Planning and Leading a Successful Review Meeting  

Experienced and novice technical communicators can plan and lead successful review meetings by following this 4-step process: l—Plan ahead. 2—Use an agenda as a road map. 3—Wrap up. 4—Follow up. Although a faceto- face meeting is often the easiest way to get formal feedback on an information product, there are situations in which you should not hold a meeting. If a meeting is appropriate, however, there are specific things you can do to prevent or handle typical problems. Leading a successful meeting involves making a series of conscious choices to make better use of everyone’s time.

Hansen, Lauren Y. STC Proceedings (1996). Articles>Editing>Collaboration

Plural Authorship and the Thesis: What Graduate Students Tell Us About Collaborative Writing  

Most graduate students at the Air Force Institute of Technology's School of Logistics and Acquisition Management write their theses as a team project. However, the Institute has gathered no systematic information about how students manage their collaborative thesis-writing processes. This research gathers descriptive quantitative and qualitative data from 1992 graduates concerning how they composed the teem-authored thesis. In addition, this research extends the collective vocabulary concerning collaborative writing, particularly when applied in academic settings.

Rice, Rodney P. and John T. Huguley, Jr. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Education>Writing>Collaboration

The Politics of User Experience

Governments hire thousands of employees and spend millions of dollars on contractors to design, build, and operate websites. Chances are good that you will have some exposure to government work, and therefore, some exposure to the politics of user experience.

Fleckenstein, Steve. Boxes and Arrows (2002). Design>Web Design>Collaboration>Government

A Polythematic Real-Time Synergistic Hybrid Data Telecommunication System for Scientific Research with Bidirectional Fuzzy Feedback Peer Review by Expert Referees    

Heterogeneous research environments, interests and locations do not necessarily coincide, thus hitherto the primary method of communication amongst researchers has been email. In this article a novel unified polythematic, real-time, synergistic, data telecommunication system is proposed with peer-reviewed, bidirectional fuzzy feedback for research scientists, to facilitate scientific information exchange via the extensible markup language (XML) on multiple scientific topics, e.g. in mathematics, physics, biology and chemistry.

Petratos, Panagiotis. Data Science Journal (2003). Articles>Knowledge Management>Scientific Communication>Collaboration

A Practical Approach to Web Site Design  

Successful Web site design is accomplished by a team of professionals who: Define the business requirements for the site; Analyze the audiences; Collect content; Organize the site information; Develop a concept; Define the navigation system; Define the labeling system; Create blueprints and wire frames; Test the models; Create content maps. The matching of business needs to user needs should be your ultimate definition of a successful site.

Klepfer, Lori J. STC Proceedings (2003). Design>Web Design>Planning>Collaboration

Practical Tips for Working with Global Teams  

Save team members time and conduct meetings and other steps in the project process effectively by integrating these tips for working with team members scattered in various locations.

Nesbitt, Pamela and Elizabeth Bagley-Woodward. Intercom (2006). Articles>Project Management>Collaboration>International

Preparing Students to Work with Technical Staff  

Technical communication programs should help students prepare to work with technical staff as well as develop writing, analysis, and communication skills. This presentation identifies assignments faculty can use to help students prepare to work effectively with technical staff: learning about what the writing technical staff do; learning about working in technical settings; interviewing faculty and staff; writing about science and technology for different audiences; editing a research article manuscript; learning about data networking; shadowing a technical professional; publishing a newsletter incorporating graduates’ observations and suggestions; having technical staff as well as technical communicators as guest speakers; and participating in STC.

Samson, Donald C. Jr. STC Proceedings (2001). Articles>Education>TC>Collaboration

Preparing Your Staff for Content Management  

Few changes are as potentially uncomfortable for technical communicators than implementing a content management system. Freeman explains why, and offers advice to managers on how to address writers' concerns.

Freeman, Bret. Intercom (2005). Articles>Content Management>Collaboration

Procedures Writing Training in a Corporate Environment  

In a corporate procedures writing program staff members of a financial company wrote procedures documenting their everyday work. Because these staff members were not trained in technical writing, a twostage training process was developed. The writing would be done by the in-house staff; in this case, financial analysts and accountants, referred to as SME writers. These staff members were required to document their everyday functions but had no professional training in writing; training, therefore, was a prerequisite to ensuring a successful writing program.

Perelli, Elizabeth T. STC Proceedings (1993). Presentations>Documentation>Collaboration

Process of Knowledge Building in Educational Departments

In an educational department members are both drowning in information and craving knowledge. The department's information base is either scattered or unclassified. The business world understood this scenario and has brought a change to their knowledge infrastructure by including knowledge management (KM) systems. Educational departments, too, need to rethink their knowledge organization strategies. Therefore, a conversion from information to knowledge becomes imperative.

Rao, Abhijit. ASIST (2002). Articles>Knowledge Management>Collaboration

Professional Organizations in Collaboration

Links to a number of organizations that study groupware and collaboration.

ACM SIGGROUP. Resources>Collaboration

Project Characteristics and Group Communication: An Investigation      

This research study examined the effects of technological complexity on project group communication. The same project teams performed three separate projects involving the development of an HTML website, the development of a local-area network (LAN), and the development of blueprints for a wide-area network (WAN). Each of the projects exposed groups to a different level of complexity. The results of the study indicated differences in group information sharing, group communication focus, and group gatekeeping activities. In each of these cases, the groups had greater communication with the less complex project task, the HTML project. The study did not find significant differences in group communication concerned with member withdrawal or group conflict.

