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OWL Continues to Fly High at Dakota State

Madison -- Four years ago, the Dakota State University Online Writing Lab was created by two DSU English professors. The DSU OWL was one of the first online tutoring services in the country. The OWL, an electronic tutoring resource available to all DSU students and faculty, serves people from around the world via the Internet.

Patricia Ericsson and James Swanson created the OWL with the help of a Bush Foundation Faculty Development Grant. The mission of the OWL is to provide students access to well-trained writing tutors. Students submit requests for assistance in their writing assignments and receive almost immediate responses.

There are three main goals of the OWL. The first is to provide writing assistance to students. The second is to reinforce and encourage DSU faculty to incorporate writing into their teaching. To that end seventeen Bush Foundation mini-grants have been awarded to DSU faculty to learn new approaches and uses of writing. The third goal is to give the tutors themselves an opportunity to gain unique experience in writing and teaching.

"Student reaction to the OWL is positive. We have many students who use the OWL regularly," said Ericsson.

Perhaps what makes the OWL even more special is that the tutors are all volunteers and come from many majors, not just Liberal Arts. Some OWL tutors are veterans of several semesters of online tutoring and new tutors are trained each semester. Novices spend eight weeks in training, and when they are adequately prepared are assigned at least four hours a week tutoring students.

"Volunteering has been a valuable experience for me, and I would recommend it to others. It has been a great way to practice communication skills which are needed in any field of study. Also, if the interest for teaching is there, it’s a great way to put a person in the "teacher" frame of mind," said Lorynda Eekhoff, DSU Secondary English Education major and OWL tutor.

The OWL has seen tremendous growth over the past few years. OWL usage records indicate that over 25% of DSU students currently use the lab. The OWL has also received requests from several other countries, particularly Japan.

"The OWL has helped put us on the map. It has strengthened the reputation of DSU, both nationally and internationally," said Ericsson.

In the future, both Ericsson and Swanson hope to see more students utilize the OWL and continue making international contacts. Both agree that the addition of Distance Education at Dakota State is a natural fit for the OWL, and they hope to see more distance students accessing the lab.

"We can attribute much of our success to the students who participate and to the supportive administration at Dakota State," said Swanson. Now that the Bush grant has ended, funding for the OWL comes from the University.

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