OWLs and Issues

Harris, Muriel and Michael Pemberton. “Online Writing Labs (OWLs): A Taxonomy of Options and Issues.” Computers and Composition 12 (1995): 145-59. Rpt. in The Longman Guide to Writing Center Theory and Practice. Eds. Robert W. Barnett and Jacob S. Blumner. New York: Longman, 2008. 521-40.

These writers maintain that OWLs and online tutoring should be exploited to take advantage of the online environment. They outline the types of online communication and services offered by writing centers and explore the use of different types of online technology in the OWL focusing on the advantages and disadvantages of each. Interactive services include email, newsgroups, and synchronous chat, all of which allow for flexibility in queries and responses. Reactive services include automated file retrieval systems, Gophers and the World Wide Web that provide standardized responses to limited queries. Newsgroups, email and automated file retrieval systems do not allow for immediate contact. Conversations are indirect and usually involve a time delay. In addition, the “virtual space” intervenes and mediates communication. Hypertext programs can be placed on web pages to enable students to connect to the resources of the web. While Gophers permit access to the resources of the web, they do not permit access to hypertext tutorials. Email drop boxes and newsgroups are interactive but time displaced.
Synchronous chat systems are real time and interactive. They also have the benefit of forcing students to reflect, in written form, on their writing. Such reflection is viewed as a feature of the successful f2f tutorial. Students can also save the transcript of their online conversation and refer back to it as they revise their draft although this raises ethical issues of plagiarism in that students may appropriate tutor feedback as their own. All forms of interactive online communication is affected by the fact that texts contain fewer clues to the composing process. Hence, tutors need to devise other techniques to gain this information. The trade off to this is that students who are reserved may be emboldened to join the discourse. In addition, stereotypes of race, gender, and ethnicity may be less likely to impact the discourse. Online texts, because of the nature of print, may seemed imbued with more authority than is intended and may replicate current-traditionalist strategies of learning that writing centers seek to avoid. Moving online conversations away from a mere question/answer format to true collaborative discussion requires practice.
OWLs democratize writing center access making it easier for groups such as the physically disabled, the learning impaired, part-time students, those with jobs that make it difficult for them to visit the writing center, commuting students as well as those who may not be members of the particular academic community to access the services provided by writing centers. The latter objective may be undermined by the need to maintain a secure network which may conflict with writing center technology goals and initiatives that seek to promote equal access. There is thus a need to determine the ways in which writing center pedagogy will be affected by OWLs. How much of it is transferrable in view of the fact that dialogue in OWLs is text-driven? This is a seminal article that details many of the major issues that face OWLs formation and operation. Many of these issues are addressed in subsequent literature on OWLs.