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This will be a site for all writing centers interested in online consultation and other tech topics. Our goal is to establish a space where writing centers directors, consultants, and tech people can trade ideas, give advice, share best practices, and learn more about online consultations. If you’d like to get involved, there’s a place for you.

Branching Out By Webbing Out Pt. 7 – One Academic Year Old

Whew!  It’s the end of the semester!  In February and March it felt like the semester would never end, then April went by so quickly that I don’t know where the time has gone.

On April 26th the WolfWeb Online Writing Center (WWOWC) closed for the semester, concluding its first year of operation. Admittedly, at the end of fall semester I was a little concerned. Having only 22 visits for the whole semester didn’t make our new OWC a resounding success. A habitual Pollyanna, even I was a little nervous that a program I had such belief in was not going to make it. Tweaking the availability of appointments seemed like a last ditch effort keep the program hobbling along. In my mind the appointments would pick up a little, but not enough to interfere with the popular afternoon drop-in hours.  The person working as the online consultant would have plenty of time to help out when the drop-in service was busy. As with most everything, it looked good on paper, but was something else in practice.

In practice, the WWOWC had 63 visits during spring semester! Apparently, tweaking appointment availability was just what the WWOWC needed.  As excited as I am about the total number of visits, I’m thrilled by the number of returning users the WWOWC had.  Those 63 visits were made by 46 students, for an average of 1.36 visits per student. Ummm, yes, I know that a .36 visit is like a .5 kid, but I’m excited because it means that on some level users liked the service.

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Branching Out by Webbing Out – Quick Updates

If anyone has any idea how my hectic January expanded into a hyper-hectic February, and could help me prevent this in the future, please let me know.

As I’d hoped the new WolfWeb Online Writing Center hours are proving popular. Instead of slow and steady, I’m anticipating a mercurial semester that more closely follows typical due date patterns.  There are 12 possible online appointments each week. The first week there were three appointments, the next week 6.

Last semester we covered a lot of training, philosophy, and logistics, what – if anything – would you like to hear about this semester? Let me know in the comments.

Branching Out By Webbing Out Pt. 6: Semester Wrap Up

Brandy
When Writing and Speaking Tutorial Services (WSTS) received the grant to start the WolfWeb Online Writing Center (WWOWC) I hoped that it would prove popular enough to warrant an increase in our budget to cover the additional staffing necessary for running the online center. The reality of the numbers generated this semester is that we won’t receive any additional funding for the WWOWC next semester. There were 22 visits to the center, with 19 unique visitors, which means that the consultants were busy with sessions 22.7% of the time.  Not exactly bursting at the seams, but not nothing either.  As I mentioned at the end of September the numbers weren’t great, but they were fairly consistent.  Consistency coupled with the fact that we had at least one returner, and that we received positive reviews in our student survey, bolsters my belief that we just haven’t found the right time slot.

By early November I knew that more funding would not be a possiblity, and finding a way to keep up the WWOWC was a priority as I planned for spring semester. Staffing the WWOWC turned out to be slightly cheaper than I’d expected, and I decided to close the WWOWC a little early.  The result is that we still have a little less than a third of our grant money to contribute to next semester’s staffing budget.  It wasn’t exactly a cake walk, but without too much trouble I was able to figure out how to make our existing funding stretch a little farther to continue to offer the service for at least one more semester.  Under our existing budget this semester two consultants worked with drop-in writers from 2-5 every afternoon. Next semester we will continue that set up, but for one of the consultants their first responsibility will be online appointments.  They will only hold drop-in sessions when they are not booked with online appointments.

The biggest obstacle was figuring out how to make sure that there were no last minute appointments, so a consultant who started work with a drop-in writer at 1:45 wouldn’t suddenly have a 2 pm appointment. A new policy was born – All WWOWC appointments have to be made by 1 pm that day.  Allowing students to make appointments until 1pm would still give them a chance to make same day appointments, and the cut off point allows the consultants to manage their time for the shift.  At 1 pm any remaining WWOWC appointments will be blocked off, ensuring that no one sneaks in after the deadline.

Before scheduling this kind of shift I talked to the consultants to find out if they felt comfortable with such a system.  They all felt like this process would work out for them.  Once I started actually planning the schedule I made sure that only experienced consultants were asked to work the dual shift between drop-in and online appointments, and that they felt comfortable moving between one style of consulting and another. The decision to split one consultant between two types of sessions has other benefits.  We are actually able to offer more online appointment times per week, increasing the online appointments from eight a week to twelve.  Hopefully, these times will also prove more popular with students.

My fingers are crossed that this system will work out, and I think spring will be a good time to work out any kinks before the rush of next fall.  Yes, I’m already thinking about next fall.  Now that we’ve begun offering online services I’d like to keep them going as long as possible to help students find us.  January gets pretty hectic for everyone, and our centers won’t open until the 23rd, so unless you have a burning question you’d like answered, you may not hear from me again until February.

