Metadata and Memory: Lessons from the Canon of Memoria for the Design of Content Management Systems

To date, most of the research on usability and content management systems has focused on the end-user products of such systems rather than on the usability for technical communicators of the single-source authoring tools offered within these systems. While this latter research is undeniably important, attention needs to be paid to the plight of technical communicators attempting to use single-sourcing tools. Otherwise, technical communicators in workplaces risk becoming semi-skilled contingent labor rather than empowered knowledge workers. This essay, therefore, attempts to open a debate about the design of content management systems by turning to the rhetorical canon of memory as an appropriate source for insights into how stored information can be flexibly retrieved and used during composing activities.     

The unfortunate human factor: A selective history of human factors for technical communicators

Human factors Is an important discipline for technical communicators to explore, but an examination of its historical bias toward the technological system and away from the user should be part of this exploration if we are to effectively use human factors methods in print and on‐line document development. Beginning with the advent of formal human factors in the early twentieth century, this essay reviews moments in the history of human factors that are especially relevant to technical communicators. The essay concludes with a discussion of human factors research that is most applicable to technical communications, specifically qualitative usability research, minimalism, and human activity interface design.     

Characteristic-Based, Task-Based, and Results-Based: Three Value Systems for Assessing Professionally Produced Technical Communication Products

Technical communicators have developed different methodologies for evaluating the effectiveness of their work (whether the information can be used by the intended audience), such as editing, usability testing, and determining the value-added. But, as vastly differing assessments of the same professionally produced technical communication products suggest, at least three broad value systems underlie the assessment practices: characteristic-based (assessing against a set of criteria), task-based (assessing users' observed ability to perform tasks), and results-based (assessing the contribution to the publisher, usually in financial terms). The systems do not overlap with one another; rather, they embody different values about what makes technical communication effective. The most complete form of assessment may involve multiple assessment approaches and triangulated results.     

A Systematic Literature Review of Changes in Roles/Skills in Component Content Management Environments and Implications for Education

Component content management (CCM) enables organizations to create, manage, and deliver content as small components rather than entire documents. As CCM methodologies, processes, and technologies are increasingly adopted, CCM is reshaping technical communication (TC), the roles of technical communicators, and the skills they need for career success. This article reviews scholarly and trade publications that describe changes in roles and needed skills in CCM environments and identifies implications of these changes for TC education.     

The Usability of Print and Online Video Instructions

This study investigates the usability of print and online video instructions for computer tasks. Usability tests, comprehension tests, and questionnaires were collected from participants, and 4 areas of usability were analyzed: effectiveness, retention, satisfaction, and preference. Findings show marginal differences between the 2 mediums, except in terms of user satisfaction and instruction length. This research helps technical communicators better understand the affordances, or potentials and limitations, of print and video instructions.     

Content Management and the Separation of Presentation and Content

The importance of separating presentation from content is taken as a given in many kinds of publishing, despite the fact that the notion of separation has received little critical scrutiny. I provide a closer look at the separation, first by providing contemporary and historical context, then by laying out key distinctions in the ways the separation argument is used in Web design versus Web content management versus full-featured content management systems (CMSs). I suggest that these distinctions are critical in how we should view the separation and the implications of the separation for the work of technical communicators.     

Content Management and the Separation of Presentation and Content

The importance of separating presentation from content is taken as a given in many kinds of publishing, despite the fact that the notion of separation has received little critical scrutiny. I provide a closer look at the separation, first by providing contemporary and historical context, then by laying out key distinctions in the ways the separation argument is used in Web design versus Web content management versus full-featured content management systems (CMSs). I suggest that these distinctions are critical in how we should view the separation and the implications of the separation for the work of technical communicators.     

The Rhetoric of Enterprise Content Management (ECM): Confronting the Assumptions Driving ECM Adoption and Transforming Technical Communication

This article lays out some of the key issues driving organizations' increasing interest in enterprise content management (ECM). It then problematizes both the rhetoric that technology developers are using to sell ECM technologies to business leaders and the assumptions on which business leaders are basing critical technology implementation decisions. Finally, it argues why technical communicators must take action—through direct participation in the ECM discourse—to shift the rhetoric that is structuring the ECM debate and thus shaping the potential of the field of technical communication.     

