Hi Helen
Thanks for collating this – I remember the thread last year and didn’t make the connection.
I wanted to chip in on John Sutter’s comments; we need to address what makes these services so attractive to management and to students.
To managers I think there is a simple issue of offering services at scale – pedagogy is merged with service delivery, numbers and usage become a proxy for more robust, critical evaluation of the impact of these
services.
This seems to be endemic to the sector.
I think we need to separate the two and provide a more robust evaluation of what is being delivered.
I would speculate what makes them popular to students (huge spike in usage around assignment submission time) is that
1/ it outsources the work
2/ offers help
3/ ‘fixes’ broken text
4/ online, impersonal and low/no face threat
5/ available last minute
I think again there is a blurring of pedagogy purpose & challenge & service delivery.
I think these services are perceived as Uberizing Writing Support – making it fast, almost instantaneous. I am concerned about the pay and conditions of the staff on the other end, receiving these papers, but
this service doesn’t get students from A to B, move them on in the same.
At the heart of this is the poorly understood role of writing in HE, as some surface feature separate from content. This misunderstanding is widespread (staff and students). I’d agree with John we need to reframe
the debate and challenge the dominance of service dominated metaphors. In an Auz context university language policies appear widely agreed. This seems to embed Writing & Writing Development across most institutions. I think their professional organisation
led in this. I wonder if we might consider a similar initiative?
That’s my twopenniworth for this morning.
Kind regards
Cathy
Hi Lesley,
Oh it’s *them*… I do remember that discussion – just been going back over it in the archives. There were some excellent points made last year not just critiquing such provision, but asking how
we can better make the case to senior admin and academics that such snake oil solutions are best avoided. Derek raises a good point about feedback – just why would a university be outsourcing what should be a core and distinct part of its own provision, it’s
unique ‘product’? The answer is I suspect that this isn’t understood as ‘real’ feedback on the ‘important’ stuff – it’s the “they should have learned this at school – why can’t students these days write” feedback, the “I don’t have time for this and it’s not
my job” feedback, the “but I’m here to teach them the subject, not this minor basic stuff” feedback, the stuff that they’re grateful to offload onto us LDers and even more so to an outside company. As hard as we practitioners and researchers have worked over
the last 30 years to promote a more sophisticated and embedded understanding of writing, we know from daily interactions with academic colleagues this often isn’t filtering through, and these companies are very good, naively or knowingly, at framing the problem
in outdated, remedial and bolt-on modes and presenting their very outdated model as a revolutionary modern solution.
How can we do better at getting our message, and our expertise, respected and heard? At least it occurred to someone in our Ed Dev team to ask me what I thought – I suspect in other institutions no one’s thought
to consult the LDers at all… How can we as a profession present a more proactive and weighty response to good practice, rather than scrabbling around reactively and going (it seems, if we had this conversation last year!) in circles? I include myself in that
– I was one of the ones who chipped into the conversation last year!
If I may, I’d like to reproduce two responses that now strike me very forcefully from our discussion last year:
John Sutter
But I do wonder that possibly one reason why such ‘approaches’ or commercial solutions have - or appear to a have- a degree of credibility or attraction for some senior managers
is that we, as a profession, have been too slow to question or resist some of the metaphors currently operating in our field such as ‘support’, ‘student needs’ and the general individualisation of learning that - whether intentional or not- allow deficit approaches
to become naturalised and embedded into practice that is then seen as common sense. (My job title - which I have been campaigning - ineffectively! - to change for three years is a good example of this).
What can we do as a profession to get universities to question the underlying metaphors and discourses that effectively position us as a context-free student needs-based service
that could therefore be bought in more cheaply from elsewhere?
Rowena Harper:
I think the most reasonable approach is to:
· question the veracity
of their claims (ie. can they improve retention, success etc.?? And how would they evidence this?)
· identify clearly
what kind of service they offer to students and – drawing on your own evidence and theory – illustrate the likely value of the service
· articulate how
the service may be use to complement what’s already in place AND/OR suggest a better alternative (e.g. peer initiatives that benefit already enrolled students)
In an online discussion between members of the AALL executive, I provided this summary of (what I thought was) useful guidance for anyone asked to ‘advise’ senior management on these kinds of services – I’ve reproduced it here in
case it’s useful. I think we all know this, but sometimes in the heat of the moment it’s easy to forget!
-
It may be best to position yourself as speculating about the value of these services, in the context of existing programs. In this case, you may argue that what these services provide (grammar correction, online learning advice,
learning advice from peers/current students) is already being offered in far more productive forms, some of which give valuable experiences to enrolled students.
-
Senior managers are likely to be suspicious of any advice that seems defensive. A defensive, overly critical tone can suggest you feel threatened, your primary concern being to keep your job. The submission may come across as biased
and lacking objectivity (rather than passionate and concerned). Try to remain objective and constructive – thoroughly examine what is likely to be best for students and the institution.
-
The best tone may be confusion – “not clear what evidence their claims are based on…”, “not clear from their marketing materials what they mean by ‘traditional’ students. If they mean on-campus students, then our institution provides
…”, “their proposal indicates a lack of awareness of the existing learning advice at out institution, which does not inspire confidence…” “their materials over-simplify ‘at-risk’ students, so we might be concerned that they don’t understand how our institution
defines and supports students at risk”.
-
The strongest pieces of argument come from samples of what these companies provide (typically simple text correction or grammar instructive), and also any job advertisements that expose who they are really employing as ‘writing experts’
(2nd year undergraduates, from what we have seen).
(I’d add from my own experience that passing on responses from other institutions does carry weight too, so continuing to share our experiences and views is incredibly helpful. It’s difficult though, as ‘official’
evaluations can be a bit weak, and more authentic, informed views can be hard to express publically for fear of censure from your own institution. How can we facilitate this?)
Apparently I was waffling on last year about how I felt that the recognition scheme Steve Briggs was proposing in the community keynote would be a damn good idea – so we have got quite a long way since then! And
from Rowena’s response our colleagues in Australia were already starting to formulate a more strategic approach to this, and are ahead of us – I’m so glad ICALLD has helped to promote these discussions!
Best wishes
Helen
Hi Helen and all
Two AALL members presented on their research into ‘third party services’ at ICALLD earlier this year, which includes Studiosity and
similar services:
The hard working learner: third party services and academic language and learning.
Presenters: Helen Benzie & Rowena Harper, University of South Australia
[Note also that Studiosity was previously known as YourTutor,
and there was a discussion on LDHEN about this last year.]
Regards
Lesley
Apparently there has been some interest in the Heads of E-learning Forum list about Studiosity,
https://www.studiosity.com/ an
Australian service that offers feedback on student writing, because I’ve had two emails from our learning technologists and education developers this morning…
I’ve had a quick look both at the site and a report by Ulster university who piloted it – I can’t say I’m impressed. It looks like yet another simple solution to a complex problem which dodges the real issues, and not very in line with ALDinHE’s values or practices,
but it’s worryingly attractive to both universities and students, offering a quick fix of what seem to be largely surface features.
Has anyone else come across it, and, since it’s an Australian company, what do our partners in AALL think of it?
Best wishes
Helen
Dr Helen Webster
ALDinHE Certified Leading Practitioner, SFHEA, PGCE
Head of the Academic Writing Development Centre
Philip Robinson Library
Newcastle University
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE2 4HQ
UK
Tel: 0191 208 5650
@scholastic_rat
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