http://tc.eserver.org/publisher/CPTSC A listing of works published by CPTSC in the field of technical communication. en-us Copyright (c) 2005-08 by the EServer. All rights reserved. tclib-editorial@eserver.org (TC Library Editorial Board) webmaster@eserver.org (Geoffrey Sauer) http://tc.eserver.org/images/newlogo.gif http://tc.eserver.org/dir/CPTSC http://tc.eserver.org/29584.html http://tc.eserver.org/29584.html A list of all programs in scientific and technical communication. The titles of some programs may include related names such as professional writing or professional communication. http://tc.eserver.org/26531.html http://tc.eserver.org/26531.html Four presentations about how to connect academic programs with workplace practitioners in technical communication. http://tc.eserver.org/26532.html http://tc.eserver.org/26532.html A discussion of challenges and solutions for hiring professional and technical communication specialists at teaching-focused universities. http://tc.eserver.org/26536.html http://tc.eserver.org/26536.html Discussion about fostering international relationships for academic programs in technical communication. http://tc.eserver.org/26523.html http://tc.eserver.org/26523.html Four presentations about the teaching of scientific and technical communication programs in a highly international industry climate. http://tc.eserver.org/26528.html http://tc.eserver.org/26528.html Five presentations about supporting research, particularly for junior faculty, within the present funding and support structures offered by academic departments. http://tc.eserver.org/26529.html http://tc.eserver.org/26529.html Two presentations about collaboration in research between diverse departments and units. http://tc.eserver.org/26535.html http://tc.eserver.org/26535.html Two collaborative presentations about the status and factors that influence technology adoption within research in technical communication programs. http://tc.eserver.org/26525.html http://tc.eserver.org/26525.html Presentations about how to facilitate student and faculty research in higher education academic programs. http://tc.eserver.org/26526.html http://tc.eserver.org/26526.html Four presentations about program assessment and the revisions to programs that they suggest. http://tc.eserver.org/26530.html http://tc.eserver.org/26530.html Four presentations about exigences that are leading to change and innovation in technical communication academic programs. http://tc.eserver.org/26534.html http://tc.eserver.org/26534.html Four presentations about the roles of programs in the professional, ethical, and research roles of its students and faculty. http://tc.eserver.org/26524.html http://tc.eserver.org/26524.html Argues for an increased emphasis on research in technical communication education. http://tc.eserver.org/26533.html http://tc.eserver.org/26533.html Four presentations about the integration of theory and pedagogical innovation into the design of academic programs. http://tc.eserver.org/23379.html http://tc.eserver.org/23379.html The University of Maine has begun a multi-year effort to redesign the way it teaches technical communication to students in the College of Engineering. At its core, this new design will mean replacing the existing requirement of a stand alone course in technical communication. http://tc.eserver.org/23377.html http://tc.eserver.org/23377.html Behavioral science, with its emphasis on association, reliability, and validity provides a promising set of models upon which to enhance further work in scientific and technical communication. Our proposed model is based on the five independent variables that, when constructed validly and measured reliably, may be associated with effective programs in technical and scientific communication. http://tc.eserver.org/23365.html http://tc.eserver.org/23365.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/23364.html http://tc.eserver.org/23364.html Because many corporations now outsource significant portions of their business to external companies, it is important to study and understand the role of writing and, more generally, differing communication structures between organizations. In my experience, this is not a topic that is discussed in most technical communication classrooms. http://tc.eserver.org/23380.html http://tc.eserver.org/23380.html We recently conducted survey research to discover students' responses to our web-based courses and online programs. We wanted to know their reactions to the course materials, teaching methods, interactions with faculty and other students, as well as their own competence in the particular subject area following such as course. While we are discovering that students are generally satisfied with all aspects of the courses, they express valid and noteworthy concerns. http://tc.eserver.org/23370.html http://tc.eserver.org/23370.html Those who find themselves the solo technical writing faculty in their department often have to deal with infrastructural issues as well as curricular and programmatic concerns. Infrastructure involves creating learning environments conducive to building skills students need to be qualified technical communicators, and such learning environments often require access to technology. http://tc.eserver.org/23381.html http://tc.eserver.org/23381.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/23372.html http://tc.eserver.org/23372.html In my recent experience as an external assessor invited to participate in San Francisco State University's Technical Communication Program assessment, I felt that surely the process taught me more than I was able to provide in return. http://tc.eserver.org/23382.html http://tc.eserver.org/23382.html As a new director of a new Professional Writing program, my colleagues and I spent much of our time designing curriculum. The sequence and content of our courses, we felt, were the only real way to make our program more than the sum of its parts. http://tc.eserver.org/23366.html http://tc.eserver.org/23366.html To serve students in an interdisciplinary minor in Interactive Media as well as our own concentrators in business and technical writing within the department, we developed a course in designing online information. http://tc.eserver.org/23375.html http://tc.eserver.org/23375.html I am asking my program to incorporate more of the liberal arts into the course's title and course description to better appeal to (and serve) students in a liberal arts college. The course will have one or two new sophomore level iterations: as a technical/research writing course in which students complete a semester long service project, researching and writing a final report while focusing on writing, research, and mathematical skills, and/or as a technical writing/document design class where students focus on the document design and writing skills needed to produce items such as a resume, flyers, brochures, posters, and more. http://tc.eserver.org/23374.html http://tc.eserver.org/23374.html The smaller the program, the more stretchable/permeable the borders of the service course must become. http://tc.eserver.org/23367.html http://tc.eserver.org/23367.html To improve university-level presentations, students need rhetorical, design, and usability strategies and tools to create effective, professional presentations. By developing a series of three to five modules for science and technology students, Professional Writing faculty could polish materials for use as one-day professional development workshops in the workplace. http://tc.eserver.org/23368.html http://tc.eserver.org/23368.html As the sole faculty member in professional writing, one must find reasonable means for integrating research, teaching, and service. This integration means understanding the institutional context, balancing the research-teaching-service commitments for tenure, and creating a supportive community for professional writing teaching and scholarship. http://tc.eserver.org/23383.html http://tc.eserver.org/23383.html Despite the significant presence of the visual in the field of technical communication, we have not yet achieved a unified pedagogical approach to the visual. Because of the traditional emphasis on written communication, there is often a conflicting boundary between teaching the visual and textual, which often results in the visual assuming a secondary position to the textual. http://tc.eserver.org/23369.html http://tc.eserver.org/23369.html Since writers/communicators now carry legal responsibility for what they write, on paper or online, it would be useful