Synch or Swim: (Re)assessing Asynchronous Online Writing Labs (2010)

Synch or Swim: (Re)assessing Asynchronous Online Writing Labs (2010)

Keywords

asynchronous, synchronous, semi-synchronous, non-native English speaking writers (NNES), ESL, multilingual students, research, student survey, technology, Google

First Paragraph

In graduate school I was assigned to work as the Undergraduate Writing Center’s (UWC) Assistant Coordinator to fulfill part of my assistantship obligations. When I arrived, the Center’s Online Writing Lab (OWL) was available to a limited population of writers who could submit their work via Google’s asynchronous g-mail. The population served was limited to student athletes who were on the road, writers enrolled in the university’s night school (School for Professional Studies, SPS), and writers enrolled in online programs. The service is still available to only these groups of writers, and the majority of submissions come from SPS writers who are typically unable to be on campus during the Writing Center’s hours of operation. From the Fall of 2006 to the Spring of 2009 the UWC received an average of 96 online submissions per semester. In the Fall semester of 2009 submissions more than doubled; we received 207.

Citation Information

Type of Source: Journal Article

Author: Matthew Schultz

Year of Publication: 2010

Title: “Synch or Swim: (Re)assessing Asynchronous Online Writing Labs”

Publication: Praxis, Volume 8, Issue 1

Full Article Text in HTML

Because this Praxis article is inaccessible to assistive technologies, we have provided the full text of the article below in HTML.

Introduction

In graduate school I was assigned to work as the Undergraduate Writing Center’s (UWC) Assistant Coordinator to fulfill part of my assistantship obligations. When I arrived, the Center’s Online Writing Lab (OWL) was available to a limited population of writers who could submit their work via Google’s asynchronous g-mail. The population served was limited to student athletes who were on the road, writers enrolled in the university’s night school (School for Professional Studies, SPS), and writers enrolled in online programs. The service is still available to only these groups of writers, and the majority of submissions come from SPS writers who are typically unable to be on campus during the Writing Center’s hours of operation. From the Fall of 2006 to the Spring of 2009 the UWC received an average of 96 online submissions per semester. In the Fall semester of 2009 submissions more than doubled; we received 207.

Consultants regularly checked the g-mail account whenever they had a free hour during a shift, and would respond to submissions using Microsoft Word’s comment feature. Recently, due to increased submissions, online consulting has become part of each consultant’s daily schedule with at least 20% of a consultant’s shift reserved for online consulting. With the increased use of the OWC, we’ve begun developing more effective consultation strategies, improving time management, and setting up a more collaborative, easy-to-use interface.

A year after being assigned as the UWC’s Assistant Coordinator, I was asked to simultaneously serve as the university’s Graduate Writing Center (GWC) Coordinator where I found a similar, though slightly less regulated, OWL in place: any graduate student writer at the university could submit his or her work to the GWC’s g-mail account with a note in the body of the email describing the assignment and the student’s writing concerns. I’ve continued the practice of allowing all graduate writers the option of submitting their work online or coming into the physical writing center for traditional face-to-face (f2f) consultations. What I’ve found is that, overwhelmingly, native English speaking (NES) writers prefer face-to-face consultations, while non-native English speaking writers (NNES) mainly choose to submit their work to the OWL. From the Fall of 2006 to the Spring of 2009 the GWC received an average of 15 online submissions per semester; of those 15, on average 12 were submitted by NNES writers. With an increased administrative focus on the UWC’s online services, I aim to also improve the GWC’s OWL in hopes of increasing student use.

