Idea Watch: A New Approach for your Professional Development  

Our field is young, yet great books and great ideas by technical communication gurus abound. How many of us, though, are steeped in these works? How many of us can intelligently discuss the great ideas and latest research? If new STC members ask us which authors constitute the foundation of our field, can we tell them? If so, have we read them cover to cover? Can we discuss ideas more? This paper presents the professional development programs that two STC members began in the fall of 1999. After realizing that their programs might be of interest to others, they formed a SIG called Idea Watch. In addition, they have informally polled numerous gurus and drawn up a list of “essential books.” This list is presented at the conclusion of this paper.

Hansen, Heidi and Jennifer Square. STC Proceedings (2002). Careers>Education>Professionalism

IDII: A Life Changing Experience

Almost two years ago, twenty students from all over the world came to Ivrea, a city that once was the epicenter of Olivetti and of the Italian Hi-tech. They came to study interaction design.

Kikin-Gil, Erez and Ruth Kikin-Gil. uiGarden (2005). Articles>Education>User Centered Design>Italy

If You Build It, Will They Come? The Importance of Promoting Technical/Professional Writing Programs  

Although the field of technical/professional writing continues to grow apace with the demand for its graduates, a large number of people, especially students, have never heard of it, or, if they've heard of it, have no idea what it is. Consequently, our program has begun an aggressive promotional campaign.

Patterson, Celia. CPTSC Proceedings (2000). Academic>Education>WPA>Marketing

The Impact of Current Trends on TCOM Curricula  

Rapidly changing processes in internationalization, in emerging technologies, and in instructional delivery systems require program directors and faculty to constantly evaluate and re-evaluate the extent to which they consider these changes in curricula development. This evaluation should not necessarily result in curricula molded in the image of industry, for many changes in technological processes are ephemeral.

Rainey, Kenneth T. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Presentations>Education>TC

The Impact of Student Learning Outcomes Assessment on Technical and Professional Communication Programs    

Because of accreditation, budget, and accountability pressures at the institutional and program levels, technical and professional communication faculty are more than ever involved in assessment-based activities. Using assessment to identify a program's strengths and weaknesses allows faculty to work toward continuous improvement based on their articulation of learning and behavioral goals and outcomes for their graduates. This article describes the processes of program assessment based on pedagogical goals, pointing out options and opportunities that will lead to a meaningful and manageable experience for technical communication faculty, and concludes with a view of how the larger academic body of technical communication programs can benefit from such work. As ATTW members take a careful look at the state of the profession from the academic perspective, we can use assessment to further direct our programs to meet professional expectations and, far more importantly, to help us meet the needs of the well-educated technical communicator.

Allen, Jo. Technical Communication Quarterly (2004). Articles>Education>Assessment>Technical Writing

The Impact of Web-Based Learning Supplements on Engineering Students in India: A Study with Audio-visual Aids    

The incorporation of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) in the teaching-learning process of technical education programs in Indian universities is a relatively recent and gradual phenomenon. Most technical education colleges in the country still follow the traditional classroom and blackboard oriented teaching approach. This study, conducted on a group of engineering students at Agra, India, evaluated the impact of using web-based audio-visual study aids alongside (and as a supplement to) the traditional classroom teaching methodology and observed a substantial improvement in the students' academic performance.

Sinha, Madhulika. International Journal for Technical Communication (2007). Articles>Education>Engineering>Online

Implementing the Online Classroom: Curriculum Development, Tutoring, and Teaching Initiatives  

Three facets of implementing the online classroom at University of Maryland University College have yielded promising results. The first facet, Curriculum Development, involved remaking a popular writing course. Humanities 390, Writing for Managers, was redesigned for online delivery with a new Course Guide, a revised syllabus, and new assignments, activities, and presentation strategies. The second facet, Tutoring, was realized in a project to match student users with online tutors for basic writing instruction. The third facet, Teaching, has provided training and support for online faculty -- including computer conferencing on Writing and faculty workshops for 'going online.'

Burke, Kathleen M. and Susan Nickens. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Education>Online

The Importance of Staff Induction

Staff induction activities are designed to provide new-starters with the information they need, as well as getting them up to speed on how the organisation works. Induction processes are vital to ensuring that new staff are productive as quickly as possible, and should play a key role in knowledge management initiatives.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2004). Articles>Education>Tutorials

Improved Student Writing in Business Communication Classes: Strategies For Teaching And Evaluation    

Students in business communication classes are expected to write various types of documents. Research has illustrated that undergraduate student writing skills have not improved even though most states have begun writing proficiency tests at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. By the time students enroll in college, students are expected to be proficient writers. In some cases, this is true. In far too many cases, students continue to need writing development. In business communication classes, these weaknesses cannot be ignored. This article's purpose is to give guidance to instructors to motivate their students to produce better written products. The difficulty is how to do this most effectively. The authors present some ideas on how to improve student writing through some creative teaching and evaluation strategies.