to students in Technical and Scientific Communication Programs to have instruction in communication law and explore its many applications online. http://tc.eserver.org/23373.html http://tc.eserver.org/23373.html When we put to one side technological responsibilities, we miss an important opportunity to build communities of workers and scholars. http://tc.eserver.org/23378.html http://tc.eserver.org/23378.html Conversations about assessment for technical communication programs often focus on evaluating features internally, through means such as course evaluations and portfolio reviews. http://tc.eserver.org/23371.html http://tc.eserver.org/23371.html Technical writing faculty who work in solo situations are often seen as the 'other' in their home departments, whether we are housed with literature, business, or engineering faculty. We are thus inscribed in a unique border location, and consequently are further inscribed in a peripheral location within the greater technical writing academy. http://tc.eserver.org/23376.html http://tc.eserver.org/23376.html One border that technical and professional communication (TPC) programs straddle constantly is that between the liberal arts and technology. We struggle to find ways to do justice to both as we prepare our students to enter these professions. http://tc.eserver.org/22450.html http://tc.eserver.org/22450.html History is a crucial dimension of any legitimate academic field because it identifies it as having lasting interest and signficance and, like a living organism, as a growing, evolving, coherent entity that progresses over time and advances to more sophisticated forms. History, after all, is scholarship and vice versa. http://tc.eserver.org/22446.html http://tc.eserver.org/22446.html 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? http://tc.eserver.org/22445.html http://tc.eserver.org/22445.html Efforts to create joint programs with universities in foreign countries are evidence that internationalization is imperative. One such effort is the professional writing program at Fairfield University that recently established an international partnership with the Universidad de la Habana in Cuba. http://tc.eserver.org/22449.html http://tc.eserver.org/22449.html This presentation will investigate a number of questions involved in re-shaping a program, including: shaping a curriculum that adequately prepares students; creating opportunities to foster PhD candidates' professional development; identifying and capitalizing on our unique program strengths; balancing between theoretical knowledge and applied skills for PhD candidates; maintaining legitimacy in a traditional English department while still teaching applied skills; providing opportunities for intra-disciplinary research; and creating PhD candidates who are excellent teachers, researchers, and practitioners. http://tc.eserver.org/22447.html http://tc.eserver.org/22447.html New opportunities for program development are emerging as higher educational institutions are pressed to prepare graduates for the challenges of working in global markets. As communications program designers we must reach out, going beyond disciplinary boundaries in order to acquire new expertise. We need more investment in incorporating the 'intercultural' in our communications programs. http://tc.eserver.org/22448.html http://tc.eserver.org/22448.html George Hayhoe calls it the 'gulf between classroom and workplace,' Katherine Staples calls it 'the schism between academic theory and workplace practice,' Bonita Selting calls it the 'schizophrenia of the curriculum' and Carolyn Miller calls it the 'virulent praxis/techne and academic/industry polarities.' The debate immediately struck me when I returned from six years as a technical writer, but is it just a difference of teaching methods, or is it also a question of exclusionary politics, a class issue? In her historical summary, Teresa Kynell notes that technical communication has the ''tag' of vocationalism' and Staples dates it from the early 'conflict between career education and the humanities.' What is the distinction between pure academics and practical learning? Is it that college teachers have a higher social status than workers? http://tc.eserver.org/22451.html http://tc.eserver.org/22451.html The field of Technical Communication has long recognized the value of bringing the world of business and research into the TC classroom. Indeed, most TC programs not only require students to analyze case studies of real-world business enterprises, they also require students to participate in intensive internship programs. Certainly, TC students who engage in exercises either modeled after effective business and research practices or directly situated within these environments are better able to contribute to their employer's success once they graduate. http://tc.eserver.org/22289.html http://tc.eserver.org/22289.html The concept of borders provides a powerful lens for understanding the student experience in technical communication. During the educational process, our students navigate across borders between teaching and research, between theory and practice, and between nations, cultures, disciplines, and professional organizations. Asking students to think about their experiences at such borders can give rise to interesting questions, insights, and concerns. Student portfolios, developed over the course of their academic careers, provide students with a powerful mechanism for reflecting on and integrating their experiences at these borders. http://tc.eserver.org/22211.html http://tc.eserver.org/22211.html This presentation describes the process of engaged negotiation that re-engineered an inappropriate course design to one that met student needs. http://tc.eserver.org/22190.html http://tc.eserver.org/22190.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/22210.html http://tc.eserver.org/22210.html In recent years, our field has been seeking ways to build bridges and to partner with technical communication programs in community colleges, practitioners in industry, and our colleagues in other areas of writing. Many in our field have also been incorporating community service into their pedagogy. Another focus has been to reach out to high schools in order to connect with students who represent the future of the profession. We all recognize the benefits to be gained from such partnerships and projects. http://tc.eserver.org/22212.html http://tc.eserver.org/22212.html The particular concern facing my institution of affiliation (U Houston-Downtown) is how to maintain prudent Technical Communication (TC) program expansion in the face of rapid growth, high demand, and scarce resources. http://tc.eserver.org/22194.html http://tc.eserver.org/22194.html Should institutional boundaries prevent online students from learning from the best professors available? What is the effect of employing remote professors on a program's identity, and how do remote or distant professors fit into a faculty's programmatic and pedagogical profile? http://tc.eserver.org/22189.html http://tc.eserver.org/22189.html What does the profession look like today? We see writers who specialize in running usability tests; writers who work with XML and database tools to manage single content sources for multiple delivery vehicles; writers who develop content and then design the layout of that content for every kind of print and electronic media, writers who grab the latest hot authoring tool and produce Web-based customer support. And the list could go on and on. The common denominator is writing skills. http://tc.eserver.org/22192.html http://tc.eserver.org/22192.html Distance education research tends to focus on students' experiences in the online classroom because students are the bread-and-butter of distance learning programs. http://tc.eserver.org/22193.html http://tc.eserver.org/22193.html Discusses eight conditions for technological change that can support innovation in educational settings. These conditions, which were first directed toward library contexts and then studied in a variety of education-related contexts, encapsulate the majority of sustainability issues associated with distance education. These eight conditions are not exhaustive, but programs that achieve many of them will probably experience a high degree of sustained success. http://tc.eserver.org/22195.html http://tc.eserver.org/22195.html Two borders that are very important in a primarily undergraduate Technical Communication program are the theory/practice borders we face vis-à-vis our students, and vis-à-vis the practitioners who hire our students. http://tc.eserver.org/22191.html http://tc.eserver.org/22191.html We probably need to think much more than we have in the past in terms of assessment, external evaluation, and accountability. We are hearing ever more frequently the concerns of administrators, regents, legislators, and departments of education for greater accountability by universities-concerns that will be passed down the administrative levels to program directors and teachers. This may be a blessing in disguise, an opportunity to tell the public who we are and why we are important. http://tc.eserver.org/22178.html http://tc.eserver.org/22178.html Vital academic programs have a component in practice and an obvious connection of research and theory to the undergraduate classroom. This position (not a truth) could explain, in part, the growth of technical communication as an academic discipline over the past two decades while the study of literature, often in the same department, has declined. http://tc.eserver.org/22177.html http://tc.eserver.org/22177.