Average Number of Online Submissions to the GWC

  • NES Writers (3)
  • NNES Writers (12)

I recently conducted a face-to-face (f2f) consultation in the GWC with a NNES graduate student in the social work program that initially alerted me to NNES writers’ preference for online consultations. This was the writer’s first visit to the GWC, and he was not aware of an online option. He brought with him a completed draft of his master’s thesis research proposal. The writer asked that we focus on his execution of American Psychological Association’s (APA) style and documentation guidelines, as well as sentence level issues in the literature review section of the proposal. We discussed the conventions of APA style, and worked through a few of his references to clarify documentation guidelines. At the end of the consultation, the writer thanked me for my time and asked if we had an online service to which he could submit his revisions for feedback. I told him about our OWL––how to submit, what sort of feedback he could expect, and a few of the differences between the conversation we had just completed and online, asynchronous communication. Since then, the writer has submitted his work to the GWC OWL on five separate occasions. He has not been back to the GWC’s office for a f2f consultation.

Working with this writer for an entire semester, first in a f2f context and subsequently in online consultations, helped me identify a number of communication issues that he (and I presumed others) were struggling with. As we begin to rethink the way we communicate in our multimodal world, we also need to update the ways in which we think and talk about communication, taking into consideration both the preferences of our clients and proven pedagogical practices. Therefore, I put together a survey that asked 250 writing center clients to share their preferences concerning online and f2f writing services on campus, and why they preferred certain practices over others.

Survey

A number of writing center theorists and directors maintain that writers abuse OWLs as convenient “fix-it” centers. Lisa Eastmond Bell, for example, claims: “I’ve had writers admit to signing up for online synchronous tutorials so they won’t miss watching their favorite sitcom during that same hour. I can imagine them pajama clad, TV blaring in the background, typing with one hand and eating popcorn with the other, only taking in tutor questions during commercial breaks” (354). And while this undoubtedly occurs, I think more often reality reflects Carol Severino’s 2009 observation that “Writing centers are encountering a growing student clientele that prefers the convenience and permanence of written online feedback, which privileges and exercises literacy over the orality of face-to-face interactions” (107).

Based on a short survey given to 250 graduate undergraduate writing center clients (175 English speaking writers and 75 Non-native English speaking writers), Severino’s observation holds true at my university. Of the 250 writers surveyed, 177 respondents answered that email submission would be their first or second choice, and 160 answered that f2f would be their first or second choice. Of these respondents, 173 answered that they would be more likely to submit their work to an OWL either because they could more easily understand written comments or because they could more clearly articulate their concerns textually. Most surprising, however, is that the majority of writers who responded that they would be more likely to submit their work to an OWL also claimed that they would prefer asynchronous email communication to real-time chat, audio, or video conferencing.

The results of this survey appear to substantiate Severino’s theory that “online rather than face-to-face feedback is preferred by some writers because they can read and refer to it repeatedly to understand it fully. With online written feedback, NNES writers do not have to depend on their possibly less-developed listening comprehension skills” (107).

Online Writing Lab Survey

This is an anonymous survey that the Writing Center will use to help develop our online writing lab to better serve our clients. Please answer each of the questions below.

  1. Are you an undergraduate or a graduate student?
  2. What is your native language?
  3. If you are a non-native English speaker, how many years of English language instruction have you had?
  4. If you are a non-native English speaker, how many years have you lived in an English speaking country?
  5. If you are a non-native English speaker, please rate your fluency level in the following areas with 1 being basic, three being intermediate, and 5 being advanced.
    • Speaking___
    • Reading ___
    • Writing ___
  6. Approximately how many in-person (f2f) consultations sessions have you attended in the writing center?
  7. Approximately how many online consultations sessions have you had with the writing center?
  8. Please rank the following options for submitting your work to the writing center with 1 being your least likely choice and 5 being your highest preference:
    • In-person consultation in the Writing Center
    • Video conference online
    • Audio conference either online or over the telephone
    • Text-based chat via a service such as Instant Messenger
    • Email, with written comments returned to you
  9. Please rate the benefits of an in-person consultation with 1 being not-at-all important and 5 being very important:
    • In-person sessions feel more collaborative.
    • It is easier for me to explain my concerns directly to my consultant.
    • It is easier for me to understand spoken comments.
    • I know the exact time of my consultation session.
  10. Please rate the benefits of an online consultation with 1 being not-at-all important and 5 being very important:
    • Online advice is more direct.
    • It is easier for me to write down my concerns.
    • It is easier for me to understand written comments.
    • It is more convenient; I don’t have to be on campus at a specific time.
Total Number of Respondents (250)
  • Undergraduate (178)
  • Professional degree (10)
  • Masters degree (40)
  • PhD (22)
Total Number of Respondents (250)
  • English Speakers (175)
  • Non-Native English Speakers (75)
Submission Preferences
  • F2f (139)
  • Email (66)
  • Video conference (21)
  • Text-based chat (13)
  • Audio conference (11)
F2f Appeal
  • Speak to explain (135)
  • Collaborative (123)
  • Clarity of spoken comments (98)
  • Exact appointment time (91)
Online Appeal
  • Convenience (103)
  • Clarity of written comments (73)
  • Write to explain (70)
  • Directive (63)

