Request for advice re: tech comm course design

[Geoff hart <ghart -at- attcanada -dot- ca>]

Peggy Jordan's school is <<...considering dividing a tech comm course called 
"Document Production" into two courses, one of which would focus on ... 
on-screen document production... Do any of you in the field have suggestions 
for what such a course should cover to prepare students for the real world?>>

A simplistic overview for such a course should include (in roughly this order) 
the following topics: understanding audience needs (audience analysis), 
developing an overview of the software's functionality (the largest part of a 
documentation plan), a careful analysis of how you can match the needs with the 
functionality you're trying to document (the remainder of the documentation 
plan), exposure to at least two and preferably all of the main tools for 
actually producing the online information, and usability testing (making sure 
you've actually met the needs of the audience). The many interpersonal 
components of these topics are also important: interviewing skills, the care 
and feeding of engineers and other subject-matter experts, office politics and 
how the real-world office works (and fails to work), and so on. Each of these 
is a large topic and should be broken down into smaller topics to permit 
adequate coverage.

--Geoff Hart  ghart -at- netcom -dot- ca
Pointe-Claire, Quebec, Canada
"Most business books are written by consultants and professors who haven't 
spent much time in a cubicle. That's like writing a firsthand account of the 
Donner party based on the fact that you've eaten beef jerky."--Scott Adams, The 
Dilbert Principle