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/22179.html http://tc.eserver.org/22179.html What happens when we adapt the paradigm of service learning, which traditionally serves the underprivileged or nonprofits, to for-profit clients? http://tc.eserver.org/22164.html http://tc.eserver.org/22164.html Weber State University is in the process of developing a major in Professional & Technical Writing (PTW). Currently, students enroll as English majors with an Emphasis in PTW, which consists of four courses in PTW that students take in addition to other English courses. The minor consists of the same PTW courses plus two interdisciplinary classes, which are determined in consultation with an advisor. The problem is that students who wish to do PTW must take the same number of literature classes as other English majors. Often they do not receive instruction in document design, other than a cursory treatment in the service course. A full major would better prepare students to enter the job market without losing connections to critical theory and humanistic approaches to texts-connections they receive in English Department courses. http://tc.eserver.org/21816.html http://tc.eserver.org/21816.html Discussions concerning the structure of technical communication programs raise a multitude of questions: how do we include both theory and practice? How much theory is appropriate for a program in an applied area? What do our students need and want? How can we meet our students’ needs and ourown academic goals? These questions can become even more intense when they relate to master’s degree programs and the demanding students they attract. We are faced with decisions about what thenature of a master’s program in technical communication should be. http://tc.eserver.org/21818.html http://tc.eserver.org/21818.html Programs in technical and scientific communication educate students from multiple disciplines. As we teach these students from various fields, we often assume they will write to others who are members of the same field. However, professionals commonly communicate across disciplinary boundaries and collaborate with those who do not necessarily belong to their field. We should rethink our approaches in teaching scientific and technical communication to consider how different peoplefrom different areas of expertise engage one another in a communication situation. Based on the understanding that different disciplinary cultures and languages alter contexts for communication, astudy examining how experts from science, engineering, mathematics, and architecture come together as a single group and collaboratively invent discourse can contribute to new knowledge to inform curriculum development. http://tc.eserver.org/21822.html http://tc.eserver.org/21822.html With the rapid rise of interest in usability testing, especially with the demise of a daily increasing number of dotcom companies (and the headlines resulting from the 'butterfly ballot'), the question arises as to where (and how) a course in usability testing should be taught. When I first started teaching a graduate course in technical and professional communication, I created it to focus on documentation issues and to educate future technical communicators about the role they could play in testing and inadvocating usability testing for their products. The argument went something like this: who better than the technical communicators--the user advocates–to initiate usability testing within organizations. What better place to start than with the documentation? http://tc.eserver.org/21815.html http://tc.eserver.org/21815.html Over the past few years, we have been re-thinking the focus and direction of the graduate program in technical and science communication at Drexel University. At the same time, we are also dealing with a disciplinary change, as we have split from our long-time home in the Department of Humanities and Communication and formed a new Department of Culture and Communication with our colleagues from sociology and anthropology. http://tc.eserver.org/21820.html http://tc.eserver.org/21820.html How much about graphics and visual design should the courses in our technical communication programs cover? This has become a programmatic issue because technical writing has become more graphically dependent. This is true in many arenas: when designing electronic or print documents suchas brochures, issues such as color theory, perspective, and proportionality come into play along with the rhetoric of the written word. The crossover between the visual and the linguistic is most evident in newmedia, especially in Web design. http://tc.eserver.org/21827.html http://tc.eserver.org/21827.html International technical communication program developers may face globalization either with fear or exhilaration. Is globalization primarily an economic process that will bring unprecedented opportunity, prosperity, democracy, and health to everyone in the world? Or is it a process that will usurp the autonomy of national and local governments, colonize the cultural diversity of the world, lay waste to ecosystems, and gobble up the resources of the entire planet? http://tc.eserver.org/21817.html http://tc.eserver.org/21817.html Service learning and client-based projects more generally are widely recognized as effective methods of engaging technical communication students in the complexities of workplace writing. But administrators of large technical communication programs often face an uphill battle when attempting tointegrate these projects into the curriculum. http://tc.eserver.org/21823.html http://tc.eserver.org/21823.html The Modern Language Association recently outlined numerous changes in English Studies, citing the significant growth of jobs in technical and professional communication. Since 1997, thenumber of academic positions advertised in our field has increased by 76 percent. The reasons are simple: the job market for capable communicators has expanded (primarily due to technology), andmore and more students want a major or minor that provides the knowledge and skills necessary to meetthe increased demand. Many English departments, including our own (Virginia Tech and University of Nebraska at Omaha [UNO], are responding to students’ needs by hiring faculty to build programs inprofessional/technical communication. http://tc.eserver.org/21821.html http://tc.eserver.org/21821.html Technical communication faces the same identity crisis in 2001 that it did in 1991, 1981, 1971,and 1901. It seems that no matter how much energy technical communicators invest in the development and promotion of their expertise in their social and economic marketplaces, there are always morepeople who do not know what they do or why than there are people who understand what technical communication is. Certainly, this forces program administrators to recycle old arguments while relivingold battles and working to maintain their own institutional and professional integrity. Here, years after the emergence of technical communication as a viable academic pursuit and career choice, people stillwonder if technical communication is a profession or not. There are two sources of identity crisis here: 1) mismatched standards for judging technical communication as a profession, and 2) ill-suited language for framing the qualities of technical communication professionals. http://tc.eserver.org/21825.html http://tc.eserver.org/21825.html Classrooms without walls. Textbooks