Boundary Objects as Rhetorical Exigence: Knowledge Mapping and Interdisciplinary Cooperation at the Los Alamos National Laboratory    

This article uses qualitative material gathered at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) to construct a model of the rhetorical activity that occurs at the boundaries between diverse communities of practice working on complex sociotechnical systems. The authors reinterpret the notion of the boundary object current in science studies as a rhetorical construct that can foster cooperation and communication among the diverse members of heterogeneous working groups. The knowledge maps constructed by team members at LANL in their work on technical systems are boundary objects that can replace the demarcation exigence that so often leads to agonistic rhetorical boundary work with an integrative exigence. The integrative exigence realized by the boundary object of the knowledge map can help create a temporary trading zone characterized by rhetorical relations of symmetry and mutual understanding. In such cases, boundary work can become an effort involving integration and understanding rather than contest, controversy, and demarcation.

Wilson, Greg and Carl G. Herndl. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (2007). Articles>Scientific Communication>Collaboration>Rhetoric

Brainstorming

Brainstorming is an individual or group process for generating alternative ideas or solutions for a specific topic. Good brainstorming focuses on the quantity and creativity of ideas: the quality of ideas is much less important than the sheer quantity. After ideas are generated, they are often grouped into categories and prioritized for subsequent research or application.

Usability Body of Knowledge (2007). Articles>Usability>Methods>Collaboration

Breaking Down the Silos: Usability Practitioners Meet Marketing Researchers

I often find that client companies keep two disciplines locked up in separate silos—usability research within IT and marketing research within the Marketing Services department. This can have a serious impact on the sharing of information relating to customer experience.

Kozatch, David. UXmatters (2008). Articles>Usability>Marketing>Collaboration

Breaking the Ice With SIN SIG

SIN stands for Shy, Inactive, or New. I admit that it wasn't my original idea--I appropriated the name and concept from another organization.

Miller, Elisa K. Tieline (2006). Articles>Collaboration>Management

Bringing Literature Teachers and Writing Teachers Closer Together

Many traditional college English departments now find themselves in an unpalatable predicament. Pressure from the marketplace and from other college disciplines has made clear that students need more than basic composition skills. They need skills to communicate effectively in business, research, and industrial environments. While enrollments in traditional literature courses have continued to decline, English departments are asked to staff and teach an increasing number of courses in various types of technical writing. These two trends have produced a less than harmonious climate within many English departments. Technical writing courses are often viewed by literature teachers as alien intruders unrelated both to the established goals of an English department and to the attempt to encourage and preserve the study of humanities and aesthetics. Many teachers see technical writing as intellectually arid, controlled only by format and mechanical approaches to clarity. Many more consider it antiliterature, unsympathetic to the methods used to teach literary analysis and appreciation.

Kroitor, Harry P. and Elizabeth Tebeaux. ADE Bulletin (1984). Articles>Education>Collaboration

Bubba Awards: Recognition on a Shoestring  

This paper is an explanation of a low-cost and high-fun method used by the Lone Star Chapter to recognize officers and committee managers for their work during the past year.

Skinner, Judith N. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Collaboration>Community Building>STC

Building a Bridge to Europe

Early in April 2001, delegates from the European societies for technical communication met for the first time in Brussels, following a joint invitation by tekom - the German society -- and ISTC - the UK institute. Among the represented societies were CRT (France), FTI (Sweden), ISTC (United Kingdom), STD (Finland), STIC (Netherlands), TECOM (Switzerland) and tekom (Germany and Austria). The most important outcome was the formulation of a joint declaration of intent to found a European-wide 'umbrella' organisation.

Wirtz, Ursula. TC-FORUM (2001). Articles>Collaboration>Regional>Europe

Building and Maintaining Student Chapters  

Developing a strong student STC chapter is a challenging and rewarding experience. Those of us who are involved in this process can certainly benefit from sharing our ideas in a directed workshop atmosphere. Participants will exchange ideas and formulate working strategies for the development, maintenance, and growth of a student chapter.

Fink, Bonnie L. and William O. Coggin. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Collaboration>Education>STC

Building Group Spirit  

Technical communication courses and training programs often benefit from peer review or group critique. To encourage learning, these activities require a constructive climate: Students must listen to one another, be receptive to feedback, and refrain from reproaches, interpretations, and judgments. Such a positive group spirit is not a given, especially if the school or corporate environment encourages competition more than collaboration. Teachers must foster an appropriate environment if they want their collaborative learning activities to be successful.