Stowers, Robert H. and Randolph T. Barker. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2003). Articles>Education>Business Communication>Writing

Improving MBA Students’ Communication Proficiency: An Orientation Pilot Study That Incorporates Technology and Plagiarism Issues  

This paper describes the progress of an original pilot program that used surveys and reported results from students and faculty concerning student improvement in writing and presentation skills from a convenience sample of courses. Based on the responses to these surveys a pre-test writing instrument and a presentation assessment instrument were designed for and administered to incoming students during their MBA orientation session. Also included in the orientation session were two modules that focused on plagiarism issues and the use of web-based technology for research. This program will be expanded to include post-writing critiques and portfolio communication evaluations.

Alpern, Barbara E., David C. Odett and Richard Pietila. Association for Business Communication (2004). Articles>Education>Business Communication

In Defense of Cheating

I am not in favor of deception, trickery, fraud, or swindle. What I wish to change are the curriculum and examination practices of our school systems that insist on unaided work, arbitrary learning of irrelevant and uninteresting facts. I'd like to move them toward an emphasis on understanding, on knowing how to get to an answer rather than knowing the answer, and on cooperation rather than isolation. Cheating that involves deceit is, of course wrong, but we should examine the school practices that lead to cheating: change the practices, and the deceit will naturally diminish.

Norman, Donald A. JND.org (2001). Articles>Education>Instructional Design>Testing

In-House Usability Training: Culture Change You Can Afford  

In an effort to establish affordable usability design and testing as part of the product development culture at Unisys Corporation, four Product Information employees in Mission Viejo, California and Salt Lake City, Utah developed a usability class. Working part time over a period of several months, the team developed a class outline; a PowerPoint presentation of the class content; exercises on surveys, paper prototyping, heuristic evaluations, and usability testing; Instructor and Student Guides, and a final examination. The class was added to the curriculum of the official corporate training entity, Unisys University, where it is available for all Unisys employees. This report of the group’s experience may be useful to organizations wanting to get started with usability training despite budget restraints.

Randolph, Elaine F. and Lynn Ballard. STC Proceedings (2001). Presentations>Education>Usability

Incorporating Film Into the Research Paper    

Teachers face two serious difficulties when assigning research papers. The first appears to be an issue of motivation but is really one of mental disposition. Many students are so deeply influenced by contemporary visual culture--especially by film--that they lack familiarity with close reasoning. They are accustomed to absorbing entertaining, but loosely connected, streams of images in an impressionistic way and are uneasy and anxious when given a major assignment in an exclusively written medium. Inexperienced in the systematic compilation and analysis of information, they often perform poorly. These students may appear to be unenthusiastic about their topics; in fact, they do badly because they are methodologically disoriented. They run aground while sailing in the unfamiliar seas of organized, sequential, linear logic. This problem often shows itself in the frequent, and frequently gratuitous, use of illustrations in research papers. Instructors often comment that 'students love pictures.' It would be more accurate to say that students understand pictures and are comfortable with them. The second difficulty is a by-product of the Web. Plagiarism has become so widespread that it poses a real threat to the academic enterprise. Yet its detection is both difficult and time-consuming, and an instructor must be on absolutely solid ground before bringing a student up on such serious charges. Furthermore, even if available, an expensive counter-plagiarism program such as Turnitin cannot always deliver conclusive evidence. Plagiarism must be addressed, but today, articles that existed previously only in print can be optically scanned, free essays are available online, and papers can be purchased and downloaded from numerous commercial outlets. We have addressed both of these problems by strategically using appropriate motion pictures as entrees into the subject matter and as points of comparison to help organize research papers. We first provide our students with a list of films that bear on relevant topics.

Fontenot, Michael J. and Karen A. Fontenot. Business Communication Quarterly (2008). Articles>Education>Research>Multimedia

Incorporating Human-Computer Interface (HCI) Technology Into the Technical Writer’s Role  

At last year’s STC corlference in Seattle, Dr. Donald Norman spoke about the technical writing community becoming an integral part qf the design/development team. The HCI certificate program qfered through Renesselaer Polytechnic Institute @PI,) provides information and teaches skills that enable the technical communicator to become a valuable part of that team. This paper discusses my experience incorporating what I learned in the HCI class on a work project.

