#21827
International Technical Communication Programs and Global Ethics 
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?
Savage, Gerald J. CPTSC Proceedings (2001). Articles>Education>Ethics>International
#22445
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.
Sapp, David Alan. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Education>International>Cuba
#23372
Intertwining Structures of Assessment and Support: Assessing Programs-Advancing the Profession 
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.
Herrington, TyAnna K. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Education>Assessment
#15022
Is the Future Identity of Technical Communication Specialization or Diversity?
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.
Rude, Carolyn D. CPTSC Proceedings (2000). Presentations>TC>Education
#13907
Is There a Place for Technical Communication in the Public Sphere?
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.
Rude, Carolyn D. CPTSC Proceedings (2002). Presentations>TC>Cultural Theory
#19074
A Layered Literacies Frame for Articulating Program Goals
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.
Cargile Cook, Kelli. CPTSC Proceedings (2000). Academic>Education>TC
#21549
Legal Communication in Technical Communication Programs: Worth Thinking About?
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?
Stratman, James F. CPTSC Proceedings (2001). Articles>Business Communication>Legal>Technical Writing
#13909
Lest We Think the Revolution Is a Revolution: Images of Technology and the Nature of Change
When technical communication teachers get together to talk about technology, they generally end up talking about change. It is common sense, after all to link computers with change when microprocessors now double in speed every 18 months (Patterson, 1995), when biomemory, superscalar architecture, and picoprocessors become feature stories for National Public Radio; and when media generations flash by in less time than it takes to uncrate a faculty workstation and get rid of the Styrofoam packing.
Selfe, Cynthia L. CPTSC Proceedings (1995). Presentations>Technology>History>Rhetoric
#23382
Looking for Trouble: Moments of Crisis in a Professional Writing Curriculum
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.
Franke, David. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Academic>Education>Management
#23366
Making it Fit: Teaching Online Information Design in Two Programs with One Course
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.
Worley, Rebecca B. and Deborah C. Andrews. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Education>Information Design
#21817
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.
Smith Taylor, Summer. CPTSC Proceedings (2001). Articles>Education>Service Learning
#13889
The Need for Architect/Construction Worker Dichotomies in Information Architecture as a Profession
I would suggest that before we adopt the 'information architect' model and concede the construction worker (role of 'other') to many members of our field in order to negotiate management positions for a few, that we look to other professions to see how they have resisted this dichotomy. It may be argued, perhaps, that professions such as medicine and the law have managed to avoid successfully such hierarchical dichotomies -- at least in part. At the least, we should debate the possible implications of such systems more rigorously than we have to date.
Sauer, Geoffrey. CPTSC Proceedings (2002). Presentations>Information Design>Workplace
#19076
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.
Ecker, Pamela S. CPTSC Proceedings (2000). Academic>Education>WPA
#19108
One Perspective: Blurring the Distinction Between Writer and Trainer
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.
Van Dyne, Jenna. CPTSC Proceedings (2000). Articles>Writing>Instructional Design
#20492
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.
Bridgeford, Tracy. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Careers>Academic>Workplace
#19094
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.
Moore, Michael R. CPTSC Proceedings (2000). Articles>Education>TC>Participatory Design
#20494
The Pedagogical and Programmatic Issues of Incorporating ePortfolios
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.
Dubinsky, Jim. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Academic>Portfolios
#21823
The Place of Communication in Technical Writing Programs
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.
Bridgeford, Tracy and James M. Dubinsky. CPTSC Proceedings (2001). Articles>Education>Writing>Technical Writing
#22179
What happens when we adapt the paradigm of service learning, which traditionally serves the underprivileged or nonprofits, to for-profit clients?
Williams, Sean D. and Renee Love. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Education>Service Learning
#21582
Portrait of a Maturing Department
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.
L'Eplattenier, Barbara, Betty Freeland, Cindy Nahrwold, Karen Kuralt and Susann Barr. CPTSC Proceedings (2001). Articles>Education>Technical Writing
#21821
Program/Professional Management/Identity
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.
Williamson, William J. CPTSC Proceedings (2001). Articles>Education>TC
#19063
A Proposal for the Marriage of Technical Communication and WAC/WID
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.
Bosley, Deborah S. CPTSC Proceedings (2000). Articles>Writing>Writing Across the Curriculum
#21825
Providing a Backbone for an Online Master's Program in Technical Communication
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?
Coppola, Nancy W. CPTSC Proceedings (2001). Articles>Education>Online
#22449
Re-Creating a PhD: From Technical to Professional Writing
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.
Tillery, Denise. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Education>Graduate>PhD
#19106
Re-Visioning and Repositioning Technical Communication Programs in Digital Spaces
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.
Starke-Meyerring, Doreen. CPTSC Proceedings (2000). Academic>Education