Roberts, Tom L., Paul H. Cheney and Paul D. Sweeney. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication (2002). Articles>Collaboration

Project in Partnership Across Borders - Bridging the Communication Gap

The whole process and structure of globalisation is still very fragile indeed. As international business and international relations converge, businessmen will need to learn much more about diplomacy and diplomats will need to become more knowledgeable about business

Harris, Anke. TC-FORUM (2001). Articles>Collaboration>International

Project Management and the Technical Communicator

Describes how project management can help technical communication professionals better plan and manage their technical documentation projects.

McCormick, Greg. SlideShare (2007). Presentations>Project Management>Documentation>Collaboration

A Project Manager's Survival Guide to Going Agile  

This paper focuses on re-defining the job of project manager to better fit the self-managed team environment, one of the core agile principles. Special emphasis is placed on the shift to servant leadership, with its focus on facilitation and collaboration. Mapping of PMBOK knowledge areas to agile practices is discussed at length. After reading this paper, project managers should have a better understanding of what changes they need to make professionally, and how to make these changes in order to survive the transition to an agile software development approach.

Sliger, Michele. Rally Software Development (2005). Careers>Project Management>Agile>Collaboration

The Public Library as a Meeting-Place in a Multicultural and Digital Context: The Necessity of Low-Intensive Meeting-Places  

The purpose of the paper is to develop an improved conceptual framework for researching and discussing the public library's role as a meeting-place in a multicultural and digital society.

Audunson, Ragnar. Journal of Documentation (2005). Articles>Collaboration>User Experience

Publications on On-Line Collaboration and Educational Technology

On-line collaboration enriches the educational experience, especially if instructors use software environments that support group-generated projects, products, case studies, and other kinds of academic deliverables. Such activities are not supported well by the standard 'threaded topic' discussion formats of e-mail and message-based conferencing systems.

Klemm, William. Texas A and M University (1998). Articles>Education>Collaboration>Online

Putting People Together to Create New Products

When companies plan out a new product (or service, or business process) they often think of the effort as the coordination of two teams solving different problems. Engineering addresses the question 'what can you make?' Marketing addresses the question 'what can you sell?'

Korman, Jonathan. Cooper Interaction Design (2001). Design>Collaboration>Engineering

Rabbit Trails, Ephemera, and Other Stories: Feminist Methodology and Collaborative Research

As a basis for our exploration, we have analyzed our own experiences to date in four ongoing collaborative research groups. In using self-reflective critique as our method of analysis, we are keenly aware that the evolving nature of these collaborative groups has influenced the construction of our arguments here. And, conversely, we realize that our critique may in turn influence the evolution of these groups. Moreover, we recognize as a formative constraint our interest in preserving and continuing to work with colleagues in these groups. Plainly stated, we continually asked ourselves, 'Will the colleagues in our collaborative groups ever speak to us again after reading this article?' Because of this concern, we shared drafts with all of these colleagues, asked for their comments, and provided an opportunity for them to offer alternative interpretations.

Burnett, Rebecca E. and Helen Rothschild Ewald. JAC (1994). Articles>Rhetoric>Collaboration

Reaching Out—How an STC Chapter Can Support Education in its Community and Professional Development for its Membership  

A chapter-level education committee can provide a valuable resource both to STC chapter members and to local educational institutions. In this paper, which accompanies a progression on the same subject, the Orlando Chapter’s Education Committee describes six initiatives it has pursued to advance education and professional development within its sphere of influence: (1) developing procedures and avenues of communication to govern its own operations, (2) instituting and administering a scholarship program, (3) conducting a high school writing competition, (4) providing instructional support for secondary education in the community, (5) instituting mentoring programs, and (6) supporting and enhancing professional development.

Voss, Daniel W. and Gail Lippincott. STC Proceedings (2000). Presentations>Collaboration>Mentoring

The 'Real World' Experience: Academe and Industry Collaboration  

Three technical communicators -- an entrepreneur, a university professor, and a newly hired employee and recent graduate -- discuss the collaborative environment they’ve created among industry practitioners and academia.

Blakeslee, Ann M., John Moreau and Catherine M. Titta. STC Proceedings (2001). Presentations>Collaboration>Academic

Redefining Curriculum and Research Initiatives: A New Model of University Industry Partnership  

Our profession is changing daily, and this growth has an impact on industry, and our universities, who must address the academic requirements this change brings with it. We must work as a team 10 share plans, develop cooperative solutions, and direct our energy and resources to a common goal: developing quality programs that will bring us beyond the leading edge of our technical profession.

Hans, David F., Roger A. Grice, Edward J. See and Robert Krull. STC Proceedings (1996). Articles>Collaboration>Academic

Reduce Redundancy: Decrease Duplicated Design Decisions

User interface complexity increases when a single feature or hypertext link is presented in multiple ways. Users rarely understand duplicates as such, and often waste time repeating efforts or visiting the same page twice by mistake.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2002). Design>User Interface>Collaboration

Remember Your First Meeting?

I walked into my first meeting in Northeast Ohio and didnï¿t know anyone. I no sooner stuck my name badge to my shirt and someone was there to introduce themselves to me. From there, the person took me around the room and introduced me to others. I left that night feeling as though I had met 20 new professionals in my field. I couldnï¿t wait to go to the next meeting. This fall, many of you and your chapter leaders will be running formal membership drives. You will be looking for new members and trying to identify ways to retain your current membership. You donï¿t have to be the Membership Drive Chairperson or on the committee to help. Here are a few suggestions.

Bates, Michael P. STC Northeast Ohio (2002). Articles>TC>Collaboration

Resources and Strategies for Successful International Communication  

Offers tips to technical communicators on how to communicate effectively with people from other cultures.

St. Amant, Kirk R. Intercom (2000). Articles>Collaboration>International