Lowertown Future Fund, MRAC, Saint Paul Foundation, Springboard for the Arts, St. Paul Cultural STAR, Toro Foundation

They charge admission for the premieres. Locally, they have been able to co-host their premieres with the Walker Art Center, and the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival, thus able to present at these galleries for free.  But in New York that’s  been more challenging for an outside organization to find a venue.

In LA, is where many of the guest producers come from and where many of the filmmakers come from. They run crowdfunding campaigns. “hey, help us share these films with the world” They’re able to raise money, rent a big warehouse, have catering and host a party.

Todd Boss

They sell screening packages to organizations wishing for Motion Poems to provide a themed curated program of the films with promotional materials.

Currently MP is in the process of revamping and recruiting for an expanded Board. Up to now, they’ve had a basic Board of 6 to 8 members with non-profit, foundation experience.

We would like to have the people we haven’t had — corporate members, legal members, philanthropic members —  these are the people they would like to have around the table. The greater their collective capacity, the greater Motion Poem’s capacity.

Todd Boss

Why Free Access? 

As a non-profit, they are always thinking about access to the work and who is able to access it. And, as Todd says, “there’s the instinct to share, a childish instinct to say, ‘see, look what I made’” and you want to get the work out to as many people as possible.

As a poet, Todd recognizes that there isn’t a commercial market for poetry.

There is no precedent for motion poems, it’s a new, hybrid form. Need to show people that poetry can be transformed in this way, into a film, get people interested. You can’t charge them for something they don’t know what it is.

Todd Boss

Todd hasn’t come from a background where he has been aware of Open licensing or Open Educational Resources. Motion Poems has been built upon a foundation of primarily free access.

Free Educational Resources

As Motion Poems gathered a following, they found that college teachers, poetry teachers  were reaching out to them, telling them how powerful their films are for teaching poetry. Sara, their communications person has an education background so she wrote lesson plans that are freely available. It is important to MP to make their material as accessible as possible to educators — at the high school, early college and grad school level. Creating a motion poem is a deep read of a poem, a personal interpretation, an adaptation. They designed a curriculum for creating motion poems for grad school. Student created poems created from the lesson plans are linked to the website, and teacher initiated lessons and suggestions are welcomed and shared on the website as well.

This is a transition year, shifting from what they have always done, creating films. They are going to continue creating films but are now branching out into public art. 

They’ve created an app, in partnership with a local media company who’s very excited and interested to partner with them and their innovative ideas. MoVA is a moving virtual art museum for the rapid transit line in Minneapolis-St. Paul. During the ride, viewers can hold their phones to the windows. In this AR experience, viewers will see what they could be passing, what they could be seeing out the window — artworks bigger than can fit in a museum. 

Keys to Success to Carry Forward: 

Todd explained that he is always learning, always taking forward what he has gained from/learned from in developing Motion Poems. They have a new, separate initiative of collaborating with composers and poets. He will take into that what he has  learned from developing  Motion Poems.

Artistic freedom for the artists — tapping into that creative need of artists is powerful.

Collaboration — vision of collaboration is essential. Todd hopes that that would continue beyond himself as Executive and Artistic Director. 

Collaboration is not an intuitive process for most, you learn by doing. Powerful  sparks come from collaboration.

Todd Boss