The GMIT Academic Writing Centre has moved fully online for all campuses to ensure students can still get assistance with their writing while remote learning.
The Centre was first trialled in 2014 as a pilot project initiated by Barry McMillan and the late Deirdre McMahon, lecturers within the then College of Tourism and Arts (now Galway International Hotel School).
Such was its success, it quickly became a dedicated Centre within central services, supported by The Office of Academic Affairs and Registrar, and facilitated by the lecturers’ Heads of School and Department and by the Institute Librarian.
Located, initially, in the library on the Dublin Road campus, it later branched out to the Letterfrack and Castlebar campuses and in early 2020 had already begun to work with a mix of online and onsite services.
This put the Writing Centre in an ideal position to migrate to fully online services when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the country from March.
Barry McMillan, Chair of the GMIT Academic Writing Centre, says: “A founding value of the Centre was the maximization of student opportunity—and opportunity depends on accessibility.
“From the outset, the Centre has offered students the guidance and direction to enable them to achieve their highest quality work and to attain their highest standards.”
“The shift to being fully online in current circumstances is a move in support of both of those objectives. It is a clear expression of GMIT’s student-centredness.”
Academic writing is a fundamental skillset for third-level students. The Centre helps them learn writing skills which help them gain higher marks and enhances their employment prospects.
The sessions focus on the individual student’s particular requirement, which may range across such aspects as structure, grammar and punctuation, the formulation of argument, academic referencing, citation and other key writing skills.
The tuition available takes the form of pre-bookable, thirty-minute, one-to-one sessions, based on individual student requirement.
Access to the Centre’s webpage and booking system is via a link located on the library homepage. https://library.gmit.ie/