These results, while limited to a single university’s writing center clientele, raise a number of useful questions about the state of online writing labs in general: What population should an OWL serve? Should Writing Centers provide an ESL specialist responsible for consulting with NNES writers online? Can we hope to “produce better writers, not better writing” in an OWL (North, 438)? Can we “preserve the rhetorical nature of tutoring when going online?” (Bell, 351). Should OWLs mimic f2f consultations, or should online consultations be considered an alternative mode of serving writers? Each of these questions requires an in-depth study to assure that writers’ needs and wants are appropriately met when submitting their work to an OWL. I’d like to briefly discuss strategies for employing and developing the benefits of asynchronous email communication that Severino recently observed: conciseness and permanence.

Development

Four of my writing center’s last five staff development workshops have been dedicated to improving strategies for consulting with NNES writers. Both our administrative and consulting staffs have spent a considerable amount of time and intellectual energy on developing approaches to consulting NNES writers both f2f and online. Most suggestions for improving our OWL include some sort of synchronous component such as instant messaging, whiteboards, web cams, and even Second Life (an online virtual reality system). A quick search of the International Writing Center Association (IWCA) discussion boards, and attention to recent issues of the Writing Center Journal, The Writing Lab Newsletter, Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, and Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy show that similar discussions about synchronization are taking place at most major universities. However, a number of researchers––such as George Braine, Jun Liu and Randall Sadler––have concluded that synchronous text-based chats and video-conferences are often as frustrating for NNES writers as f2f consultations. This is not surprising when we consider that only the medium, not the process, has changed. On the other hand, Lee Honeycutt observed that email feedback offers students a completely different consultation experience, one that is less restricted by time limits and more focused on written communication than orality. Additionally, Martin Guardado and Ling Shi maintain, “Another advantage of online peer feedback is the possibility of a less threatening environment that encourages greater and more equal member participation than f2f conferencing. ESL students, in particular, seem to benefit from such an environment” (445). Guardado and Shi go on to cite a 1996 study by Nancy Sullivan and Ellen Pratt who “found that computer-assisted ESL peer discussion had 100% participation compared to only 50% participation in the face-to-face class” (445). So, how can we take the advantages of email-based communication to provide a clearer and more collaborative online writing environment? The answer we’re all looking for might be found in the semi-synchronous Google Docs application.

We’ve all heard the cliché arguments both in support of and against retaining the status quo: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” and “There’s always room for improvement.”

In the case of OWLs, both seem to hold true. Often, due to costs, time, and training, writing centers settle for free email services to engage in online communication with writers while continuously searching out new cost-efficient, synchronous modes of online communication. Yet what our short survey unveils is that the vast majority of NNES writers (and a good number of NES writers) prefer to submit their work and receive feedback via email, which leads me to believe that OWLs don’t necessarily need to be fixed. Rather, they need to be improved. That is to say, perhaps we need not worry so much about making online consultations more like face-to-face sessions, but should begin to exploit the various online tools that could actually enhance a consultation.