 

 

 

 

Branching Out By Webbing Out Pt. 5: Lessons Learned (Training)

Brandy
Holding fast to two ideas, that writing consultation is primarily about conversation, and that sometimes the best way to learn something is to do, this semester the training I set up for the WWOWC was minimal. For the week before the WWOWC opened to students I scheduled the consultants to work their regular 2 hour shifts, and during those shifts we met to talk about what it would be like working online, and to give them a practice session.

My goal for the WWOWC has always been that online sessions mirror face-to-face sessions as closely as possible.  From the moment the writer and consultant sit down together, or meet up on chat, I ask the consultants to focus on making a connection between themselves and the person across the table/web from them.  Asking the questions listed on our session information cards as a way to break the ice and find out more about the writer, and what they would like to accomplish in the session.  Establishing this connection can be a challenge in an online session, so I coach the consultants to keep their side of the chat, well … chatty.  Spend some additional time on the session pleasantries – finding out about the writer, her day, her assignment, etc.  Write brief, but frequent entries that the writer can read and respond to quickly.  Most importantly, because one of the biggest frustrations when chatting online is not know what is happening on the other side of the conversation, I tell consultants to indicate what they are doing during any longer pauses (reading, typing, thinking, etc.). Continue reading

Branching Out By Webbing Out Pt. 4: Inhabiting Our Space

Brandy
When participating in the grant-writing class where I earned the money to establish the WWOWC, my focus was on meeting the grant cfp by creating a “new” way to serve NCSU students.  Since an asynchronous online writing center had been tried and shut down, I tried to separate the online writing center I proposed from other WSTS projects by branding it in a new way.  At NCSU our mascot is the wolf – hence we are The Wolfpack, and either wolf or pack is in the title of nearly everything on campus.  Campus tours are Wolfwalks.  We even have our own Howling Cow ice cream. I think you get the idea. Given my established love of the cheesy title, you can figure out how the WolfWeb OWC was born.

Initially, I tried to promote the WWOWC as a sister center to WSTS. In promotional visits to English 101 classes, I’d say the full name, and on the WSTS website any links were lableled WWOWC.  In retrospect, I think the idea that the WWOWC needed to be a new service carried over from the grant class into my web design and promotions. Separating the two services meant we failed to take advantage of the WSTS’s already strong presence on campus, and created some confusion.  WSTS is already seen as the place to go to get help with papers and presenations.  As something new, WWOWC seemed like it would be something different.

The confusion might go some way to explaining the consistent, but low, number of WWOWC users.  As I mentioned in my quick update, mid-semester I sought out new ways to promote the WWOWC.  As I crafted emails, and started our twitter account I had to choose between continuing to promote the WWOWC as a separate sister center to WSTS, or integrating it into the WSTS’ identity.  I chose integration. If you look closely at the WSTS website, you will see that the old WWOWC navigation button has changed and is now WWOWC – Online Writing Center.  Instead of creating two separate Twitter identities for our two centers, I created one WSTS account (@wstsncsu).  Using that account, every one to two days I send out a tweet specifically promoting our online writing center.

Creating the WWOWC catapulted the WSTS into a web presence as well. We don’t have many followers yet, but occasionally other NCSU entities will retweet us, and I believe it is good promotion for both centers.It might be too soon to know if this strategy will prove effective, but I’m happy with how it supports my efforts to build a WSTS community on our campus.

This semester has been so full that I simultaneously can’t believe it’s almost over, and can’t wait for it to end.  Next time, I’ll post about consultant training: what I did this time, and what I will try to do differently next semester.

Branching Out by Webbing Out Pt. 3: Wide Open Spaces

Brandy
In previous posts I talked a little about choosing between synchronous and asynchronous writing center formats, and promoting our new service.  In this post, I’d like to step back a little bit to talk about defining the space for the WWOWC. Initially, I conceived of an online writing center as a vast open space, one in which we wouldn’t be tucked in a corner office as an addendum to a larger tutorial center like our face-to-face service. Seriously planning for the WWOWC, not just daydreaming about it, made it obvious to me that our web space would not be as wide open as I’d hoped. The WWOWC would be limited first by my choices (having a synchronous center and staffing decisions), and then by the amount of grant money received to start this center.

Since the WWOWC is housed in the face-to-face WSTS, I need to tell you a little bit about the physical space.  The WSTS is in a long, narrow room (approx. 12’ x 26’). A good portion of the room is taken up by a room that houses the building sprinkler system.  It leaves us with a small 4’ x 6’ cubby in the back, which isn’t really ‘usable’ space. When I started the job in Fall 2010, the room was painted white and organized to maximize functionality.  Two circular tables provided consulting spaces, there were filing cabinets for storage, a small waiting area, and a couple of book shelves.  Given the awkward proportions of the room, it was a decent set up.