without pages. Thinking outside the box. These are the hip phrases that describe contemporary e-learning. What is it, then, that provides structure, cohesion, and foundation for distance learning degree programs in technical and scientific communication? http://tc.eserver.org/21826.html http://tc.eserver.org/21826.html Online learning results from the interaction of a learner and a Web-based set of content and collaboration with other people. The selection and direction of the content are determined by the learning and business outcomes of any module. The client sets the outcomes and provides the content. The LDA team translates that content into a set of screen components that state the meaning of the content and builds in continuity through a navigation system. In addition, collaboration with a tutor andother learners helps to maintain the personal nature of learning. http://tc.eserver.org/21824.html http://tc.eserver.org/21824.html We are engaged in distance education because our graduate program is committed to responsible instructional practices in the computer age. As humanists, our efforts in this relatively new area are primarily energized by opportunities to revisit basic educational assumptions, test the social claims made about distanceeducation, and prepare future teachers who can operate both effectively and judiciously in online environments. From our perspective, departments that foreground the values of the profession will find distance education tobe a productive site for literacy education, one that can even influence the shape of resident instruction in positive ways. http://tc.eserver.org/21819.html http://tc.eserver.org/21819.html The role of the technical writer is expanding, partly in response to technological and societal changes; it is encompassing a broader variety of communication tasks and media. One individual, the technical communicator, often plays the roles of designer, writer, editor, and producer. As these rolesconverge, visual thinking and visual communication are becoming critical skills for many technical writers. http://tc.eserver.org/21582.html http://tc.eserver.org/21582.html The University of Arkansas at Little Rock's Department of Rhetoric and Writing has been an independent department since 1993. When we left the English Department, the writing programs -- composition, the shared B.A. program in Professional and Technical Writing, and the M.A. program in Technical and Expository Writing -- naturally came with us. What we didn't have was a developmental vision of a program. http://tc.eserver.org/21561.html http://tc.eserver.org/21561.html For an institution with a regional focus, part of program building involves identifying resources in the region the program serves. This effort can be complicated in regions that generally lack the kind of high-tech industry that draws technical communicators. One cannot easily find a ready-madecommunity of professional communicators in such places, leaving some to wonder whether a professional writing program would be able to thrive. Nevertheless, communicators are ubiquitous, even if most of them don’t identify themselves as such. http://tc.eserver.org/21562.html http://tc.eserver.org/21562.html Professional/technical writing has long been an effective curricular site for off-campus outreach. Especially compared to other humanities' disciplines (not that that category provides any stiff competition), professional/technical writing has emphasized practical application and liaison between the university and business/industry. Two of the chief reasons I am attracted to this field are its pragmatic orientation and its focus on writing-in-the-world. http://tc.eserver.org/21563.html http://tc.eserver.org/21563.html The service course is undergoing another change in its role in the Technical Communication program. Over the years, the service course has evolved from a way of providing students with mastery of genre and style to a way of introducing students to their role as communicators in the rhetorical situation. The Web drives the new role evolving out of this solid past. The service course now provides students with a basis for independent creation. Programs must fill four key needs for students entering the job market. Students must: learn to learn; master the processes involved in creating information; learn applications quickly and graduate having mastered several; and understand information design. http://tc.eserver.org/21549.html http://tc.eserver.org/21549.html What, if anything, should technical communication programs teach their students about the nature of law and the production of legal discourse? When is technical writing also legal writing, and vice versa; when is legal writing (really) technical? Are there distinctions worth maintaining and dissolving here? Do lawyers' relationships to, and problems with, legal writing contexts and processes parallel in important ways technical writers' relationships to, and problems with, technical writing contexts and processes? If they do, is a conversation between the disciplines worth institutionalizing, at least experimentally, in each other's programs? http://tc.eserver.org/21550.html http://tc.eserver.org/21550.html What's happening to all of the things our students in the different strands once shared in common? When I taught the research methods class last fall, I was struck when my students in both strands commented on how they had not realized until then how much they shared and how happy they were to be able to help each other and to inform each other's work. These comments, and the tangible evidence I had of their truthfulness in my students' productive exchanges, are at the heart of my concerns. I am curious if other writing programs with multiple strands are also encountering these issues. Is becoming more separate a natural response to developments and progress in our respective fields? Is it the best response to those developments and progress? http://tc.eserver.org/20493.html http://tc.eserver.org/20493.html The field of technical communication is in many ways inscribed by technology. As a result, technical communication programs not only must provide students with a foundation in the theory and practice of the field, but also must give students some level of proficiency in the technology tools they will need to put that knowledge into service in the workplace. http://tc.eserver.org/20492.html http://tc.eserver.org/20492.html Because technical communication involves the knowledge of technology, expertise is associated with anything practical. I've come to think about this battle in terms of what my colleague Allan Heaps used to call the PageMaker Guy. In practical terms, the PageMaker Guy is the person in an organization or a group who 'knows' how to use technology, who can fix other people's technological messes, or who sacrifices valuable research time helping other people use technology. The PageMaker Guy is a phenomenon for which a person is anointed. Those of us in 'PageMaker Guy' situations often resent this role because it subsumes our identity to the extent that we fear our colleagues might ignore the depth of knowledge necessary for this role as well as our equally deserved scholarly accomplishments. http://tc.eserver.org/20494.html http://tc.eserver.org/20494.html The field of technical communication is in many ways inscribed by technology. As a result, technical communication programs not only must provide students with a foundation in the theory and practice of the field, but also must give students some level of proficiency in the technology tools they will need to put that knowledge into service in the workplace. http://tc.eserver.org/20360.html http://tc.eserver.org/20360.html As technical communication programs come to accept our field's (emergent) status as a profession, we need to discuss more carefully how to judge the boundaries of technical communication as an academic field. Although many writers have recently called for efforts to span traditional borders between workplace practice and academic study of the field (Carver 1998, Sutcliff 2000, Eaton 2001 and Smith 2002 among others), doing so in practice can be quite difficult. From my experience as a member of the editorial board of the EServer Technical Communication Library (http://tc.eserver.org/), a website of resources in the field (originally founded explicitly to support such interdisciplinarity), I would today suggest that there are numerous practical and theoretical issues still remaining to resolve in how the field delimits and