Volume 46 of Assessing Writing brings our volumes for 2020 to a close. As we look back on the past months, we acknowledge that this has been a particularly challenging year for all of us. Earlier in the year we had made the assertion (Vol. 44) that we are living in interesting times. So many of us early had to face unprecedented changes and disruptions due to COVID-19, including the closures of tertiary institutions and the necessity to work with students at a distance. Furthermore, travel bans and self-isolation were put in place, further impacting our lives. As the year draws to a close, and we write this final editorial, little has changed. The unprecedented circumstances heralded by COVID-19 continue to take their toll. Let us all hope that, as a new year beckons, it will bring a new sense of hope and resolution to some of the difficulties.
Despite the challenges of the last few months, it gives us great pleasure to be able to introduce, as our final volume for 2020, a Special Issue - Assessing Writing for Workplace Purposes – co-edited by guest editors Ute Knoch (University of Melbourne, Australia), Susy Macqueen (Australian National University), and Cathie Elder (University of Melbourne). This volume is welcome in several respects.
Firstly, Martin has strong past associations with Ute and Cathie, since both of them worked at one stage in the same department as the one where he is currently located at the University of Auckland, New Zealand – Applied Linguistics and Language Studies, now part of a larger School of Cultures, Languages and Linguistics. More particularly, at a time when all three were associated with the same department, Martin valued and appreciated these scholars’ input and expertise, provided in different ways as he undertook an early study into dictionary use when students of an additional language completed writing tests in timed conditions. For these reasons, Martin is very pleased to have the opportunity to welcome readers to this Special Issue.
Most particularly, both of us as editors-in-chief of Assessing Writing recognise that the focus of the current Special Issue is timely and important. Writing is a necessary skill for a range of workplace and occupational contexts, and Languages for Specific Purposes (LSP) tests provide one means of measuring, and attesting to, the writing skills of those who may be seeking to work in, or currently work in, a variety of contexts. Furthermore, our review of the previous 25 years of scholarship as published in Assessing Writing has revealed very limited attention to the assessment of writing in and for workplace contexts. In a thorough and thought-provoking Special Issue Editorial, the guest editors provide an overview of the writing assessment issues of which we need to be mindful in and for workplace and occupational contexts, alongside useful synopses of the seven papers that make up the issue.
In the second part of this volume, we include papers in our Tools and Tech forum, edited by Laura Aull. The forum provides space for critical reviews of assessment tools and technologies that are relevant for a diverse range of learners, stakeholders, institutions, and fields. Situating her own detailed editorial in the challenges and adaptations required during COVID-19, Aull notes that the two papers she includes address what she describes as one of the most acute aspects of writing assessment from the students’ perspective - formative feedback, in particular as it may be offered online.
As we conclude this brief introduction to this Special Issue, our thoughts continue to be with all those who, in one way or another, are impacted by the ongoing events associated with the pandemic. We thank once again our Editorial Board members and our many reviewers, alongside the team of editorial assistants who manage the journal’s internal processes. We would not be able to achieve all that we do achieve with the journal without your on-going support. We especially appreciate that, in several cases, this support has meant going ‘above and beyond’ due to the current circumstances. We are thinking, too, of our publisher at Elsevier, Rachel Conway, who is currently enjoying a period of maternity leave. We trust that all goes well. Our grateful thanks to all who help make Assessing Writing a journal of increasing global influence.