The Added Value Features of Online Scholarly Journals    

Online scholarly journals have become an important tool for the generation of knowledge and the distribution and access to research. The purpose of this article is to analyze the features of online scholarly journals and to determine whether they incorporate new Internet-enabled features and functions which help to meet the needs of the members of the scholarly community more effectively. Drawing on Taylor's concept of added value [1], the features of online scholarly journals were classified into the following types: features which enhance ease of use and facilitate access to data, features that provide selected information and thus reduce noise, features which improve quality, features which address specific user needs, and features which contribute to time or cost savings. The analysis revealed that, although some online journals operate in the same way as print journals, there are others which incorporate innovative features which are transforming the journal to make it a more effective tool for scholarly activity.

Luzón, María José. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2007). Articles>Research>Publishing>Online

ADDIE Model

The ADDIE model is the generic process traditionally used by instructional designers and training developers. The five phases—Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation—represent a dynamic, flexible guideline for building effective training and performance support tools.

InstructionalDesign.org. Articles>Education>Instructional Design>Methods

Adding an Informal Touch to Organizational Communication

Some say it's a revolution that will change radio broadcasting and people's listening habits forever. Others say it's a fad that's of limited appeal or use to anyone but geeks and enthusiasts. Whatever anyone says, something that has rocketed out of nowhere and gotten big companies and radio stations alike interested (and after only eight months) must be worth investigating. That "something" is called podcasting.

Hobson, Neville. Communication World Bulletin (2005). Articles>Business Communication>Rhetoric>Workplace

Adding Life to Your Documentation  

Suggests several techniques technical writers can use to enliven their writing and improve their documentation.

Potsus, Whitney Beth. Intercom (2003). Articles>Documentation>Writing>Technical Writing

Adding to Your Tool Box

You've applied and interviewed for a position, but you don't get it because you don't have a particular skill set that the employer needs. You want to learn a new tool, but the software is expensive and you can't afford to spend a lot of money on software at this time. Do either of these scenarios sound familiar to you? If they do, you have some options for learning new tools and can add to your portfolio at the same time.This article looks at the options that you have for learning software -- teaching yourself, taking classes, volunteering, and on-the-job training.

Puffer, Paula. STC Northeast Ohio (2001). Articles>Education>Software>Volunteering

Adding Value as a Professional Technical Communicator    

Value added means generating greater return on investment than the cost of the initial investment.

Redish, Janice C. 'Ginny'. Technical Communication Online (1995). Articles>TC>Assessment

Adding Watermarks to PDFs  

How do I insert a watermark in a PDF document?

Becker, Edward. PDFzone (2005). Articles>Intellectual Property>Copyright>Adobe Acrobat

Addressing Quality in the Real World  

Members of the STC Quality Special Interest Group (SIG) present a realistic look at Quality in today’s hectic business climate. Based on their experiences, you will gain insight into ways to improve documentation quality, establish processes to assist the improvement, and an understanding how outside forces can impact your documentation efforts. They will look at what is meant by quality, how it’s determined and measured; processes, techniques and basic tools that can be used to improve quality; and the impact of international standards on corporate policies and procedures. A case study will highlight some of the barriers, problems, and successes experienced by an organization in implementing a quality system for monitoring its documentation.

Jong, Steven F., Don Lenk, Amy Perry, Ralph E. Robinson and Roberta A. Rupel. STC Proceedings (2000). Articles>TC>Quality

Adjust Your Documentation Plan for .NET  

Developing in the .NET environment requires internal documentation changes. Learn how to adjust your documentation plan so that it encompasses additional elements, such as the needs of mobile users.

Kelly, William T. TechRepublic (2003). Articles>Documentation>Server Side Includes

Administering Teacher Technology Training  

The collection of materials included here are designed to assist those, who for the first time, find themselves administering and developing an ongoing program for training teachers to use technology in the composition classroom.

Carnegie, Teena A.M., Amy C. Kimme Hea, Melinda Turley and David Menchaca. Kairos (2003). Articles>Education>Technology>Writing

Administration of an Electronic Classroom  

The electronic classroom in the Oklahoma State University English Department is now a little over a year old. In the three semesters we've been using it, a number of administrative challenges have surfaced. Some of those challenges were easily overcome, but others have been consistent dilemmas with no clear solution in sight. The day-to-day administrative issues in operating the facility center on issues of access and maintenance and repair. This article will focus on some of the major challenges with the intention of pointing out potential problems that may occur as other writing programs establish similar electronic teaching facilities.

Turner, John R. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Education>Online

Administrative Decisions in Online Graduate Education  

Much of the discussion about online education appropriately focuses on pedagogy and technology. Any planning for online education must consider teaching methods and the technology to support them as well as the appropriateness of these methods and technology for the students and course materials. However, administrative decisions also influence the success of the course or degree program. This paper reviews these issues based on the experience of Texas Tech University in five years of offering an online Master of Arts in Technical Communication. Issues include course concept, costs, administrative authority within the university, and student selection and retention. The paper looks briefly at legal issues and at the concern about impersonality in online education.

