June 2015 – Saul Carliner

June 29, 2015June 23, 2015

Enroll in in “Instructional Design for Technical Communicators” Online Certificate Program

Technical communicators, have you been charged with developing a tutorial or similar instructional program (or expect to be)? Or have you developed tutorials but are looking to do so more effectively?

Then consider enrolling in Instructional Design for Technical Communicators, a 4-session live online certificate program offered by the Society for Technical Communication.

This program provides you with the skills needed to successfully produce effective learning programs, including following the ADDIE approach, writing instructional objectives, developing criterion-referenced quizzes and tests, describing the dominant Kirkpatrick model of evaluation, choosing an instructional strategy then applying it, and creating engaging, supportive instructional programs.

The workshop is offered online, requiring no travel to training.

To enroll and learn more information (including session dates and times), click here. (Takes you to the STC website.)

June 26, 2015June 23, 2015

Second Quarter 2015 Issue of the IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication Now Available

The Second Quarter 2015 issue of the IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication is now available online, and will be arriving in the mailboxes of members over the next several weeks (packaged with the First Quarter issue).

Highlights of the issue include:

1. Editorial: The Basics of Reporting Research by Saul Carliner

Explains the guidelines that have driven the reporting of research in the Transactions since 4Q2011.

2. Research Article: Social Media and Multinational Corporations’ Corporate Social Responsibility in China: The Case of ConocoPhillips Oil Spill Incident by Juelin Yin, Jieyun Feng, and Yuyan Wang

Describes how the Chinese public used social media to express concern following a major oil spill and how institutional players responded.

3. Research Article: Ecodefense and the Technical Communication of Ecotage by Derek Ross

Looks at the role of plain language in subversive environmental texts and the ethics of doing so.

4. Research Article: Personas in Heuristic Evaluation: A Classroom-Based Exploratory Study by Erin Friess

Describes a classroom based study on using personas in heuristic evaluations of texts.

5. Research Article: Writing for fantasy sports: A comparative analysis of user-generated writing by amateur writers and professional journalists by Ming Cheung and Ryman White

Explores a particular class of user-generated documentation in-depth: fan-provided material for fantasy sports. Although the article explores fantasy sports, there are many implications for professional and technical communicators, who can learn about what types of material users might provide and its quality.

6. Teaching Case: Teaching and Learning in Cross-Disciplinary Virtual Teams by Pam Estes Brewer, Alanah Mitchell, Robert Sanders, Paul Wallace, and David D. Wood

A teaching case that explores how two groups of students from three different disciplines worked together, produced projects, and learned from one another.

7. Book Reviews:

Review of Sharing Our Intellectual Traces, edited by Tracy Bridgeford, Karla Saari Kitalong, and Bill Williamson. Reviewed by: Karen Wisne

Review of Slide Rules: Design, Build, and Archive Presentations in the Engineering and Technical Fields, by Traci Nathans-Kelly and Christine G. Nicometo. Reviewed by Ronald L Stone, Member IEEE.

To view the issue online, visit http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/mostRecentIssue.jsp?punumber=47. Note that a subscription is required to see all of the articles except for the editorial.

June 25, 2015June 23, 2015

Concordia Professor Receives Seventh Award in Best Article Competition

June 23, 2015

Concordia University professor Saul Carliner and his co-authors, Juan Carlos Sanchez-Lozano, a Latin America-based consultant, and Adnan Qayyum, an Assistant Professor at Penn State University received an Award of Distinguished Technical Communication in the Frank R. Smith Outstanding Article Competition for their article, “What measures of productivity and effectiveness do Technical Communication managers track and report?” which appeared in the Third Quarter 2014 issue of the peer-reviewed journal, Technical Communication.

The article reports the results of an empirical study that explores the various ways that technical communication managers track and report on the productivity and effectiveness of their teams to upper management. One of the significant findings of the study is that word-of-mouth—rather than return-on-investment—is the primary means that managers use to assess the productivity and effectiveness of technical communication groups.

Technical Communication is the peer-reviewed journal of the Arlington, Virginia-based Society for Technical Communication, the world’s largest professional society for technical communicators. The Frank R. Smith Award recognizes the outstanding articles published in the journal in the previous year. Carliner was previously recognized in 2012, 2002, 2001, 2000, 1995, and 1986.

June 24, 2015June 23, 2015

Another Successful ED-MEDIA

Congratulations, AACE, on another successful ED-MEDIA conference.

ED-MEDIA is an annual international conference organized by the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE) which serves as a multi-disciplinary forum for the discussion and exchange of information on the research, development, and applications on all topics related to multimedia, hypermedia and telecommunications/distance education.

The conference hosted over 500 delegates representing 58 countries.

And thank you, AACE, for the honor of co-chairing this event. I enjoyed meeting so many people and learning about their work with educational technology, and sharing Concordia sites and Montreal travel tips with them.

If you missed the conference, catch up on the proceedings by searching for the hashtag #edmedia, #edmedia2015 or visit EDITLIB to check out the conference proceedings.