Women Organizers of the First Professional Associations in Technical Communication

Women technical communicators helped to organize many of the first professional associations for technical communicators in the 1940s and 1950s. For some of these women, organizing was an occupational closure strategy of revolutionary usurpation: They may have hoped to position themselves favorably to shape a future profession that was not predicated on hidden forms of their inclusion. Exclusionary and demarcationary forces, however, seem to have ultimately undermined their efforts, alienating some of them and inducing others to adopt a strategy of inclusionary usurpation. In addition to using gender-sensitive revisions of occupational closure theory to explain the phenomenon of the woman organizer, the author chronicles the emergence of 8 professional associations for technical communicators and identifies the women technical communicators who helped to organize them.     

Deepening the Responsibility: A Social Epistemic Approach to the Ethics of Professional and Technical Writing

This article recommends strategies academics can use to contribute to an issue of great interest in industry: how best to define, measure, and achieve quality documentation. These strategies include contextualizing quality definitions, advocating the use of multiple quality measures, conducting research to identify specific heuristics for defining and measuring quality in particular workplace contexts, and partnering with industry to educate upper management about those heuristics and the benefits of promoting technical communicators to the strategic role of organizational “gatekeepers of quality.”     

基于IEC61850电力系统自动化的探讨

随着电力系统的迅速发展,电力网络的结构及运行方式日趋复杂,为保证系统的安全经济运行,对电力系统自动化水平和调度管理功能要求越来越高。很多新的应用系统软件相继出现,如:实时系统诊断系统、维护管理系统、系统监视和资产管理系统等等,将这些独立的系统整合起来,成为一个相互联系的整体,是电力系统自动化发展的必然I。EC61850标准无疑将是今后网络通信架构的方向。依据IEC61850标准,不同厂商的各个自动化系统将具有互操作性,从而整个大系统具有同一的编程开发维护环境和同一的企业标签名数据库,方便系统建模和升级扩展。     

The Rhetoric of Enterprise Content Management (ECM): Confronting the Assumptions Driving ECM Adoption and Transforming Technical Communication

This article lays out some of the key issues driving organizations' increasing interest in enterprise content management (ECM). It then problematizes both the rhetoric that technology developers are using to sell ECM technologies to business leaders and the assumptions on which business leaders are basing critical technology implementation decisions. Finally, it argues why technical communicators must take action—through direct participation in the ECM discourse—to shift the rhetoric that is structuring the ECM debate and thus shaping the potential of the field of technical communication.     

Combining Operations Management and Information Systems Curricula: Assessing Alumni Preparations for the Workforce

The purpose of this study is to explore how well a curriculum that combines operations management and information systems uniquely prepares students for the workforce. To address our research questions, a Web‐based survey was developed. We sent our survey to 203 alumni that graduated from the Department of Operations Management and Information Systems at Northern Illinois University. We assess alumni perceptions of how well our department prepared them in general and technical skills as well as how important these skills were in their current position. We investigate factors useful in predicting preparedness for both general business and technical skills. Overall, students felt prepared in most of the important skills we studied. We also found a significant positive relationship between alumni‐perceived importance of general and technical skills and perceived preparedness for those skills. More recent graduates felt the most prepared for both general business and technical skills. Our findings highlight the importance of general skills for future advancement and caution educators against overemphasizing currently popular technical tools at the expense of teaching the more general business skills. Results presented here provide new knowledge for curriculum designers at the intended institution and lessons for other schools. This research also provides a methodology or process that can be repeated at other institutions that combine information systems with operations management, or with other functions such as decision sciences or accounting. An implication of the results is that schools redesigning their programs may want to consider a curriculum that combines operations management and information systems.     

From forums to wikis: Perspectives on tools for collaboration

Web 2.0 communication tools have considerable promise for supporting collaborative learning. But there is a need for research examining learners' and teachers' experiences of the newer communication tools, such as wikis, in comparison with well-established tools, such as discussion forums. This paper reports on an initiative where distance learners used an in-house wiki for online tutorials which had previously taken place via forums. The perspectives of students and tutors on this experience were gathered via an online questionnaire to students and unstructured online feedback from tutors. Some students and tutors felt that the wiki was better than a forum for collaborating on shared documents. However, at that stage in the wiki's development it was found to be more difficult to use than a forum, and slower. Some tutors found the wiki to be too slow to use effectively. These findings highlight the importance of good usability in collaborative software. The research also revealed that some students were uncomfortable with the prospect of editing each others' work in the wiki. They had concerns related to ownership of contributions. This finding relates to the concept of ‘sociability’ in relation to online communication. The research therefore identifies both usability and sociability as key requirements for Web 2.0 communication tools.     