judges the diverse forms of work we perform. http://tc.eserver.org/19178.html http://tc.eserver.org/19178.html The following positions are open for application. If you have a position that you would like posted to the CPTSC web pages, please contact Bill Williamson at wj.williamson@uni.edu. http://tc.eserver.org/19085.html http://tc.eserver.org/19085.html How can diversification strengthen a professional communication program? By capitalizing on faculty backgrounds, a broad variety of courses, and student experience. Here’s how that combination of factors works in the 21-course undergraduate major in professional writing at the University of Houston-Downtown. http://tc.eserver.org/19068.html http://tc.eserver.org/19068.html We should not pursue specialization in our programs. We should not become the multimedia development program, or the computer documentation program, or the medical writing program, or the environmental communication program, or even the critical literacy program. We should build programs around a broad, useful rhetorical education, coupled with a skill set that all students share in writing and document design. We should make sure all students develop productive relationships with communication technologies. And we should allow students to follow their interests and to find the kind of specialization that is rewarding to them individually. http://tc.eserver.org/19083.html http://tc.eserver.org/19083.html Increased support for greater accountability and assessment of engineering communication programs have led many schools of engineering and technology to initiate methods of assessing the quality of their students’ engineering communication abilities. In my institution, I have spearheaded the pilot year of such a program, and, as anticipated, have learned several valuable lessons that may be of interest to others interested in developing assessment procedures for engineering communication programs. http://tc.eserver.org/19073.html http://tc.eserver.org/19073.html When many of us began to establish our programs in Scientific and Technical Communication our main concerns were establishing a balance between technology and communication, establishing internships, and getting acceptance in whatever department in the university we happened to be part of. While those concerns still remain, we are faced with new, additional issues, as well as new problems associated with the older, but still present issues, in establishing and maintaining programs. This paper will note some of those issues and will make some suggestions for helping to approach them. I will not presume to have solutions, just ideas about which we can talk to perhaps help focus some discussion leading to some solutions. Rather than focus on each specific problem, I want to focus on a specific approach to new programs which, I think, might be a way to approach many of the problems and challenges we face in a global, electronic environment. The approach to a solution, which I'm proposing is developing 'joint ventures' or 'Consortia.' I'll herein explain my definition of joint venture or consortia programs. http://tc.eserver.org/19069.html http://tc.eserver.org/19069.html In the last few years, both scholars and practitioners have considered the place of technical communications in relation to new information technologies. Most in the field agree that technical communicators bring a broad base of expertise, along with the ability to make a wide range of contributions to this realm. However, technical communicators still question the impact they might have and the roles and functions they might adopt in this area. In addition, they are still often plagued by an identity crisis brought on by a lack of recognition from other fields. http://tc.eserver.org/19105.html http://tc.eserver.org/19105.html In what significant and distinctive ways is writing enmeshed in the professional sites our students will enter after graduation (or earlier, if they work as interns in such sites prior to graduation)? How can we distinguish between general, transportable aspects of writing expertise that can be developed in school and later applied effectively in a range of different workplaces and other, local aspects of writing expertise that are specific to particular professional environments and can only be acquired through on-site experience once there? http://tc.eserver.org/19064.html http://tc.eserver.org/19064.html While most academics are familiar with strategic planning (at least at a broad institutional level), many may be unfamiliar with the process of compact planning--a more narrowly focused, resource-driven planning model that can help programs identify and reach short-term goals. Because of the technological components of technical communication programs and the rapidity with which those components change and, consequently, affect our programs, shorter-term planning models may be particularly useful in helping our programs remain nimble, competitive, and distinctive. Further, since the compact planning process is a grass-roots initiative (rather than a top-down planning model), it is particularly effective at the program and department levels for its inclusionary properties. http://tc.eserver.org/19066.html http://tc.eserver.org/19066.html Our discussion will consider the ways in which we conceptualized an engineering enterprise initiative’s 'communication component,' alternate ways in which it could be conceptualized, and our efforts to maintain pedagogical and programmatic integrity while addressing the very practical needs of this ABET-driven curricula change. We feel that these questions must be addressed if we are to truly participate in a 'systemic change' in engineering education and its integral communication challenges. http://tc.eserver.org/19088.html http://tc.eserver.org/19088.html If I choose to walk or ride a bicycle to work in the morning, will I be perceived as an anti-technology Luddite because I have resisted driving my car? Probably not. In fact, I might be seen as someone who is environmentally aware and health conscious. When it comes to information technology, however, such resistance is seen quite differently. http://tc.eserver.org/19080.html http://tc.eserver.org/19080.html Designing and directing technical communication programs requires special skills. Clearly faculty taking on these roles must be well-versed in the scholarship of the discipline. But they face additional challenges not often faced by other department chairs or program directors, especially those in liberal arts disciplines. Here’s a brief overview of some of these challenges. http://tc.eserver.org/19090.html http://tc.eserver.org/19090.html Technical writing education in the community college is complicated by the need to serve multiple populations, including traditional college students, vocational/certificate students, and community businesses. At Heartland Community College (HCC), the Corporate Education Department serves the needs of businesses by providing workshops of varying lengths and content areas. At the same time, the Writing Program and the English Department serve the needs of traditional and vocational students through writing courses in composition, technical writing, and business writing. Since each department espouses different philosophies and is addressing the needs of a different audience, technical writing instruction varies across the College. Rarely does one course design affect the other, yet I believe that conversations between departments could help the College resolve some of the contradictions that accompany its dual mission. http://tc.eserver.org/19067.html http://tc.eserver.org/19067.html New models for program development in technical and scientific communication are imperative. Demand for communicative expertise continues to expand rapidly yet traditional approaches for supporting student competence fall far short of expectations. http://tc.eserver.org/19081.html http://tc.eserver.org/19081.html Perhaps the trouble for academic programs that teach workplace writing begins with the term 'technical communications.' Perhaps the trouble grows with those programs’ focus on the teaching of writing rather than on the development of professionals who bring complex, strategic writing/thinking processes into work communities. http://tc.eserver.org/19100.html http://tc.eserver.org/19100.html Going it alone, the SFSU program has integrity as a community, yet struggles a bit within an institutional structure designed for established discipline departments. http://tc.eserver.org/19099.html