English 578/678:
Developing Computer-Based Information:
From Paper to Online to Hypertext

Assignment Schedule

Reading Schedule

List of Journals and Suggested Readings

Wednesdays, 5-730
Room: Mondays: Computer Classroom
Instructor: Dr. Stephen A. Bernhardt
Office: 222 English
Hours: Monday 2-4; Wednesday 3-5, and by appointment
Office PhoneBox: 646-2027 email sbernhar@nmsu.edu

Required Textbooks:

Course Description:

This course is intended to provide a background in the theory and research involved in producing computer-based information. It provides guided practice in planning, developing, and testing documentation. It stresses good project management skills: planning and budgeting projects and keeping them on budget and on time.

The course will consider both paper and online documentation. English 578 will move from general considerations of writing for the computer industry to the design of paper tutorials and manuals, and then to issues of online text, help systems, hypertext, and web construction. Students will complete several modest projects involving analyzing existing documentation, producing simple paper docs, and then hypertext documents and online information. We will read widely and work on class exercises together before moving toward individual and group projects in the latter half of the term.

A frequent format for classes will be some time spent discussing readings and then some time spent analyzing and critiquing samples of documentation/information. At the beginning of the term, we will all bring in samples of documentation and work through help systems so we can begin to develop shared criteria for evaluation. Later in the term, we will help each other through group editing sessions and through user-testing each other's documentation. Each person in the class should expect to bring work before the group during workshop sessions. We will also form an email discussion group; regular participation is expected and encouraged. I hope to bring speakers to the class: practicing professional writers who can talk about what they do. You are welcome to help me schedule visitors to class.

We will count on each other throughout the course, sometimes in small groups, sometimes in pairs, sometimes as a full class. I will give each of you careful criticism of your work and make myself available for individual conferences at your convenience. I would rather help you with your projects as you work on them, rather than evaluate them after you are finished (though I must also do that!).

Computer documentation and online texts represent a major area of technical documentation undergoing rapid change and development. Each of us is challenged by the proliferation of computers within our lives and good documentation and information holds the promise of helping people establish productive relationships with technology. As such, computer documentation has tremendous potential for bringing order and efficiency to people's lives by reducing the frustration people have working with machines.

Online information promises to quickly assume many of the functions traditionally served by paper and to create many new forms of information as well. Computer-based information is exploding because of the internet, the web, and CD-ROMs. People increasingly access a wide variety of hypertexts on the www and work with various online texts and applications on their home and work computers.

I hope you will catch some of my enthusiasm for the challenge of documentation, and that you will develop your own interests. You should get in the habit immediately of working with documentation, both paper and online. Start using the information systems available to you, always with two purposes: to learn to do things and to see how (and whether) you are being helped in the process. Be on the lookout for interesting ways of doing things in documentation and for articles to share with the class. Find out what is in the library. Browse the current journals. Determine where the paths of documentation cross with interface design, online information, graphic design, learning psychology, and other related fields.

Learning Objectives:

Students should be able to:

• Critique and revise existing printed and online computer documentation and information.
• Describe and follow a document development process described in a document plan.
• Estimate time and cost of documentation projects.
• Describe and write in styles appropriate to printed and online documentation.
• Define and follow a style sheet in producing a well formatted document.
• Create line drawings; capture screens; produce figures with call outs; import and size graphics.
• Read and evaluate articles and books on computer documentation.
• Work as a team member on collaborative projects.
• Present a critique, presentation, or short review to the class with computer-produced overheads.