The WAC Clearinghouse publishes peer-reviewed, open-access journals and books, as well as other professional resources for teachers and instructional materials for students. Writing-across-the-curriculum refers to a formal programmatic approach within contemporary secondary and higher educationcomposition studies that promotes the importance of writing in classes outside of composition. Working with the Association for Writing Across the Curriculum Programs, the WAC Clearinghouse operates as a publishing collaborative, drawing on contributions from more than 160 individuals serving on the editorial boards of academic journals supported by the Clearinghouse, as editors or reviewers of its book series, as editors of resource pages on its website, and as members of the overall Clearinghouse editorial board. The open-access character of the scholarship available through the Clearinghouse book series provides free access to scholarly monographs, edited collections, and textbooks, providing students and teachers with an alternative to purchasing scholarly and classroom instructional materials. For individuals and libraries who wish to own print copies of its books, the Clearinghouse works with University Press of Colorado to make print books available in low-cost editions. The Clearinghouse also collaborates with other open-access publishers in the field of writing studies, including Computers and Composition Digital Press and Writing Spaces, which both publish open-access scholarly work, including innovative, multimodal digital writing projects, using traditional academic peer reviewed processes. The WAC Clearinghouse addresses several disciplinary areas within writing studies, such as second-language writing, writing fellows, and writing in the STEM disciplines.
History and Resources
Established in 1997, the Clearinghouse is among the most successful open-access publishing projects in the humanities. It supports eight academic journals, including Across the Disciplines, devoted to language, learning and academic writing; The WAC Journal, focused on WAC theory and ideas; Double Helix, an international journal on writing, critical thinking, pedagogical theory and classroom practice; Journal of Writing Analytics, which focuses on the study of writing processes and written texts through a wide range of analytical tools; Journal of Basic Writing, which publishes articles on theory, research, and teaching practices related to basic writing; and RhetNet, an online journal of rhetoric and composition that explores what "net" publishing may be in its natural form, as well as several others. The Clearinghouse also has published more than 70 original scholarly monographs and collections and has made more than 45 out-of-print books available in open-access digital formats. The Clearinghouse also provides access to peer-reviewed resources for teachers who wish to use writing in courses across the disciplines, including a bibliography, resource pages on writing fellows programs and second-language learners, conference proceedings, WAC program descriptions, a list of scholarly journals, and the Statement on WAC Principles and Practices, among others.
Sustainable Publishing Initiative
In May 2012, to mark its fifteenth year of operation, the WAC Clearinghouse launched the 25 Collective, a demonstration project for sustainable publishing. The goal of the project was to publish 25 new books for a total expenditure of $50,000—a cost far below that borne by traditional academic presses. Leveraging university resources, the project operated within its budget and had, by March 2017, reached its goal, producing 29 books at an average cost of less than $2000 per book. The success of the project led to the launch of the Colorado State University Open Press, a publishing project that supports the use of the publishing collaborative model developed through the WAC Clearinghouse in other disciplines.
Support
The Clearinghouse is hosted by Colorado State University and receives support from the Colorado State University Open Press. It also receives support from donations and funds from purchases of selected books in print form. Donations are used to defray costs associated with honoraria for graduate students who serve as copy editors and designers for Clearinghouse books, for web hosting, for the purchase of ISBN numbers and registration of Digital Object Identifiers, and for software and equipment expenses. Interested patrons my donate online or by check through the Clearinghouse Web site.