http://tc.eserver.org/19099.html It is not industry collaboration that has caused the Wayne State program to founder. Indeed, many in the English Department might bristle at that term, believing the program is thriving. Nevertheless, contradictions within the department that reflected and repeated historical patterns have allowed the program to wither. http://tc.eserver.org/19093.html http://tc.eserver.org/19093.html This paper lists recruitment strategies that technical communication programs can use. Its purpose is to prompt discussion at the CTPSC conference in response to the following question: Which strategies bear the most promise for recruiting sufficient numbers of students to supply the growing need for technical communicators? http://tc.eserver.org/19065.html http://tc.eserver.org/19065.html An issue that continues to affect our strategies for developing undergraduate programs is the old contest between theory and practice, or, as it frequently occurs in technical communication programs, between theory and tools. Should we focus our undergraduate programs on understanding principles of communication in the technical world or should we focus on teaching the tools that are called for in the job ads for technical communicators? http://tc.eserver.org/19075.html http://tc.eserver.org/19075.html Having the department of technical communication located within the School of Engineering has a significant impact on the program’s development. http://tc.eserver.org/19097.html http://tc.eserver.org/19097.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/19074.html http://tc.eserver.org/19074.html Anyone who presumes to use language for workplace tasks and problem-solving will need literacies beyond the formal ones traditionally and historically at the center of technical communication programmatic instruction. Today’s technical and scientific communication students must possess multiple literacies to be successful in the dynamic workplaces they will enter, no matter what their chosen specialties&endash;environmental, safety, medical, information technology, or multimedia writing. To meet students’ needs whether they enter programs for a single course or a course of study, I propose a pedagogical frame for articulating technical communication program goals. This frame is defined in terms of six key literacies--basic, rhetorical, social, technological, ethical, and critical. http://tc.eserver.org/19076.html http://tc.eserver.org/19076.html As faculty and administrators responsible for program implementation continue to explain to each other how engineers, computer programmers, business managers, and technical communicators view the world, I hope that a new and genuinely collaborative, interdisciplinary program will emerge. The resulting opportunities for students will--I hope--be worth the trouble. http://tc.eserver.org/19108.html http://tc.eserver.org/19108.html In a recent round of discussion on an American Society for Training and Development chat list, corporate trainers discussed the diverse skills they needed to do their jobs well. Requests for assistance and advice evidenced the trainers’ concerns about their writing skill levels. In my own position as a corporate trainer I found myself training in classrooms three days a week and writing the other two. Handling new projects meant not only training the participants but also developing the materials that would be used. At the same time, existing materials needed updates or corrections to remain current with policies, procedures, and technology. The reliability of such information professionally affected the training department to a large degree. Consequently, writing and updating training-related documentation became the primary responsibility of the training department. Our role as trainers had expanded to include information management. http://tc.eserver.org/19094.html http://tc.eserver.org/19094.html Technical Communication pedagogies that are informed by theories of Participatory Design offer new challenges and opportunities for both the assessment of student work and group projects, and in the evaluation of programmatic goals. http://tc.eserver.org/19063.html http://tc.eserver.org/19063.html Traditionally, Writing Across the Curriculum/Writing In the Disciplines have focused almost exclusively on preparing students to write in an academic environment in general and within their major disciplines in particular. Technical communication programs, on the other hand, focus almost entirely on preparing students to write for the world of work. A common concern among students, some professors, and many businesspeople is the lack of professional writing preparation that students receive within the university curriculum unless these students take courses in our programs. Even WAC/WID administrators are quick to note the need to find ways to integrate professional writing into some writing intensive courses. This presentation examined ways in which technical communication programs can revitalize writing-across-the-curriculum and writing-in-the-disciplines programs to the advantage of all concerned by working with WAC/WID administrators to design communication programs that integrate technical/professional into the curriculum at the senior level. Thus, technical communication programs can become the bridges that prepare students to enter the world of work with writing skills that are the focus of our programs. http://tc.eserver.org/19106.html http://tc.eserver.org/19106.html As society increasingly inhabits digital spaces in addition to physical places, the environment in which technical communication programs are developed undergoes fundamental change. To a large extent, these changes occur because networked digital spaces exhibit different dynamics, dimensions, and characteristics than do physical places. For example, while physical places have three dimensions, digital spaces are unlimited in their dimensions, connections, and relationships. In such spaces, different entities, such as people, agents, objects, technologies, and information relate to each other in unlimited numbers and ways. With this capacity, digital spaces allow for the nearly instant aggregation of mega-structures called portal technologies, which command the lion's share of traffic in these spaces. According to Adamic and Huberman, digital spaces thus follow what they call a 'universal power law,' resulting in a winner-take-all environment. http://tc.eserver.org/19109.html http://tc.eserver.org/19109.html Although we only used Durst's model as an initial starting point to help us articulate one of the main tensions in our revision process and then basically abandoned it, the final reading list we generated--although not perfect--does reveal a degree of 'reflective instrumentalism.' Students who have seen the new list make positive comments about it because the list manages to bring what seem to be opposite poles--reflection and instrumentalism--into a single reading list that represents the current state of our discipline. Although we seemed during the process have lost sight of our model, our list, though not perfect, does seem to represent reflective instrumentalism. http://tc.eserver.org/19086.html http://tc.eserver.org/19086.html My focus will be on Resistance to theory as expressed by advanced tech writing students. My experience has been that the majority of these students do not enjoy reading nor discussing an assigned theoretical article, such as Carolyn Miller’s 'What’s Practical about Technical Writing?' http://tc.eserver.org/19078.html http://tc.eserver.org/19078.html Whether the answer to this question is a resounding yes or no, we need to address this question when we consider models for strategic development. My own experience is that technical communication is drawing closer to issues present in both academia and industry, issues such as visualization of data, usability and field testing of products, design of instructional material for the web, and other research issues. But as the two domains need each other to begin to solve problems, the collaboration is fraught with perils, perils such as who states the problem, who manages the project, what resources are available for working on the project, and who owns the results? As we begin to try to strengthen the bond, do we currently have models for successful collaborations? Are there strategies in place that lead to success? Are certain approaches doomed to failure? http://tc.eserver.org/19091.html http://tc.eserver.org/19091.html This question, posed as