#21982
Advanced Content Development for the WWW 
Advanced Content Development for the World Wide Web is a course for people who wish to explore concepts of content development and management in greater depth than is usually possible in an introductory course. This course is designed to give you a chance to analyze and experience creating effective content for the web.
Hart-Davidson, William. Michigan State University (2003). Academic>Courses>Content Management
#22190
Border? What Border? Documents are Interfaces 
Documents are interfaces. In situations where documents help us do tasks - whether simple or complex - they look and act like software interfaces. Academics in technical communication are in the business of helping people learn to design, build, analyze, and assess these interfaces. Yet, only occasionally do we admit this responsibility. Judging from our curricula, our research journals, and our textbooks, we still view this responsibility as somehow distinct from what we do to teach 'technical writing,' 'technical editing,' or 'document design.' It isn't.
Hart-Davidson, William. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Education>User Interface>Theory
#14221
Confessions of a Gardener: A Review of Information Ecologies 
This review of Information Ecologies places the text in the mediating tradition that seeks a middle ground between rigid technological determinism and indifferent value neutrality. The biological metaphors for situated technology use make interesting reading,but the stories may not be compelling evidence that users really can shape technological change from the local level.
Hart-Davidson, William. Journal of Computer Documentation (2000). Articles>Information Design>TC
#20944
Modeling Flexible Document Structures with XML Schema: Rhetorical Objects and Rhetorical Metadata 
With the adoption of eXtensible Markup Language (XML) on the rise, researchers in academia and industry are seeking to leverage the descriptive power of metadata to better understand the semantic structure of information (e.g., see Berners-Lee, 1998). But most interaction on the World Wide Web is what Geisler (2001) calls “document-centered,” involving the exchange of discourse a great deal larger and more complex than the basic units of meaning that semantics deals effectively with. As a result, the tools of semantics fall short of providing adequate metadata schemes which capture the most compelling features of effective discourse in any medium: emotional and ethical appeals which work in conjunction with appropriate logical and semantic structures.
Hart-Davidson, William, Victoria Moore and Joshua Porter. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (2003). Design>Information Design>XML>Metadata
#10426
This article contributes two arguments to the disciplinary conversation of technical communication with the aim of exploring leadership opportunities our field has in the field of information technology. The arguments assert that 1.) Writing is the core technology in any IT system, and all IT systems attempt to leverage the core strengths of writing to make these systems more valuable. 2.) Technical communicators have a central role to play in IT systems consonant with our core competencies: we attend to the balance of situated as opposed to generalized strategies and the balance of appeals to identity in writing about the practical use of technology, and we are well prepared to attend to these balances in other important arenas of IT discourse. Together, these two arguments are meant to begin or continue conversations—in workplace and academic contexts alike—that bring the issues of IT development and the future of technical communication closely together.
Hart-Davidson, William. Technical Communication Online (2001). Articles>TC>Writing>Technical Writing
#13203
This article offers suggestions about how Technical Communication might reconsider the task of building theory. Beginning with a discussion of the design of a new course called Technical Communication: Theory and Research for the M.S. in Technical Communication Program at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the author focuses on the intersections between the relatively recent movement known as user-centered design and the foundations of technical communication. Highlighting familiar tensions in the emergence of user-centered design, the essay encourages technical communicators to see theory building as an ongoing effort to refine the practices of technical communication in relation to the predominant mode of technological innovation.
Hart-Davidson, William. STC Proceedings (2001). Articles>Education>Research>Assessment
