This dissertation unites two seemingly unrelated fields, writing centers and technical writing, to study the feasibility of creating an online technical writing resource. Despite prolonged attention to multiliteracies and collaboration in both subfields, writing centers and technical writing do not commonly implicate one another in their shared mission of shaping students to become savvy writers with an awareness of rhetorical concepts and situations. This dissertation establishes how complementary these two fields are based upon their shared pedagogies of collaboration and multiliteracies. I suggest that a service design approach is beneficial to writing center research. Similarly, the technical writing field has little research and scholarship dedicated specifically to online writing instruction and pedagogy. Historically, writing centers have served students from all disciplines, but research demonstrates the effectiveness of specialist over generalist writing support. Taking a specialist perspective, I use service design methodology to gather input from student and instructor stakeholders about how online writing tutoring and web resources can address their needs. Using survey and interview data, I designed and piloted an online tutoring service for students enrolled in the Technical Writing service course at Virginia Tech. In student and instructor surveys, participants reported that they were highly unlikely to use online tutoring sessions but were more likely to use a course-specific website. Additionally, student interviews revealed that the Writing Center is not necessarily a highly-used resource, especially for upper-level students. Instructor interviewees indicated some misunderstandings and limited views of the Writing Center's mission. Nevertheless, a small number of participants in both groups spoke to a need for specialized tutoring in the Technical Writing course. In terms of feasibility, integration of online services for this course poses the greatest challenge because it relates to the amount of change needed to successfully integrate online tutoring or web resources into the curriculum. With some attention to how OWLs and synchronous online tutoring can be an asset to teaching technical writing online, I argue that the pilot project described in this study is relatively feasible. / Doctor of Philosophy / A feasibility study addresses whether or not an idea or plan is good. In the case of this dissertation, the idea is whether or not to offer online writing services—such as tutoring and a repository website—to students enrolled in Technical Writing at Virginia Tech. In order to study the feasibility of this plan, I first argue for bringing together the fields of writing centers and technical writing. Two strong reasons for uniting these fields are based upon their shared methods and practices of teaching collaboration and multiliteracies. Multiliteracies in this dissertation refers to critical, functional, and rhetorical computer literacies; each literacy is important for Technical Writing students to develop as they enter their future careers. Historically, writing centers are places on a college or university campus where students from all disciplines can go for tutoring; this is known as the generalist approach to writing tutoring. However, research demonstrates the effectiveness of a specialist approach—where a tutor is familiar with a student’s discipline—to writing tutoring over generalist writing support. Therefore, I take a specialist perspective in this study. I use service design system of methods to gather input from student and instructor stakeholders about how online writing tutoring and web resources can address their needs. Service design is commonly used in the service economy, such as restaurants and hotels, in order to design or redesign services. In particular, service design focuses on people and their needs. Using survey and interview data, I designed and piloted an online tutoring service and a website for students enrolled in the Technical Writing service course at Virginia Tech. In student and instructor surveys, participants reported that they were highly unlikely to use online tutoring sessions but were more likely to use a course-specific website. Additionally, student interviews revealed that the Writing Center at Virginia Tech is not necessarily a highly-used resource, especially for upper-level students. Instructor interviewees indicated some misunderstandings and limited views of the Writing Center’s mission. Nevertheless, a small number of participants in both groups spoke to a need for specialized tutoring in the Technical Writing course. In terms of feasibility, integration of online services for this course poses the greatest challenge because it relates to the amount of change needed to successfully integrate online tutoring or web resources into the curriculum. With some attention to how online writing labs and synchronous online tutoring can be an asset to teaching technical writing online, I argue that the pilot project described in this study is relatively feasible.

