Archive 2.0: What Composition Students and Academic Libraries Can Gain from Digital-Collaborative Pedagogies

Research across disciplines in recent years has demonstrated a number of gains associated with community engagement and service-learning pedagogies. More recently, these pedagogies are filtering into digital contexts as instructors become aware of the opportunities for learning made available by online writing venues. This case study describes an assignment model that engages composition students in two specific communities: the Ohio University libraries' special collections (archives) and the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Student-participants in this study performed original research within special collections on regional topics in order to edit and create corresponding Wikipedia articles. The study ultimately finds that this assignment can lead to an increase in students' rhetorical knowledge and motivation levels while also promoting public awareness of library resources and contributing to public knowledge via Wikipedia.