Comma chameleons: lessons learned from studying engagement with an online academic writing toolkit

Abstract

The Academic Writing Toolkit is an online resource that was developed to provide students with accessible and timely guidance on key aspects of academic writing in Hibernia College's blended-learning ITE programmes. Available to students and faculty via the College's Moodle VLE and designed for asynchronous delivery, the Toolkit provides guidance on 'technical' writing skills such as referencing, grammar, formatting and style as well as on specialised areas as reflective writing, assessment writing and dissertation writing. The design was informed by a 'bite-size' ethos to encourage continuous, formative and self-motivated use over time. However, patterns of student engagement with the first iteration suggested that, following an initial peak of activity, there was little evidence of students returning to the Toolkit for help on key topics at crucial points in their programmes. This paper will discuss how the Toolkit's content and positioning evolved in response to, firstly, findings from the initial engagement study and, secondly, increased awareness of the Toolkit's potential among College faculty. Findings from an inferential analysis of learning analytics data collected from activity logs for pre- and post-update iterations will be discussed. The results of the analysis, combined with survey feedback on students' use experience, will inform an evaluation of the impact, if any, of specific design and dissemination enhancements on Toolkit engagement. It is hoped that these findings will provide insights into ways in which instructional design and faculty support considerations can help promote quality engagement with resources of this type, particularly for distance learners.