Since UK universities began to address the government agenda for widening participation in the 1990s there has been a rapid growth in students from diverse backgrounds across the HE sector. Such increased diversity has also brought a wide variety in students' abilities and needs for support in traditional academic writing. There is now a vital requirement for UK universities to provide differentiated writing support for students and staff on an extensive scale. The recent expansion of computer and Internet technologies including Web 2.0 provides universities with opportunities to better address these challenges. Previous research and US on-line writing centres (OWLs) provide examples which demonstrate the effectiveness of on-line support for academic writing in higher education. UK universities are now investing time and resources into developing innovative on-line facilities and projects to support students and staff in this context. The earlier research and current UK projects have created an opportunity to collate and summarise valuable information in relation to on-line support for academic writing which may be used to inform good practice and future research in this field across the UK HE sector.