Doumont, Jean-luc. Intercom (2003). Articles>Education>Instructional Design>Collaboration

Building Relationships Between University Programs and Local STC Chapters  

Collaboration between academic programs and STC chapters builds a sense of community and relevance for all participants. Neither academic programs or professional chapters by themselves provide sufficient educational or professional development opportunities. Working together helps inform faculty and students about workplace trends, helps introduce students to their future professional opportunities, and provides chapter members and their companies and organizations with access to up-to-date research and to students before they go on the job market.

Cunningham, Donald H. STC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Collaboration>Industry and Academy>STC

Building Web-Based Scholarly Communication Forums

Scholarly communication is the root of scientific progress. Research on how to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the scholarly communication system is being carried out worldwide, particularly with respect to electronic journals which can and should be constructed as communication forums. Refereeing new contributions for these forums is a major means for their quality control and for the acceptance of the new media. We have implemented a web-based electronic refereeing system for an electronic journal (RIS - Review of Information Science) whose many value-added features are described in detail. Faster communication and enhanced interactivity between referees, editors and authors will be achieved by the use of this Web based electronic refereeing system. In order to ease access and browsing, articles already published will be integrated and managed in a database-based open hypertext system, in this case in KHS (Konstanz hypertext system). Finally, we describe the advantage of a real time communication system for authors, referees, editors and the domain-specific public. Further research will focus at improving the communicative features of this preliminary web-based communication forum and at evaluating it from a user point of view.

Kuhlen, Rainer and Zhongdong Zhang. ISRDP in Digital Libraries (1997). Articles>Collaboration>Community Building>Online

Business Communication: Managing Information and Relationships

In many ways, the history of human civilization chronicles the increasing centrality of communication. Communication establishes relationships and makes human organization and cooperation possible. Whether you recognize it or not, you have no choice but to communicate. If you try to avoid communicating by not replying to messages, you are nevertheless sending a message, but it may not be the one you want or intend. When you don’t say yes, you may be saying no by default—and vice versa. The only choice you can make about communication is whether you are going to attempt to communicate effectively.

Bowman, Joel P. Western Michigan University (2004). Articles>Business Communication>Collaboration

Business Lessons, Italian Style  

Martin shares the intercultural tips and tricks he has learned during his thirteen years of working in Italy, and discusses how they contrast with his business experiences in America.

Martin, Brian. Intercom (2006). Articles>Collaboration>Regional>Italy

Buxom Girls and Boys in Baseball Hats: Adolescent Avatars in Graphical Chat Spaces  

This paper explores the types of avatars adolescents use in graphical chat spaces and how gender is represented in these avatars. Content analysis found that adolescents predominately utilize publicly available avatars depicting drawn images of Caucasian human forms. Specifically it was found that females adopt postures that indicate subordination to others, while males display psychological withdrawal from the actions around them. The influence of gaming and fantasy is seen in male avatar selection.

Scheidt, Lois Ann. Indiana University (2004). Articles>User Interface>Collaboration>Gender

Can Academic Partnerships in Technical Communication Work?: Lessons from Minnesota  

Interuniversity partnerships are widely encouraged as a way for public universities to pool increasingly scarce resources, to minimize duplication of academic programs, and to cooperate rather than compete. Joint programs in technical communication have not been widely studied, but they seem especially logical for several reasons.

Black, Suzanne. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Education>Management>Collaboration

Can Collaboration Help Redefine Usability?    

A collaborative knowledge space would provide great value to the usability community. In particular it would: Help define the field and give it a presence that provides professionals and the public with a single source for theoretical, practical and speculative information about usability; encourage the integration of research and practice; invite colleagues in related fields to participate and share their perspectives; serve as a platform to advance our understanding of collaboration and knowledge management tools. Most of the tools needed to implement a collaborative knowledge space are already available and there are a number of related activities already underway that could feed into this project. It would be a great deal of work but I believe it would also yield a great deal of benefit.

