What Do OWLs Do? And How?

To varying degrees, an OWL may

• help distribute handouts and other information for writers
• provide new ways of communicating and collaborating
• offer a venue for student publication
• offer promising starting points for research
• offer pointers to writing resources on the Internet
• increase a writing center's visibility amongst its constituents

(For more on the possible benefits of an OWL, check out the index of arguments for OWLs.)

Such services are typically offered via

• e-mail services (for asynchronous, "epistolary," interaction)
• ftp servers (for sending & retreiving information)
• gopher servers (for sending information & conducting research)
• web sites (for sending information & conducting research)
• MOO's (for synchronous, i.e. real-time, interaction)

How these servers operate is, of course, a mystery for many of us. If you're curious, though, perhaps you'd like to see more about MOOs and Web sites as well as some technical details from a sampling of OWLs.