In recent years, Danish university education has seen a rise of regulation from central government, intended to significantly reduce student’s degree completion time (The Study Progress Reform, 2013).
One of the many effects of the reform is a reduction of the time available for students to write a Master’s thesis, as well as less flexibility regarding when the Master’s thesis process begins and ends. The reform has created an immediate need for increased support of academic writing development. This presents a
challenge to all faculties, but especially those without writing centers or prior traditions for addressing academic writing development at a central level.
This paper presents a four-step model for initiating development of academic writing skills at such faculties. The model was developed, tested and evaluated in the fall 2015 in collaboration with all seven departments at Aarhus Business and Social Sciences at Aarhus University, Denmark.
As one of the four steps, the model uses ad-on courses developed in collaboration with subject-domain teachers as a vehicle for fostering dialogue on the topic of academic writing development among key players (teachers, directors of studies, librarians, student’s teachers) as well as a method to gain insight into students’ experiences and needs across departments (in this case in the form of 354 written student evaluations). The model has, to a slightly surprising degree, shown potential to motivate departments to continue to focus on developing students’ writing skills on their own after the end of the initiative,
resulting in observable changes.