one of many in the annual call for papers, asks further if we should, in developing our technical communications programs, focus on such niches as environmental, safety, or medical writing, writing on the Web, on computer documentation, or on multimedia. As someone who has been asked to coordinate a rethinking of our school’s technical writing curriculum, such a question is paramount. From the perspective of one such as myself, who teaches at a small institution, the answer to this question hinges on three primary considerations: first, how does one balance the need to serve a small university’s duty to serve the general, liberal education requirements of a small body of students with the need to turn out graduates who have specific, marketable skills (a particularly important consideration in technical writing)? Second, how specialized can we make a class in a college like mine before enrollment figures for these classes dry up? And third, are the categories of the niches listed above really mutually exclusive, or can we say that some of them, such as writing for the Web, could be seen as a focus area that could incorporate some of the others? http://tc.eserver.org/19079.html http://tc.eserver.org/19079.html Our presentation will explore four potential sites of critical action for programs in technical and professional writing/communication: community, corporation, curriculum, and computing. Some of these sites have already received attention in the field (e.g., corporation); other sites are relatively un(or under-) examined (e.g., community). http://tc.eserver.org/19072.html http://tc.eserver.org/19072.html Undergraduate technical communication programs are found across the spectrum of American colleges and universities, from the 2-year community college to the tier-one research university. Technical communication programs find themselves in the enviable position of being in a field where demand exceeds supply. The ratio of jobs to graduates in the workplace is greatly in favor of our students. Why then do many programs have difficulties recruiting students? Why do we not produce the graduate pool needed to meet the needs of industry? One reason for this problem is that most undergraduate technical communication programs do not employ systematic and informed recruitment strategies. In this presentation, I present a recruitment-strategy model based upon JoAnn Hackos’s process maturity model&emdash;a procedure which will give institutions a way to enculturate recruitment and to meet program and student needs. This model is informed by research I conducted in the spring of 2000. http://tc.eserver.org/19102.html http://tc.eserver.org/19102.html Unless the professional lives of my former students are unaccountably unique, I expect you will confirm that many of your own former students find themselves developing materials that will be used in workplace training situations. You are undoubtedly aware that a number of technical communicators not only develop such materials but serve as trainers, themselves. The other side of the coin is that full-time professional trainers commonly have to develop their own training documents. Indeed, the majority of students in our Advanced Technical Writing course at Illinois State University are Industrial Technology majors, whose professional goals are to work as industry trainers or as teachers of industrial technology in secondary and postsecondary education programs. http://tc.eserver.org/19082.html http://tc.eserver.org/19082.html Effective technical writing/training in my organization involves a model of performance that goes beyond traditional ideas about documentation and passive training methods. It involves a practice which, in a single word, I would call facilitating. Documents are part of it and new or changed behaviors by people in the organization are part of it, but a traditional writer or a traditional trainer, whether alone or working together, will not be able to achieve what we ask of them in our organization. Essentially, the model we have found successful and that we expect our technical writer/trainers to be able to implement involves the following. http://tc.eserver.org/19096.html http://tc.eserver.org/19096.html Assessment is a thorny issue, but a vital one. Accreditation teams not only want to see assessment plans in place, but also data gathered from them. ABET is a good example. Further, faculty, administrators, and students need formal rather than informal documentation of the growth or demise of either new or existing programs. http://tc.eserver.org/19071.html http://tc.eserver.org/19071.html Despite the success of internship components, however, a common complaint from industry professionals still exists: that students still don't know how to write. Part of this complaint could be explained by specific industry practices for which students still need to be trained. Another part could rest in the need for more research about industry contexts. Still another, and probably the most likely, is the perceived differences in academe and industry expectations for theoretical components of curricula. Academics assume that industry professionals seek practical skills dealing with 'correctness' in language (e.g., grammar, spelling, punctuation) at the expense of theory; while industry professionals assume academics seek more conceptual components (e.g., philosophy) at the expense of practice. I think both parties are asking for the same thing: they seek students/employees who can develop an understanding of the how and the why of their work (Miller, 1979); that is, students who possess productive knowledge about a particular craft. In other words, they exemplify a techne (Atwill). In classical rhetoric, techne is associated with the 'knowledge of arts and crafts associated with the making of things' (Johnson, 1998, p. 51). In Technical Communication, one way to think of techne is through genre knowledge, that is, knowing which form suits a particular situation and why. http://tc.eserver.org/19084.html http://tc.eserver.org/19084.html This paper discusses the phenomenon of a sense of timing as a sense of timely design and of timing as active response to unfolding demands as the key elements in making any program effective and durable. Indeed, I claim that timing is everything. Auburn's extended experience developing a new, high-profile Master's degree out of beginnings as a low-profile adjunct to a deeply conservative 'Great Books' English department has shown this clearly. Across the chronological stretch of a decade occupied with paying close attention to program elements, not only was effort required for time-keeping, or chronos, to establish and stabilize program elements, but a strong sense of timing, or kairos was also needed to meet and adjust to shifts in academic, political and industrial climates in and around the program. Rather than following a model or sticking to a set design, our decade of experience in transforming a 'concentration' program primarily serving undergraduates to a fully professional Master's degree has been a decade of improving our sense of timing. http://tc.eserver.org/19095.html http://tc.eserver.org/19095.html Assessment has long been a topic of conversation among technical communication teachers and program coordinators. Much has been written about how we assess and respond to work students do in our classrooms. We have also discussed methods to assess programs in technical and scientific communication (TSC). In fact, CPTSC offers a comprehensive self-study and program review. The purpose of the review 'is to help develop strong programs. . . not to compare or rank programs, and not to establish certification for programs or their graduates.' Of course, a focus on developing strong programs rather than ranking programs is an appropriate focus for an organization such as CPTSC. http://tc.eserver.org/19089.html http://tc.eserver.org/19089.html In recent years, technical communication programs have begun to introduce students to the principles of usability testing. A natural outgrowth of the traditional technical communication emphasis on audience analysis and user advocacy, usability testing also serves as an interesting and potentially lucrative career path for some technical communicators, and introduces a fascinating research trajectory for students and faculty alike. It’s no surprise that technical programs are incorporating usability testing instruction in one of two ways: some offer separate courses in usability testing at the undergraduate or graduate level. Specialized