Technical Communication (TEC)

Technical Writing I is a fourteen-week post-diploma course in technical writing. It is designed to introduce students to essential concepts and foundational skills necessary for success in technical writing while encouraging critical thinking about the practice of technical communication.

This subject explains the fundamental concepts of computer hardware, operational methods, systems, and applications as they apply to the technical communicator. Students explore the issues and trends in technology that affect technical communicators, and which form the environment in which they work. Students will become familiar with the tools and technology they will use as working technical communicators.

Help authoring tools assist technical writers in designing, publishing, and maintaining web-based user assistance. This course examines various software commonly used by writers to create online help files. In this course, students are taught how to create professional online help content and context-sensitive help. Topics include planning help systems, customizing layouts and templates, single-sourcing topics, and publishing content in various formats. Students will develop and generate an online help system as part of their professional portfolio.

This course is designed to help students master those issues of grammar, usage, punctuation, mechanics and style that they need to know in order to be more efficient, flexible and assured writers and editors. While emphasis will be placed on copy editing, aspects of comprehensive editing will be examined.

Technical writers are often required to involve themselves with some aspect of coding, whether to have a basic understanding of developers roles and thus be better at communicating with them, or to provide guidance and assist in creating user interfaces.
This course takes a hands-on approach to basic coding. The first half of the course focuses on using Visual Basic for Applications, allowing you to design user interfaces and develop simple programs around them. Experiencing some application development and coding also provides some level of confidence when dealing with developers, which is often part of the technical writers job.
During the second half of the course you will learn HTML and gain the skills you need to produce web sites and edit existing web pages. It is common for the upkeep and editing of company internet and intranet sites to fall into the hands of the technical writer. By knowing the actual HTML coding, rather than learning a WYSIWYG ("what you see is what you get") editor, you gain the advantage of being easily able to transfer your HTML knowledge to any environment.
This course will take a hands-on approach to coding. Each lesson is provided as an HTML document for viewing on web browsers. Relevant examples and links are included in each lesson. As well, a short in-class assignment in each class gives you the opportunity to try each of the concepts discussed, while ensuring you know the basics.

Introduction to FrameMaker is a seven-week post-diploma course. It is designed to introduce students to fundamental concepts and procedures for working with Adobe FrameMaker, to prepare them for co-op work placements and eventually permanent positions.

What makes an experience intuitive, valuable, and meaningful? User Experience Design (UXD) gives designers and content creators the tools to empathize with the user to create meaningful experiences. This course provides students an introduction to the discipline of UX and an understanding of the tools and methodologies used for design choices. Students gain the knowledge to work on teams that integrate the user, business, and technology to build better experiences.

Students produce a (min.) 25-page user, policy, or training manual following all steps in the documentation life cycle and managing the project to completion.

Students expand their skills to add value as content strategists who influence content across all touchpoints in a customers journey. The information architect (IA) understands and influences the entire information experience, from product documentation, to UX, to marketing content and support content. The content strategist develops a strategy and plan for content creation and how a teams content will be structured and delivered to its audiences. In this course, students explore these fundamental concepts as they plan and organize content to enhance the customer experience.

Students produce a 20-minute multimedia web-based training course, according to their training plan, and using an authoring tool of their choice.
Increasingly, technical writers are making the move from the production of paper-based instructional materials to the development of online and web-based training materials. This course will introduce students to the design and development of eLearning. Moreover, this course enables students to make more informed decisions about instructional design when working in more traditional formats.
The terminal objective of the course is completion of a substantial stand-alone web-based group project. Issues addressed in weekly class sessions are aimed at preparing students to collaborate on matters of instructional planning and multimedia implementation for this project. Concepts of learning theory and instructional design will be introduced to help students prepare and organize effective training materials. Examination and analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of various presentation and web design strategies will enable students to make effective choices in preparing materials.
Mentoring in the use of Dreamweaver will give students more options in the development of effective multimedia learning materials. Collaboration in the development of storyboards and the sequence of screens for a group multimedia project will familiarize students with the instructional design process and with the various roles within a multimedia production team.

Students master FrameMaker 6.x to an advanced level and apply skills to TCN 800 in creation of a user, policy, or training manual.

FrameMaker IIStudents will learn FrameMaker to the advanced level necessary to produce the manual for TCN800.
Pre-requisite: TCN706

The course is a survey of the skills required to successfully operate a personal professional services business. It is also a discussion of employment issues - managing careers.
The course will be useful in either working as a self-employed person, as a contractor or as a salaried employee. It is also useful in hiring outside consultants for technical writing projects.

User Experience (UX) writers enhance a users digital product experience through creative user interface (UI) microcopy. In this course, students explore the processes and practices for writing accessible, inclusive, and intuitive content in a digital environment. Students learn the roles and responsibilities of the UX writer within product design and how to incorporate user insights across a complex product experience. Upon completion of this course, students are equipped with best practices for writing clear and compelling content for a digital product while meeting business and user goals.