<div>Circulation studies, as the theory of ecological spread of information, impacts public perception of knowledge-making, and digital circulation (i.e. online information sharing) impacts what people expect online knowledge-making and online education is or should be. Online education is becoming a new norm for students and universities at a time when economic pressure is pushing both to be more austere and expedient; at the same time, circulation collapses together the complex ways we communicate, making them harder to differentiate. This dissertation responds to these conditions by focusing on the labor behind circulation and Online Writing Instruction (OWI) in order to study knowledge-making online. Through focus groups with instructors, case studies, and surveys of students in online classes, this dissertation identifies strategies that benefit both teachers and students and improve Online Writing Classes. This work intersects with recent considerations of how mis- and dis-information spread online, the impact of Data Science and Information Theory on communication and knowledge-making, and how to make universities accessible to more people.</div><div><br></div><div>Chapter 1 overviews the history of Distance Education (DE) and Online Education (OE) as well as the relevant disciplinary distinctions OWI makes for itself. Chapter 1 also identifies theoretical and practical challenges OE finds for itself and overviews recent shifts in OE student populations. Chapter 2 contextualizes the challenges OE and OWI face in a larger ecology of Information Theory, Rhetoric and Composition theory and practice, Technical Communication theory and practice, and Neoliberal economics, positing ecological links between modern data science, digital circulation, and economics. In doing so, Chapter 2 offers a rhetorical interpretation of the DIKW pyramid and definitions of data, information, knowledge, and wisdom (D, I, W, and W respectively) for rhetorical practitioners. Chapter 3 follows up on Chapter 2’s arguments to respond with research on teacher and student labor in online classes with methods for such inquiry, through focus groups, case studies, and surveys. Chapter 4 presents data from all stages of that inquiry, and Chapter 5 connects together observations from the data with theory from Chapters 1 and 2 to draw more concrete conclusions.</div><div><br></div>

Online Writing Instruction (OWI) programs, like online learning classes in general, are becoming more popular in post-secondary education. Yet few articles discuss how to tailor course assessment methods to an exclusively online environment. This thesis explores video analytics as a possible course assessment tool for online writing classrooms. Video analytics allow instructors, course designers, and writing program administrators to view how many students are engaging in video-based course materials. Additionally, video analytics can provide information about how active students are in their data-finding methods while they watch. By means of example, this thesis examines video analytics from one semester of a large western university’s online first-year writing sections (n=283). This study finds that video analytics afford stakeholders knowledge of patterns in how students interact with video-based course materials. Assuming the end goal of course assessment is to provide meaningful insight that will help improve student and teacher experience, video analytics can be a powerful, dynamic course assessment tool.

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Playable cases are a new type of mixed-reality serious game (SG), combining elements of alternative reality games (ARGs) and education simulations to offer an immersive, transmedia story. Participants advance the plot through interactive gameplay and characters with the goal of creating products and experiencing real-world business situations. This study investigates the effectiveness of the playable case Microcore as a tool specifically for online writing instruction (OWI). Fifty students in online sections of a technical communication course participated in Microcore, in which they responded to pre- and post-survey questions and prompts directed at their perceptions about writing, understanding of workplace communication, and levels of engagement. Responses to the survey were collected, coded for thematic trends, and analyzed. Results from this survey study suggest that playable cases like Microcore may be effective at countering primary OWI difficulties, including disengagement, lack of social presence and humanity, faltering self-efficacy, and unclear, unproductive perceptions about writing assignments. Students responded positively to the playable case and appeared to develop more nuanced views about workplace communication and writing through this immersive narrative and interface.

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<p dir="ltr">The early COVID-19 pandemic presented a sudden and shared challenge to educators across the country. This dissertation focuses on the challenges presented to writing program administrators (WPAs), a group in higher education who provides leadership and guidance to courses which frequently fulfill writing requirements for students such as First Year Composition. In asking what we can learn from these WPAs who supported teaching and learning in difficult times, I arrive at an understanding of education which is always changing and in crisis. I position writing program administration—which is often poorly-understood, capacious work—within what we know about wicked problems (Rittel & Webber, 1973), which are iterative and socially situated in ways that call for responsiveness and collaboration. To respond to this exigence, I begin to describe an approach of <i>agile writing program administration</i>, which centers the needs of students and teachers through changes that affect teaching and learning.</p><p dir="ltr">My study began with a survey (n=55) collecting information from WPAs on how they targeted support to instructors in 2020’s Emergency Remote Teaching. I then conducted a series of two interviews (n=13) that included narratives of that support, reflections on programmatic decisions, and analysis of texts created to support instructors and students. This data analysis led me to four themes that describe agile WPAs in the early pandemic: centering humans; promoting accessibility and usability; responding to users; and strategizing to respond to change.</p><p dir="ltr">Responding to Lindquist's (2021) call for the field of writing studies to revisit its commonplaces of work, I reconsider commonplaces of writing program administration: its activities, what it takes for granted, and what often goes unseen with this work. Most importantly, I move away from any commonplace understanding of education as stable. Instead, I argue that writing program administration, like any wicked problem, is an iterative problem which therefore requires iterative response. Just as the pandemic didn't definitively end, the issues facing down a WPA continue and change and multiply. WPAs are asked to navigate changes in student populations and needs, updates to local and statewide policies, and an increasingly contingent instructional labor force in higher education. An agile framework for writing program administration can inform more practical and intentional ways for WPAs to achieve their goals of supporting, first and foremost, the instructors and students involved in these writing programs.</p>