Bringing technical authoring skills to life for students through an employer audience

Strachan, Rebecca, Pickard, Alison and Laing, Christopher (2010) Bringing technical authoring skills to life for students through an employer audience. ITALICS (Innovation in Teaching and Learning in Information and Computer Sciences), 9 (2). pp. 1-11. ISSN 1473-7507

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Abstract

It is crucial that students in the computing area are equipped with strong research and technical authoring skills and expertise. These are transferable lifelong skills which are sometimes difficult to develop and can be viewed as ‘dull’ by the students. This study explores a more authentic and lively approach to delivering and assessing a module on technical authoring to undergraduate computing students. Students were asked to produce work for presentation at a conference aimed at external participants mainly from local industry and business. This challenged the students in terms of their technical authoring skills and brought a professionalism and realism to the module. There were other less obvious benefits from this approach. Students gained in confidence through the work they presented but also through being ‘delegates’ at the conference and engaging in the question and answer sessions. Student feedback on the module was positive and constructive and their assessment work was of a high standard.

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