Rude, Carolyn D. STC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Education>Graduate

Adobe Acrobat: Publishing Online Documentation  

Documentation departments are often faced with the challenge of quickly distributing high-quality versions of printed documentation via the company Intranet, the World Wide Web, or CD-ROM. Adobe Acrobat is a simple, cost-effective way to publish documentation for a variety of media and requires little time or technical expertise to produce professional-looking results. Technical writers and web developers can easily use Adobe Acrobat to create portable document format (PDF) files from printed documentation. They can then add links and bookmarks, create an index, produce simple interactive forms, and add multimedia components to their documents.

Ogata, Kerry L. and Thomas A. Witherspoon. STC Proceedings (1998). Articles>Documentation>Online>Adobe Acrobat

Adobe's Robert McDaniels Responds (Again) to Nielsen Criticisms of PDF

Many of the 'PDF Usability Crimes' Nielsen cites have nothing to do with Acrobat or PDF but are the result of poor design choices. Most of same arguments about poor navigation, large file sizes, and excessive text blocks can be used to describe poorly designed HTML as well. There are some very valid reasons for using PDF's online as opposed to HTML.

McDaniels, Robert. PlanetPDF (2003). Articles>Usability>Software>Adobe Acrobat

Adolescent Diary Weblogs and the Unseen Audience    

This paper first situates adolescent diary weblogs and their implied audiences and then applies a typology of audiences for personal narrative performance to a sample of diary weblog posts to ascertain if the typology fits the implied audiences present in the weblog text.

Scheidt, Lois Ann. Indiana University (2005). Articles>Writing>Web Design>Blogging

Adopting the Universal Design Approach Instead of the Stigma That Creates Poorly Accessible Enviroments

Universal Design can be thought of as a contemporary philosophical movement that addresses trends in the growth of the aging population and diversification of user abilities around the world. Stakeholders rely on designers, planners and managers as decision makers leading the drive to create non-segregated environments that help users and eliminate the stigma of disability. However, it seems necessary that everyone involved in the design process becomes aware and willing to bring about change. Therefore, the preparation of design students as well as users to understand the scope of Universal Design must be based on strategies that counteract the continuation of the stigma of disability in the mindset of designers and others who can bring about the changes required to create a more inclusive world.

Guimaraes, Marcelo. uiGarden (2008). Articles>Usability>Accessibility>Universal Usability

Advance Organizers in Advisory Reports: Selective Reading, Recall, and Perception    

According to research in educational psychology, advance organizers lead to better learning and recall of information. In this research, the authors explored advance organizers from a business perspective, where larger documents are read under time pressure. Graphic and verbal advance organizers were manipulated into six versions of an advisory report, read by 159 experienced professional readers in a between-subjects design. Their reading time was limited to encourage selective reading. The results show that graphic advance organizers facilitate selective reading, but they do not enhance recall. Verbal advance organizers introducing a problem enhance recall, and graphic advance organizers moderate the effects on both selective reading and recall.

Lagerwerf, Luuk, Louise Cornelis, Johannes de Geus and Phidias Jansen. Written Communication (2008). Articles>Business Communication>Collaboration

Advanced Blogger  

Blogger's primary advantage is its simplicity--if you accept the default settings and host on BlogSpot, you can be up and running within five minutes. Once you have your blog, you'll find it's just as easy to customize it.

Doctorow, Cory, Rael Dornfest, J. Scott Johnson, Shelley Powers, Benjamin Trott and Mena G. Trott. O'Reilly and Associates (1998). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Blogging

"Advanced Composition" And Occasion-Sensitivity

As writing teacher but also freelance writer and editor, I rejoice to see current advanced composition textbooks emphasize sensitivity to occasion. For real-world writing profoundly requires audience-awareness. Out there, students will not be writing yet another typical theme for the teacher, concerned mainly with correctness. Nor will they be writing expressively, concerned mainly with self and authenticity. They must be writing for the occasion, to achieve specific purpose with specific readers, and hence must be concerned with effectiveness above all. But what about actual current classroom practice on this point?

Beck, James P. JAC (1981). Articles>Writing>Rhetoric

Advanced Usability Topics  

An increasing number of STC members now have usability programs as part of their job responsibilities, although they’re not always full-time usability specialists. Many STC members have been performing usability activities for several years.

Rosenbaum, Stephanie L. and Lori K. Anschuetz. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Usability

Advanced XML Validation

XSLT stylesheets are designed to transform XML documents. Coupled with Java extensions, stylesheets can also be a powerful complement to XML Schema when grammar-based validation cannot cover all the constraints required. In this article, Peter Heneback presents the case for validating documents using XSLT with Java extensions and provides practical guidance and code samples.

Heneback, Peter. IBM (2006). Articles>Information Design>Standards>XML

Advancing Advanced Search

Advanced search is the ugly child of interface design--always included, but never loved. Websites have come to depend on their search engines as the volume of content has increased. Yet advanced search functionality has not significantly developed in years. Poor matches and overwhelming search results remain a problem for users. Perhaps the standard search pattern deserves a new look. A progressive disclosure approach can enable users to use precision advanced search techniques to refine their searches and pinpoint the desired results.

Turbek, Stephen. Boxes and Arrows (2008). Articles>Web Design>Search