CompBlog

WPA and NSSE Partnership

Learn more about the partnership between WPA and NSSE that has resulted in the “Consortium for the Study of Writing in College.”   Here’s a brief excerpt from the new website:

The Council of Writing Program Administrators and the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) have partnered to develop a set of 27 questions about writing and its teaching across the curriculum. In spring 2008, we administered these questions to 82 US colleges by adding them to the regular NSSE questions. The responses of 23,000 students provide the broadest snapshot so far of the writing that US undergraduates do.”

Spread the word.

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New CompPile Feature

I’ve redesigned the front page of CompPile, slightly.  Thinking of CompPile as a place where we go to find information, I’ve added a column of “CompLinks” that list links to various resources and tools that are part of our everyday work (I think?).

In the first attempt, the list includes “professional organizations,” “tools,” “blogs,” “listserves,” and “online journals” (full text, meant to be read online, etc.).  I’ll appreciate suggestions for adding, rearranging, etc.  I know the list as it is now is not comprehensive, and as it grows, space issues on the first page will result in more links being available in pop-out menus.

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Learning with CompFAQs in grad courses

I’ve published a drafty piece about possible ways that faculty might invite graduate students to contribute to  CompFAQs as part of their graduate course work.  The link leads to the CompFAQs wiki.  I’ll appreciate any feedback.

This wiki piece is a companion to my recent blog posting Volunteering as Learning: Inviting Grad Students to CompPile.

Soon I hope to link from CompPile to more-final versions of these pieces.

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Volunteering as Learning: Inviting Graduate Students to CompPile

[I'm sharing this via CompBlog as a draft. Eventually, this information will be part of the static CompPile site.  The goal here is to encourage faculty who are teaching graduate courses in Comp/Rhet consider incorporating assignments that invite graduate students to volunteer at CompPile, as a learning experience, an assignment, an introduction to ongoing work in our field.  I will be posting a separate set of suggestions related to CompFAQs work.  Comments welcome.]

How can CompPile be incorporated into graduate course work? How can graduate students contribute to CompPile?

• CompPile is quite literally an ongoing project, with work aplenty for all who are willing to contribute. No contribution is too small, and no time spent is too little.
• Any contributions to / participation in CompPile will be subject to formative review, so in a sense, faculty and students do not need to fear “getting it wrong.”

Ideas for contributing to CompPile (and for using CompPile work as assignments in graduate courses): Read the rest of this entry »

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Writing Center Journal now current

Today I uploaded WCJ 26.2, which means WCJ is now current in CompPile. Thanks to the members of WCENTER-L for providing page numbers when I sent the request.

I continue to work on WLN.  And we continue to seek volunteers, not only for indexing, but to review the current indexing and confirm that we have supplied all the appropriate search terms that will help users locate relevant materials in their searches.  Volunteers can also consider writing annotations or reviews for articles.

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Comment Feature

You may have noticed a new tab in the top menu that explains “comments.”  The comment feature is now open for CompBlog posts.  To prevent spam, any comment that includes a URL will be held for moderation.  Otherwise, comments are welcome, as long as commenters identify themselves.

We look forward to hearing from CompPile users.

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Writing Center Journal / Writing Lab Newsletter

Last week, I announced, optimistically, that I would try to have completed indexing for WCJ and WLN by this week.  As is too often the case, I was over-optimistic.

WCJ is now current except for three issues: 25.2, 26.1, and 26.2.  Unfortunately, the online archive (when I can access it) doesn’t include page numbers in its TOC.  So I’m tracking down those 3 issues to update WCJ.

I have completed WLN through 2000; however, my work with that is moving more slowly.  WLN publishes 10 issues a year, and even though they are all available online, indexing and adding keywords takes time.

Volunteers are always welcome.

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New/Recent Books and CompReviews

The CompReviews process has now been revised significantly and moved to the new servers.  As I’ve said in other places, any item listed in CompPile is now a candidate for review–books, articles, chapters, webspaces.

At WPA 2008, one of the focuses of our session about using online tools focused on CompReviews, their potential value, and the various reasons why individuals weren’t contributing.  I hope we are able to generate more participation.

As part of this revision and move, the New/Recent Books section has been rebuilt from scratch, in part to make the page designs more consistent and to build in some automatic updating processes.  With this new space, books published within the past two years will appear in the lists, as long as they appear in the CompPile index.

Updating and maintaining publishers’ lists of new books is an important challenge.  Volunteers are always welcome.

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WPA 2008: Denver

The WPA conference was especially productive.  Later this week, I want to use this blog as a space to share the many great ideas that came from the conference.

We discussed CompPile, CompFAQs, the Research Exchange,  WAC Clearinghouse, and Digital WPA in our Roundtable discussion:

“How can we better document, preserve, protect, and share our learning?”

A reminder that the CommentPress blog space is still open for comments and participation.

http://comppile.org/comment

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Writing Center Journal

I uploaded entries for WCJ through 2005.  I plan to complete indexing for WCJ and for WLN in time for the IWCA summer workshop next week.  I’ll announce that here.

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