I claimed earlier that when it comes to OWLs the adages “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” and “There’s always room for improvement” both seem to hold true. What I mean is that asynchronous email communication appears to provide a certain population of writers the services they both want and need. In this way, it works. Yet certainly there is always room for improvement; in the words of Joan Hawthorne, asynchronous communication challenges our ability to “work with rather than for the writer” (qtd. in Moe, 15). Furthermore, according to Sarah Rilling, “The use of computer technologies as a means for discussing texts…complicates the nature of response that the ESL OWL tutors can provide as the writer may expect a two-dimensional response (tutor on text) rather than a multidimensional approach to tutoring (writer, text, and tutor all engaged in a recursive process)” (368). Writing-center Directors might shift their attention, then, from thinking up new ways to reproduce f2f interaction online to focus on strategies for reinforcing consultant/writer roles, refocusing on a writer’s process, and promoting collaboration via written comments.

In productive consultations, the consultant’s main role is questioner. Good questions lead clients in the right direction while letting them come to their own discoveries about effective argumentation. A Google Docs based consultation allows writers the freedom to grapple with questions on their own terms and to experiment with revisions. In addition, a Google Doc consultation offers consultants a record of these experiments that would otherwise be unavailable to a reader who often only sees the most recent version of a draft, not the numerous permutations that took place in between drafts. Such a record, then, serves to illustrate a writer’s step-by-step revision process. This allows consultants to learn about the writer’s process and to make suggestions that get at the heart of the writer’s concerns.

To be sure, some of the most productive questions asked in an f2f session seem to have the least to do with the paper itself. The same holds true online: “How did you go about writing this draft?” “What thinking did you do about the topic before you started writing the rough draft?” “How do you usually approach the conclusion?” In Google Docs’ revision archive, we can actually see the answers to these questions on the page. When reviewing the auto-save replay, consultants might ask themselves, “Did the writer work from beginning to end without going back to revise as the thesis became clear in the conclusion?” Or “Did the writer begin by outlining topic sentences, filling in evidence later?” And “How many versions of the conclusion did the writer craft?” “Did the writer attempt writing different types of conclusions to see which worked best for this project?”

I do not want to suggest that this is simply an NNES/ESL issue; there are a number of NES writers who might prefer receiving online feedback as well. Like the survey respondents who pointed out their difficulty with understanding a consultant’s meaning, and frustration with crafting on-the-spot verbal responses to a consultant’s questions, we should also take into consideration NES writers who may have similar difficulties in these types of dialogic situations. There are obviously NES writers who simply take longer to think through issues before they are prepared to answer direct questions verbally, or even before they are prepared to respond in writing. For these writers, emailed correspondence offers time for reflection before responding to a consultant’s questions. I have both observed and conducted consultations with writers I thought to be either contentious or indifferent because the writer would not engage in conversation with the consultant, when in reality the writer simply needed more time to formulate his or her ideas, to analyze and synthesize information, and then produce a coherent thought. In a case like this, text-based chat, video conferencing, or other synchronous online communication may not address the writer’s need or preference, but offer–– in an online environment––the same service as a f2f consultation.

We’ve found, in both the UWC and the GWC, that these same writers, when offered online consultations using Google Docs, become more responsive to reader feedback. They engage in ongoing dialogue with their reader rather than sitting silently in a f2f consultation––or, in the case of an online setting, never writing a return email to ask follow-up questions, or to offer a revised draft for consultation. One of our writing consultants offers insight into why this might be the case: “It seems like students respond quickly and often in Google Doc consultations. Many of the writers I work with like that it’s informal, like a text-message. And I kind of like that it’s like a text-message, too, but for different reasons: it takes the pressure out of producing ‘perfect’ writing, but it also asks students to communicate succinctly, which is really what we’re asking them to do in their essays. Another veteran consultant maintains, “It’s as if we have a semester-long conversation about numerous projects – which is great because I can always reference back to something we talked about in an earlier assignment. The written record helps me ensure that we aren’t spinning our wheels on a single issue, but making noticeable progress.” I would also add that many of my clients have remarked on the convenience of not having to compose an email every time they revise, since we have standing weekly appointments, and I have permanent access to the document history.