Oakley, Joanne. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Education>Human Computer Interaction>Technical Writing

Incorporating Peer Review

Peer review is an exercise in which students review each other's written work. Peer review is often connected to revision, a part of the writing process in which writers refine and make substantive changes to their written work.

University of Minnesota (2004). Articles>Education>Editing>Writing

Incorporating Revision

Revision refers to the process of reviewing one's work and making changes (either local or global) to improve the writing.  Most teachers of writing encourage students to revise their work by creating drafts and going through a process of review -- either by having teacher review drafts or having other students review drafts.

University of Minnesota (2004). Articles>Education>Editing>Writing

The Influence of Perceptions of Task Similarity/Difference on Learning Transfer in Second Language Writing    

This study investigates the influence of students' perceptions of task similarity/ difference on the transfer of writing skills. A total of 42 students from a freshman ESL writing course completed an out-of-class writing task. For half of the students, the subject matter of the writing task was designed to be similar to the writing course; for the other half, it was designed to be different. All students were also interviewed about the writing task. Reports of learning transfer were identified in the interview transcripts, and students' performances on the task and on a recent assignment from the course were assessed. Results indicate that the intended task similarity/difference (i.e., in subject matter) did not have the expected impact on learning transfer; however, students' perceptions of task similarity/difference did influence learning transfer. Implications of these findings for theory, practice, and future research are discussed.

James, Mark Andrew. Written Communication (2008). Articles>Education>Writing>Language

Information Design Exercises  

Study the target audience – who are your users? Identify various information elements. Study the user’s work flow. Layout the various information elements based on their characteristics. Highlight critical information. Think visually.

Deshpande, Shashank. STC India (2003). Presentations>Information Design>Education

Insert Clever Title Here: Creating and Using Multi-Purpose Information Blocks for Documentation and Training  

Our technical writers and course developers share several objectives. We must provide task oriented information to our customers, we create information for a variety of products, and we follow a similar information development cycle. We also spend a great deal of time re-creating the same information over and over. To make our efforts more efficient, and to creole better information for our customers, we’ve changed the way we think of information, how we initially create the information, and how we store and retrieve the information. This paper describes the methods we chose to accomplish these goals, the tools we use, and our successes, failures and frustrations.

Brockett, Susan H., James Cox, Lelanie S. Hellmer and Susan Katz. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Documentation>Education

Institutional Boundaries and Finding a Voice in Emerging Technical Communication Programs

The border between institution types has long been a site of conflict and interest in the field of technical communication. One related border is becoming increasingly important: the border(s) between a diversifying range of institutions interested in technical communication and the PhD-granting institutions supplying them with teachers/scholars.

Knievel, Michael. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Education>TC

Institutionally Mapping Professional Writing  

We think it is critically important-especially in a time of declining budgets-for professional writing programs to position themselves in a vital and robust location in the university, and probably outside it as well. What institutional location(s) can best guarantee that professional writing thrive, and also provide it an opportunity to have significant impact?

Grabill, Jeffrey T. and James E. Porter. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Education>Business Communication

Instruction-Writing Exercises (for High School)

These guidelines and 14 scaffolded exercises respond to the unmet need for a psychologically solid, work-relevant way to learn technical writing by students who are NOT facile writers already.

Girill, T.R. STC East Bay (2001). Articles>Education>Instructional Design>Documentation

Instructional Design and Learning Theory

To students of instructional design the introduction and subsequent 'sorting out' of the various learning theories and associated instructional design strategies can be somewhat confusing. It was out of this feeling of cognitive dissonance that this site was born. Why does it seem so difficult to differentiate between three basic theories of learning? Why do the names of theorists appear connected to more than one theory? Why do the terms and strategies of each theory overlap? The need for answers to these questions sparked my investigation into the available literature on learning theories and their implications for instructional design. I found many articles and internet sites that dealt with learning theory and ID, in fact, it was difficult to know when and where to draw the line. When I stopped finding new information, and the articles were reaffirming what I had already read, I began to write.

Mergel, Brenda. University of Saskatchewan (1998). Articles>Education>Instructional Design>Theory

Instructional Design and Software Quality Assurance, Part II  

In the second article of his two-part series on the application of principles of instructional design to quality assurance processes, Nayar discusses how these principles affect document development.

Nayar, Pawan. Intercom (2002). Articles>Education>Instructional Design