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*** Not expressing an opinion about certification, but only about
certificate programs and education in general ***
I understand Bill's viewpoint, BUT.....
My $.02: I have experience, as a teacher, with certificate programs, and
also about two decades working as a member of software development teams
(sometimes as a PM, which I have been trained for). I believe that technical
writing uses either different approaches to, or subsets of, the larger PM
methods. And it's worth it to teach and learn those methods.
I would not want anyone to feel discouraged about getting education relevant
to a technical writer's career; I think it's very helpful if it is the right
education.
Many of the topics on your list were developed for the Technical Writing
Certificate program I helped develop at the University of South Florida
(USF). Our curriculum centered around what a technical communicator needed
to know from those disciplines and how they could apply it at work, where it
really counts.
The program was set up an adult education course, and was taught by
working technical communicators with an average of 15 to 20 years working
experience. Also, students who had graduated from the "for credit" program
(see next paragraph) were instrumental in lobbying the university for the
Certificate program, because they >said< they had not been taught skills
that prepared them to work in a high-tech company (or any other, really). (I
do think the credit program is much improved now, but this was in 1999.)
USF,primary "for credit" curriculum at the time was mainly based on
English literature, had no computer science classes, and had very little to
do with high-tech applications at all.
I taught, among other things, project management and estimating
specifically for technical writers. If there were students who wanted to go
on and take a complete project management track, they could, but most of us
don't need the whole thing to estimate and manage our documentation subset
of a software development plan.
The students who took the program believed it was valuable for their
careers. I loved doing it, because I could provide those writers with some
real world experience and methodologies to help them. It was not, however,
"certification." It was a structured program for adult learners that
focussed on the skills a real-world technical communicator needed to have to
get started. It was very cool, and I got back more than I gave too, as it
was also a wonderful learning experience for me.
Remember, though, I am not talking about *certification* about which I have
no current opinion at all, and flame on if you like :-PpPPPpp
>>>Putting away soapbox<<<<<<
PT
On 9/26/07, Bill Swallow <techcommdood -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:
>
> > Gene...I'm not so much talking about management training as part of
> certification, as I am the tech writer skills that usually fall under the
> manager's responsibility. Things like (following is only a very small part
> of the list):
> >
> > - Project management
> > - Calculating ROI and justifying expenditures
> > - Localization, Internationalization, and Globalization
> > - Agile and Extreme Development (or similar methodologies)
> > - Six Sigma (or similar methodology)
> >
> < SNIP>
> With the exception of L10n/i18n, I know that all of these listed items
> have their own specialized certifications already ...don't see
> ...these to be criteria ...[for] a technical writing
> certification. They are extremely important, but not directly relevant
> to technical writing itself.
>
> --
> Bill Swallow
> HATT List Owner
> WWP-Users List Owner
> Senior Member STC, TechValley Chapter
> STC Single-Sourcing SIG Manager
>http://techcommdood.blogspot.com
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