Alternatives to rules for knowledge-based modelling

The technology of knowledge-based systems undoubtedly offers potential for educational modelling, yet its practical impact on today's school classrooms is very limited. To an extent this is because the tools presently used in schools are mostly rule-based expert system shells, which lack usability. We developed three alternative tools, using ideas from knowledge acquisition research, and compared their effectiveness to that of an established rule-based shell. Children working with the new tools produced higher quality models and developed more positive attitudes. We relate these findings to the forms of representation provided by the new tools and present evidence that modelling increases children's representational skill. We conclude that knowledge acquisition systems and alternative forms of representation can contribute to improved forms of knowledge-based modelling.     

Myths about instrumental discourse: A response to Robert R. Johnson

Abstract of the original article

Robert R. Johnson's “Complicating Technology: Interdesciplinary Method, the Burden of Comprehension, and the Ethical Space of the Technical Communicator,” published in the Winter 1998 issue of TCQ, points out that there is much for technical communicators to learn from the burgeoning field of technology studies. Technical communicators, however, have an obligation to exercise patience as they enter this arena of study. Using interdisciplinary theory, this article argues that technical communication must assume the “burden of comprehension”: the responsibility of understanding the ideologies, contexts, values, and histories of those disciplines from which we borrow before we begin using their methods and research findings. Three disciplines of technology study—history, sociology, and philosophy—are examined to investigate how these disciplines approach technology. The article concludes with speculation on how technical communicators, by virtue of their entrance into this interdisciplinary arena, might refashion both their practical roles and the scope of their ethical responsibilities.     

Social Network Analysis and Professional Practice: Exploring New Methods for Researching Technical Communication

This article provides background on social network analysis, an innovative research paradigm that focuses on the importance of social networks. The article begins by giving background on the development of social network analysis and different methods used by social network analysis researchers. The article then examines how these methods can be used in the field of technical communication by focusing on how technical communicators form social networks and connect diverse audiences.     

Relocating the Value of Work: Technical Communication in a Post-Industrial Age

This article analyzes the location of “value” in technical communication contexts, arguing that current models of technical communication embrace an outdated, self-deprecating, industrial approach subordinating information to concrete technological products. By rethinking technical communication in terms of Reich's “symbolic-analytic work”, technical communicators and educators can move into a post-industrial model of work that prioritizes information and communication, with benefits to both technical communicators and users.     

Exploring Discount Usability Methods to Assess the Suitability of Online Course Delivery Products

Increasingly, universities are providing instruction supported by or entirely delivered through the World Wide Web. Numerous applications are available for the development and delivery of online course materials and learning environments. Typically, when choosing which of these products to use, the decisions have been based on the technical specifications and features that the products offer. The author makes the argument that usability, specifically the attribute of ease of learning, should be a criterion used in the evaluation of online course delivery systems. By using this criterion, universities can better determine which application meets the concern of faculty regarding the length of time and the amount of training and support needed to move their classes to the Web. A usability evaluation of two applications, WebCT and Web-Course-in-a-Box was conducted as a way of demonstrating that discount usability is an accessible methodology that can yield valuable information about the usability of a product.     

Live-action Communication Design: A Technical How-To Video Case Study

This case study is based on a research through design project (RTD) that focuses on a technical communication video of the live-action format. It investigates the usability and design-implications of a live-action how-to video, by means of analyzing user-centered data such as YouTube analytics data, usability, and comprehension assessments. In the study, four key live-action video affordances are identified: verifiability, comparability, recordability, and visibility. The identification of these affordances when related to the users’ assessments resulted in several design implementations that would warrant sought-for communication efficacies. Findings show that some assumed efficacies appear to be mitigated by the complexity and the density of the video information. One implication of this is that the implementation of conventional video editing techniques and the addition of on-screen text that serve to make content briefer and more concise into instructional live-action videos requires the technical communicator’s careful consideration.