Like I said, it was a very functional space, but it certainly didn’t set me at ease. The core of my philosophy of writing center work is that both the consultant and writer need to feel comfortable enough in a space to share their writing and ideas with each other.  The center provides the physical space from which the consultant and writer can engage, and share with, each other.  The center becomes that space when it is deliberately designed to welcome whomever enters, and to visually signal that “work happens” here. Consequently, I resurrected my set-designing skills, pulled out a scale ruler, and began redesigning the space.  The family tradition of using furniture rearrangement as a coping mechanism finally paid off!

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Branching Out By Webbing Out: Quick Updates – More thoughtful posts to follow

Brandy
… gasp … Hello … gasp … Everyone …

Forgive me for rushing, but I’m determined to get this post in before September runs out.

The WolfWeb Online Writing Center (WWOWC) opened on September 6, and it’s been an interesting few weeks.

Let me share some of the technical details of the WWOWC.  To help give structure to our synchronous model of consulting, the WWOWC opened as an appointment-based center.  Writers can make appointments in 60-minute blocks between 12:30 and 2:30pm, Monday through Thursday.  It’s not a lot of time, I know.  I would love to offer more appointments, but since WWOWC consultants are being paid from the grant we received, there are only so many hours to spread around.

All of that being said I’m happy to say that in our first four weeks, we’ve served eight writers.  It might not seem that impressive when you consider that there were 30 appointments available.  What makes me happy with those numbers is that they didn’t happen in a cluster.  The first week there was only one appointment, but since then we’ve had at least two appointments a week.  One week we even had three.  I’m really happy about this consistency.  It might just be my Pollyana nature, but I think the consistency tells me that there are writers out there who want to use this kind of service. The low numbers reflect that we haven’t stumbled upon the best time to offer appointments.

As I said, I started with a soft launch approach to marketing for the WWOWC.  To that I’ve added some overt marketing.  When I sent an email promoting our service to the entire College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHASS), I specifically mentioned the WWOWC.  This week, I also moved into completely new territory for us by starting a Writing and Speaking Tutorial Services (WSTS) Twitter account (@wstsncsu), and sending out our first tweets. (Follow us!)  Although the account is for all of WSTS, I plan to use it to promote WWOWC appointments. Our tweets will be geared towards NCSU students, but you are welcome to check us out.

In the more thoughtful side of this post (hopefully by October 15), I’ll talk more about constructing our online space and identity.  For now, I just wanted to make sure to keep you all updated.

Branching Out By Webbing Out Pt. 2: Gearing up

Brandy
The WolfWeb Online Writing Center (WWOWC) doesn’t open until September 6th, but our sister center Writing and Speaking Tutorial Services (WSTS) opens on Monday, August 29.  It simultaneously feels like August has been the longest and shortest month ever. This is my second year in this position, so I started August feeling the need to get a lot done, yet prepared for it all. Of course, that minor bit of hubris was duly punished by the fates.  Our center has been in upheaval since mid-August. The upshot of all the upheaval is that until this past Thursday I hadn’t had the time to fret about the WWOWC opening.

One of the earliest decisions I’ve had to make about the WWOWC is how much, and where, to publicize the center.  The grant that allowed me to pilot the center only allowed me to staff eight hours a week of OWC time.  While I would love to flood the campus with announcements about the OWC, our undergraduate population is over 24,000 students.  I’m afraid too large of a promotional campaign would flood the service, creating numerous problems.  I am, however, also afraid that too small of a promotion will result in minimal usage of the center, which would hurt my ability to make an argument for continuing to staff the WWOWC.

Ultimately, I decided to use a soft-launch approach. The WWOWC is on the main page of the WSTS webpage where any student looking to find out information about the WSTS will find it.  Each semester someone from WSTS, usually myself, visits all the English 100 & 101 courses to promote our services. During my visits, I promote the WWOWC.  Also, the WSTS staff’s first project this semester is to create an “Introduction to WSTS” video for all the distance learning courses. I will make sure the WWOWC is promoted there as well.

As I work my way through all the classroom visits to the English 100 & 101 courses the first week of WSTS appointments generally fills up.  Yet, we still don’t have a single appointment for the WWOWC.  Intellectually, I know there aren’t any appointments yet because the WWOWC doesn’t open until after Labor Day, and we ask students to only book appointments two weeks in advance, but my stomach hasn’t come to terms with that reality yet. As an adamant believer in the efficacy of synchronous online writing support I want to see the WWOWC succeed. It is also the first major project I’ve championed as the Coordinator of Writing and Speaking Tutorial Services, and since I jumped into writing this series, the success of the center suddenly feels much more important to me professionally as well. This is where I just have to take a deep breath and wait for September.