As I’ve indicated, most of our collective theoretical and pedagogical energy concerning online consulting has been aimed at reproducing f2f consultations in an online forum. Yet, as our brief survey indicates, many students prefer asynchronous online communication not because they are lazy (as Eastmond Bell and a number of others suggest), but because they require extra time to grapple with the questions posed by consultants, or simply cannot meet with a consultant either f2f or in an online chat because of scheduling conflicts. A written comment in the margins of a paper, then, allows these students the opportunity to read and re-read consultant questions at their own convenience, take time to understand the logic of each comment, and respond at their own pace. Like Justin Jackson, “I am not arguing that online tutorials can ever replace f2f tutorials; they cannot” (1); however, I am arguing that they need not mimic f2f tutorials either. Rather than reproduce in a different medium one of the services writing centers already provide, we might better serve writers by allowing online consultations to be an alternative to traditional f2f sessions. And in fact, are a number of online advantages for consultants as well.

In a recent article in The Writing Lab Newsletter, “Building an Online Writing Center: Student Tutors Look to the Past to Construct a Future,” Karen Kalteissen and Heather Robinson discuss the results of an internship program in which consultants sought a way “to supplement their face-to-face tutoring sessions with online resources rather than providing a self-contained tutoring experience, either online or face-to- face.” They found that synchronous communication such as Instant Messaging was unproductive because consultants often fell into the role of assessor or editor, and writers became too reliant on chat “as a last-minute ‘fix-it-shop’ session before the paper [was] due” (Aydelotte qtd. in Kalteissen and Robinson, 7).

On the other hand, consultants who primarily used email as their mode of communication concluded that an asynchronous online tutoring experience could be more student-driven than even the face-to-face sessions that these emails were supplementing; furthermore, the email sessions gave the students practice with a vocabulary which they could bring to their face-to-face sessions. The second main finding was that, contrary to initial concerns, the email approach allowed and, indeed, forced a tutor to be more minimalist in his approach to tutoring than he was even in face-to-face sessions […] Rather than the student expressing brilliant ideas orally and then asking the tutor what she had just said, all breakthroughs happened in writing. (8)

The results of Kalteissen’s and Robinson’s study further suggest that consultations conducted through email can have a productive outcome if consultants are able to foster a conversation within the text. One way of promoting dialogue is to require follow-up submissions in which writers produce a revised draft along with a brief letter that reflects upon the overall process of revision and explains their engagement with the consultant’s feedback. In turn, consultants may offer feedback on the revised draft as well as continue a discussion about the writer’s process. Another option may be to institute a hybrid model, as suggested by Lee-Ann Kastman Breuch and Linda Clemens, which would consist of two phases: “an asynchronous phase in which the tutor reads and responds online to a student’s document and a subsequent synchronous phase in which tutor and student meet online for a scheduled chat to discuss writing” (132); however, the synchronous component of the two-phase consultation may cause problems for clients who are not available during the writing center’s hours of operation.

Again, the semi-synchronous Google Docs application provides consultants a way of effectively collaborating online without the hassle of sending multiple emails or having to schedule meeting times for video conferencing. Google Docs offers consultants and writers a number of convenient features that MS Word and email correspondence do not provide: a more collaborative and interactive workspace in which a number of reviewers can comment upon the same draft of an essay simultaneously; an auto-save function that records revisions in 15 second increments, thereby providing consultants with a digital record of a writer’s drafting and revision processes, which allows both writer and reader to have a detailed conversation about specific developments in the writing; and the latest version of the program actually offers synchronous options such as chat and character-by-character real-time co-editing. Google Docs, therefore, gives consultants and writers the option to collaborate both synchronously and asynchronously, depending on the preference and availability without having to train consultants in a number of different online programs. Furthermore, Google Docs fits any Writing Center’s budget (it is, after all, free) and is readily accessible to anyone with a free Google account. Let’s take a look at a one of the aforementioned features demonstrated in the video below: auto-saved revision history.

