Managing Digital Technologies in Writing Programs: Writing Program Technologists & Invisible Service

Abstract

Abstract As institutions that include Writing Studies (Rhetoric and Composition, Business, Technical and Professional Writing) in their curriculum at various levels increasingly move to include more digital technology infrastructural support for classes, faculty who have scholarly expertise in various technologies are often being called upon, through either necessity to complete their own agendas or because of additional departmental and college needs, to do service work beyond required committee work. Oftentimes, this work is invisible. This article reports the results on interviews collected from 23 faculty members regarding types of technologically-related service being done. It discusses the changing nature of the types of service done by faculty we term Writing Program Technologists (WPTs). It also discusses the connections between shifts in technology and infrastructure at various institutions and the varying ways that compensation of the WPT occurs depending upon personal as well as institutional needs, desires, and constraints. Making visible this often invisible labor can provide information for faculty who are trying to develop arguments for more equitable compensation for this work that in terms of time expended and intellectual labor involved goes beyond other forms of service expectations.