Directing Growth and Growing Directors: Developing Leaders for Technical Communication Programs  

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.

Hansen, Craig. CPTSC Proceedings (2000). Academic>Education>WPA

Disciplinary Boundaries: Where (and How) Should Usability Testing Be Taught?    

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?

Barnum, Carol M. CPTSC Proceedings (2001). Articles>Education>Usability

Do Technical Writers Need a Help Applications Course?  

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.

McShane, Becky Jo. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Education>Documentation>Help

Do We Know Who We Are and Where We Belong? Challenge in the Midst of Change    

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.

Friedlander, Alexander. CPTSC Proceedings (2001). Articles>Education>Graduate

The Dual Mission of the Community College and Implications for Technical Writing Instruction  

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.

Kratz, Stephanie. CPTSC Proceedings (2000). Articles>Education>Writing>Technical Writing

Electronic Support Systems for Technical Communication Teachers    

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.

Selber, Stuart A. CPTSC Proceedings (2000). Presentations>Education>Online>EPSS

Embracing Digital Media in Engineering  

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.

Atkinson, Dianne. CPTSC Proceedings (2000). Academic>Education>Engineering

Expanding Our Borders to New Sites of Practice  

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.

Rude, Carolyn D. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Education>TC

Expanding the Borders of Our Curriculum to Include Communities of Practice  

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.

Harner, Sandi. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Education>TC

The Extension of Technical Writing into Performance Consulting  

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.

Hile, Julie. CPTSC Proceedings (2000). Academic>Education>Writing>Technical Writing

Going it Alone: How a Freestanding Program Develops Its Own Identity  

Going it alone, the SFSU program has integrity as a community, yet struggles a bit within an institutional structure designed for established discipline departments.

Rehling, Louise. CPTSC Proceedings (2000). Academic>Education>WPA

Going the Distance: Online Teachers' Perspectives on the Usability and Sustainability of Teaching Writing Online  

Distance education research tends to focus on students' experiences in the online classroom because students are the bread-and-butter of distance learning programs.

Kitalong, Karla Saari. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Education>Online

Going Wireless at the Border  

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.

Carnegie, Teena A.M. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Academic>Education>Technology

The Greater the Resistance the Higher the Voltage? or, How to Know When to Pull the Plug on a Technical Writing Program  

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.

Ranney, Frances J. CPTSC Proceedings (2000). Academic>Education>WPA

Growing Technical Communication Programs through Recruiting  

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?

Maylath, Bruce A.R. CPTSC Proceedings (2000). Academic>Education>WPA

Here Comes That Song Again: The Theory and Practice Blues  

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?

Allen, Nancy J. CPTSC Proceedings (2000). Academic>Education>Undergraduate>Theory

Heuristics for Sustainable Distance Education  

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.

Selber, Stuart A. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Education>Instructional Design>Online

How Does the Institutional Home of a Program Affect its Development?  

Having the department of technical communication located within the School of Engineering has a significant impact on the program’s development.

Davis, Marjorie T. CPTSC Proceedings (2000). Academic>Education>Engineering

How the Web Is Changing the Role of the Service Course    

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.

Riordan, Dan. CPTSC Proceedings (2001). Articles>Education>Writing>Technical Writing

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

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