labs and corporate collaborations are often associated with such curriculum designs. Most incorporate usability into specific courses in a 'usability across the curriculum' model. Typically, existing computer labs double as usability testing facilities. These efforts are admirable, but leading scholars and practitioners agree that usability testing alone, because it occurs late in the product development cycle, no longer suffices. A gradual movement toward continuous user involvement at all stages of product development is underway. http://tc.eserver.org/19070.html http://tc.eserver.org/19070.html Technical communication strains disciplinary boundaries, which can make program development difficult. In a time when we are experiencing what Richard Lanham calls 'a complete renegotiation of the alphabet/icon ratio upon which print-based thought is built,' no traditional departmental home (e.g., English) seems appropriate. One look at the classified section of the Society for Technical Communication Web site suggests that a technical communication student should graduate with competence in information technology and visual rhetoric (among other possibilities) as well as writing. For many of us, however, those competencies fall outside the disciplinary boundaries as defined at our local institutions and in fact we may face penalties for developing such competencies. As a member of a department of English and linguistics, for example, my department has no way to reward me for learning CGI scripting or FrameMaker. http://tc.eserver.org/19098.html http://tc.eserver.org/19098.html Like many businesses, many academic programs in professional and technical communication attempt to promote themselves as unique and as fulfilling a particular niche. Such specific orientations can serve a marketing function. For instance, some professional and technical programs use their advertising literature to promote classes that train students in the uses of cutting edge technologies. And as this conference's call for proposals suggests, some programs may begin to focus primarily on a particular type of technical communication such as computer documentation, medical writing, or multimedia. http://tc.eserver.org/19077.html http://tc.eserver.org/19077.html As technical communications programs consider our own strategic program development it is important for us to consider a variety of program development models that exist both within and outside of traditional university contexts. This presentation will present alternative models for program development employed by leading corporate universities. These programs emphasize on-demand learning, immersion and experiential learning, and highly accountable educational experiences. The presentation will not argue that technical communication programs should simply import these models from corporate settings. Instead, it will suggest that corporate approaches bring many important issues to the table that strategic program developers need to evaluate and discuss as they consider their own program development. http://tc.eserver.org/19092.html http://tc.eserver.org/19092.html When developing a technical communication program, program developers need to determine how technical their programs will be. In my part of the country, for example, the prevailing philosophy for many years was that you could take technical people and teach them to write easier than you could take trained communicators and teach them the needed technical information. Ads for technical communicators across the country scream for knowledge and sometimes expertise in a wide range of computer software, and usually it is not only knowledge of formatting technical documents as in Frame, or Power Point, or HTML, but also knowledge of and again sometimes expertise about the scientific and technical subjects about which they write. http://tc.eserver.org/19103.html http://tc.eserver.org/19103.html My presentation will address the conference question of how institutional setting affects program focus and development. The answer, at least as we understand it so far, turns out to be fairly complex. In our case, for example, the recent changes to our Technical Writing degree have been directly responsive to rapid changes in the field of technical communication, in evolving technologies, and in the importance of information systems and web-related writing and design for technical communicators, At the same time, it is clearly the case that an equally strong influence has been the internal pressures we feel as we find ourselves competing with other departments at CMU for students who had once been a kind of private preserve, And this pressure involves more than competition for students. An equally important value at stake is our perceived status and role within our department and our university. http://tc.eserver.org/19107.html http://tc.eserver.org/19107.html I have been teaching HU2600, Introduction to Technical and Scientific Communication, a course in which students are introduced to the major and the profession for the last three years. Students have resisted this course during, and previous teachers report that the resistance preceded my taking over the course. I believe that students' resistance is tied, first, to the nature of technical communication education. Using C. S. Lewis's definitions, I point out that teaching the technical communication curriculum is not technically the same thing as educating the student; nor is it equivalent to offering students the chance to pursue 'learning' for its own sake. Rather, it is training aimed at producing a specialist. As such, the technical communication curriculum is what Lewis calls a composite curriculum chosen for the student by those who understand the profession better than they do. Add to this definition Jacques Ellul's claim that education in the technological society attempts to make people happy doing things they would normally not choose to do (348), and we arrive at an accurate, though unflattering, description of the project of 'educating' majors in technical communication. http://tc.eserver.org/19087.html http://tc.eserver.org/19087.html Technical Communication, as a discipline and as a practice, has always held an odd relationship to writing: We practice a subordinate for of writing, one step or more removed from those our cultures value most highly. We are not, admittedly, authors in the sense in which Foucault once defined the term. The writing that technical communicators do is of a different status than the writing that authors do. Although we could say that manuals and instructions and online help are the fuel that increasingly powers our economy, we would have to admit that our texts do not receive the esteem given to literature. But we might, instead, arrange the issue differently: what if technical communication rejects writing? Not merely in the sense that 'communication' is about multiple media, but in the more fundamental sense that technical communication is about a different order of production, more like the database than the essay. Rephrasing the question of value this way presents a different set of approaches to technical communication curricula, among other things, allowing us to take new perspectives on a set of issues that have haunted our field from the beginning. http://tc.eserver.org/15022.html http://tc.eserver.org/15022.html Technology has paradoxically expanded and contracted technical communication. With the expansion of jobs, particularly in computer documentation and Web development, the demand for academic programs to graduate these workers has also increased. In turn the demand for graduate programs to prepare the teachers for those programs has expanded. Even the growth of international communication as an area of study has followed largely from the export of technology. http://tc.eserver.org/14453.html http://tc.eserver.org/14453.html This presentation provided a rationale for electronic support systems and an overview of how such systems can be designed to meet the needs of technical communication teachers and programs. http://tc.eserver.org/13907.html http://tc.eserver.org/13907.html Programs in technical communication have, at least in their recent history, emphasized the preparation of students for corporate positions. We claim the ubiquity and relevance of our work to all areas of life, and indeed it is easy enough to find examples of 'technical communication' everywhere. But this observation is not the same as observing that there is a role for technical communicators everywhere.