The Purdue Online Writing Lab: Engaging with Local and Global Communities of Writers

In 1995, then writing center director Muriel Harris and her staff developed and launched the precursor to the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL). Originally, this was an in-house writing resource for Purdue University faculty and staff. Since then, however, the Purdue OWL has become a prime location for community engagement both locally and globally, with over 200,000,000 hits annually. This poster at the Purdue University Academic Community Engagement Poster Presentations demonstrates the impact of the Purdue OWL both locally and globally. It will also highlight how that engagement has changed overtime, through the growth the Purdue OWL’s static resources, to the creation of PowerPoint-based workshops, to the creation of audio pod-casts, and most recently, the deployment of vidcast lectures. Through the presentation of data from the Purdue Writing Lab Annual report, and a recent Purdue OWL English as a Foreign Language (EFL) usage survey, the poster will highlight just how the Purdue OWL has enabled the university to engage with a global community of writers, writing teachers, and writing students. The presenters will then share their experiences working on the Purdue OWL and how this has shaped their professional development and their own scholarshi