Kreitzberg, Charles B. Journal of Usability Studies (2006). Articles>Usability>Collaboration

The Challenges of Remote Collaboration

Open source development works because of remote collaboration; developers working together despite physical distance. With mergers, acquisitions, and partnerships, in-house developers are struggling with the same issues open source developers have addressed. Mark Murphy explains some of the challenges of remote collaboration.

Murphy, Mark. O'Reilly and Associates (2003). Articles>Collaboration>Online

Changing the Center of Gravity: Collaborative Writing Program Administration in Large Universities    

Technical communication practices have been changed dramatically by the increasingly ubiquitous nature of digital technologies. Yet, while those who work in the profession have been living through this dramatic change, our academic discipline has been moving at a slower pace, at times appearing quite unsure about how to proceed. This article focuses on the following three areas of opportunity for change in our discipline in relation to digital technologies: access and expectations, scholarship and community building, and accountability and partnering.

Johnson-Sheehan, Richard D. and Charles Paine. Technical Communication Quarterly (2004). Articles>Education>Writing>Collaboration

Chapter Development Stem Overview  

The Chapter Development Stem offers sessions for all conference participants, not just the STC leadership. We have broadened the scope of the stem to create room for some new and innovative topics that compliment our traditional mix of chapter-related sessions. So take a look at what we have to offer and think about how you can include several Chapter Development sessions in your conference plans.

Hoyt, Thomas B. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Collaboration>Community Building

Chapter Seminars  

Chapter seminars help members by providing current technical communication information, significant additional chapter funding, recruitment of new members, and a proving ground for new leaders. Seminars need a definite organization and leaders need clearly defined responsibilities and authorities. Seminars must provide useful relevant information, either focused or diverse, delivered effectively by skilled speakers. Seminars are not expanded monthly meetings; they must be quiet properly equipped pleasant facilities. Seminar finances must be balanced to provide the desired surplus, or the sting of lost funds will linger long after the sweet success of a stimulating program is forgotten.

Malcolm, Andrew. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Collaboration>Community Building>STC

Chinese Home Site Visits: Tips and Hints

You may only get one opportunity in a home visit and good planning and preparation is important. Here are some tips and hints from recent home site visits in both China and Taiwan.

Wong, Josephine. Usability Professionals Association (2007). Articles>Collaboration>Regional>China

Client-Vendor Communications: What to Talk About to Get the Job Done  

This progression presents a structured approach to client-vendor communications that can enhance quality; ease frazzled nerves; and result in win-win situations for clients, vendors, end users, and their organizations. Participants will discuss how clear, structured communications can strengthen their roles as clients and vendors of publication products and services. Participants will review the checklist that this vendor developed for use from initial contact to contract to project completion. Discussion will address how participants can develop their own customized checklists.

Shenouda, Judith E. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Business Communication>Collaboration

Cliffnotes To Keep You From Cliffhanging  

Understanding organizational behavior and using creative problem solving are as much a part of being a technical communicator as is expertly applying the English language. Recognizing this, the authors-two senior technical communicators—have identified several typical, but not predictable, organizational problems that involve technical communicators. Solutions will be provided when the paper is presented at the conference.

Modrey, Laurie and Emily A, Sopensky. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Collaboration>Planning

Collaboration Sessions: How to Lead Multidisciplinary Teams, Generate Buy-In, and Create Unified Design Views in Compressed Timeframes

I have participated in, led, and suffered major website redesign efforts. Whether at process-heavy consultancies, notable product companies, or design studios, all teams experience the same points of pain: late feedback, lack of common design vision, and complaints that individuals or teams didn’t have enough input.

Verhage, Sasha. Boxes and Arrows (2005). Articles>Collaboration>Usability>User Centered Design

Collaboration Via Desktop Videoconferencing: Evaluating Mentoring Environments  

Based on the need for mentoring, we developed a multimedia configuration that fostered one-on-one connections. In this study, we examine these connections in terms of what strategies mentors use when mentoring and how mentors respond to students. The two case studies indicate that neither of the subjects took full advantage of the multimedia system or the environments in which it functioned: neither mentor chose to manage the computer screen so that they could adequately see their student or chose to monitor the environments in a manner beneficial to their students. However, mentors tended to differentiate between weak and strong writers in this environment.

Duin, Ann Hill, Linda A. Jorn and Lisa Mason. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Multimedia>Mentoring>Collaboration