Revision History in Google Docs

My team of consultants has found this feature to be exceptionally useful. Google Docs keeps a record of almost every key-stroke, so rather than see only completed drafts, we can witness the actual step-by-step composition of an essay. In addition, consultant feedback is never lost, whereas in MS Word, if a writer rejects a comment it is deleted from the document. But in Google Docs, writers and consultants can return to questioned or rejected comments to discuss a reader’s reactions to the text, as well as her suggestions for revision.

Asynchronous, email-based consultations are admittedly a long way from perfect…

…but so too are f2f consultations. To simply reproduce a f2f session in an online environment via video conferencing or instant messaging does not offer writers alternative modes of engaging with ideas, grappling with language, or composing arguments.

Since digital text is flexible (see, for instance, the video below), writing centers don’t have to rely on scheduled video chat to have dynamic conversations about composition and design. In fact, consultants and writers can use an application like Google Docs to discuss writing issues in real-time–and in writing! Crafting clear sentences that detail a writer’s concerns and later responding to reader feedback in cogent language, can be great practice for developing writers.

Rather than simply condemn email communication as a thing of the past, and champion video conferencing as the way of the future, we might consider the benefits of text (conciseness, permanence) for NNES and NES writers alike, and begin developing more effective hybrid models and strategies for utilizing semi-synchronous programs, such as Google Docs, as productive pedagogical tools that take advantage of those benefits during online writing consultations.

Works Cited

Bell, Laura Eastmond. “Preserving the Rhetorical Nature of Tutoring When Going Online.” The Writing Center Director’s Resource Book. Ed. Christina Murphy and Byron Stay. London: Routledge, 2006. Print.

Braine, George. “A Study of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Writers on a Local-area Network (LAN) and in Traditional Classes. Computers and Composition 18.3 (2001): 275–292. Print.

Center for Support of Instruction. “Providing Feedback to Students Using Microsoft Word.” DE Oracle. University of Maryland University College. December 2008. Web. 22 July 2010.

Google Apps. “Revision History in Google Docs.” YouTube. 25 Sept. 2008. Web. 26 April 2010.

Guardado, Martin and Ling Shi. “ESL Students’ Experiences of Online Peer Feedback.” Computers and Composition 24 (2007): 443-461. Print.

Honeycutt, Lee. “Comparing E-mail and Synchronous Conferencing in Online Peer Response.” Written Communication 18 (2001): 26–60. Print.

Jackson, Justin. “Interfacing the Faceless: Maximizing the Advantages of Online Tutoring.” Writing Lab Newsletter 25.2 (2000): 1-7). Print.

Kalteissen, Karen; Robinson, Heather: “Building an Online Writing Center: Student Tutors Look to the Past to Construct a Future” Writing Lab Newsletter 33.8 (2009): 6-10. Print.

Kastman Breuch, Lee-Ann and Clemens, Linda S. “Tutoring ESL Students in Online Hybrid (Synchronous and Asynchronous) Writing Centers.” ESL Writers: A Guide for Writing Center Tutors. 2nd Ed. Eds. Shanti Bruce and Ben Rafoth. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 2009. Print.

Liu, Jun and Sadler, Randall W. “The Effect and Affect of Peer Review in Electronic Versus Traditional Modes on L2 Writing.” Journal of English for Academic Purposes 2 (2003): 193–227. Print.

Moe, Holly. “Web Study Smartthinking.com.” Writing Lab Newsletter 25.1 (2000): 13-16. Print.

North, Stephen. “The Idea of a Writing Center.” College English 46 (1984): 433-46. Print.

Rilling, Sarah. “The development of an ESL OWL, or learning how to tutor writing online.” Computers and Composition 22 (2005): 357–374. Print.

Severino, Carol; Swenson, Jeffrey; Zhu, Jia: “A Comparison of Online Feedback Requests by Non-Native English Speaking and Native English Speaking Writers.” Writing Center Journal 29.1 (2009): 106-129. Print.

Wesch, Michael. “The Machine is Us/ing Us.” YouTube. 31 Jan. 2007. Web. 27 April 2010.