Browsing by Subject "Technical communication"
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Item Autoethnography of invention(2012-08) Jahnke, Nathan; Still, Brian; Cook, Kelli C.; Dragga, Sam A.Autoethnography of Invention is my firsthand account of the period from December of 2009 through March of 2011, during which I helped invent a new, low-cost eye tracking technology. Eye tracking allows researchers to record where people are looking; it also allows people to move a computer's mouse cursor with their eyes. Unable to afford commercial eye tracking products on the market in early 2010, my partners and I in the Usability Research Laboratory in the Department of English at Texas Tech University set out to create our own eye tracking hardware and software. The technology we developed later went to market as the EyeGuide series of eye tracking products. As a technical communicator, it was my job to translate the already existing work on low-cost eye tracking into a more usable form. As a rhetorician, it was my job to analyze audiences in different contexts and to adjust my arguments accordingly; in particular, I worked with stakeholders inside and outside of my university, department, and usability lab in order to ensure that my work would reach the widest possible audience.Item Automated dispensing cabinets: A usability study using virtual reality simulation(2012-05) Linn, Colleen M.; Haq, Saif; Hill, Glenn E.; DeLucia, Patricia R.; Decker, SharonAutomated Dispensing Cabinets (ADC) are increasingly becoming essential technology in hospitals. Currently, the available research on ADCs is primarily in two areas. One area is in the design and specifications of ADCs, and the other is their role in reducing medical and inventory errors. Regarding the latter, 'before-after' studies are predominant. ADCs are a relatively new addition to hospital equipment. This means that there are fewer machine-human interaction studies. Machine-human interaction is important for assessing efficiency and errors, especially when taking into account the long working hours of the nurses along with its associated cognitive loads and fatigue. A study was devised that investigated the machine-human interrelationships of the hospital ADCs. Since these are expensive, this study uses a Virtual Reality Simulation (VRS) of a one particular brand. Experiments on machine-human interactions are carried out within the VRS. The first step of the study involved creating the VRS, and then it was evaluated to determine its usability. This was done by asking nurses, those who have had prior knowledge and experience with ADCs, to test out the VRS and provide feedback through a 10 question modified system usability survey (SUS). Nurses were given a task to complete within the VRS. This was one that is commonly done in a real world situation. At the conclusion of the study, the results from the usability data are used to report on the advantages, disadvantages, and the implications of creating a VRS of an ADC. Recommendations for future research are also included in this thesis.Item Effects and implications of changing approaches to information on technical communication(2011-05) Betz, MatthewThe ways that individuals take advantage of information and communication technologies are leading to new approaches to both information and communication. Recent technological developments, such as cellular phones and wireless-broadband internet are being used to provide instant access to information and networks, allowing users to satisfy their needs or desires almost immediately and from almost any location. More specifically, shifting approaches to information have encouraged a new kind of rapid meaning making in physical and digital spaces that differs in fundamental ways from the sort of quickly-formed view of the world that television and radio brought. Who is producing and distributing this information is of primary concern to technical communicators because amateurs and uninformed users now have access to the same networks, and content production and distribution methods as professionals. Parallel to individuals’ decentralized and true-enough information approaches are concerns over the position of credentialed knowledge workers to information spaces, communities, and cultures, and concerns over new relationships between quality and speed. Due to the growing scale of new approaches to information, the field of technical communication is now faced with a crisis best articulated by one significant question: how do growing trends of personal agency and self-service in technologized societies affect technical communication as a discipline, and individual approaches to knowledge and authority? While the reliability and ethos of professional technical communicators can largely mitigate the threat of untrained, uncredentialed users who have the ability to develop and distribute technical information freely, social networks can contribute to the crisis through striking much of the authority from technical communicators who do not work to form strong or functional identities in those spaces.Item Ethos and exigence: White papers in high-tech industries(2005-05) Willerton, David R.; Carter, Joyce L.; Dragga, Sam A.; Barker, ThomasIn recent years, many high-tech firms have used documents called white papers to describe the products and services they offer, and white papers on high-tech subjects have had an increasing presence on the World Wide Web. On TECHWR-L, an e-mail list for practicing technical communicators, discussions have shown that some companies ask technical communicators to help write white papers, but that many technical communicators are unfamiliar with these documents. The extent to which technical communicators produce white papers has not been studied, and white papers have not been examined for their fit within the field of technical communication. In this study, I examined the history and background of white papers, and I compared them to reports and proposals – better known genres of technical communication – to make applications for pedagogy. I examined the exigencies that lead companies to produce white papers and the forces that shape the white paper genre. I described how white papers are read and used in high-tech industries. I also examined the extent to which practicing technical communicators are involved in writing white papers, and the extent to which white papers have a place in academic technical communication curricula. I employed methodological triangulation to answer my research questions. I examined reports and proposals in a sample of technical communication textbooks; I interviewed professionals who write white papers in high-tech industries; I observed and interviewed engineering consultants at a particular firm as they read white papers; and I surveyed practicing technical communicators as well as directors of academic technical communication programs. White papers do not completely resemble reports or proposals. My investigation shows that current white papers generally function as marketing documents that mix objective and promotional material; they help shape a company’s ethos or credibility in crowded marketplaces. Readers expect white papers to provide valuable technical information, and yet they realize white papers promote the sponsoring companies’ interests. Academics need to acknowledge white papers’ hybrid nature as well as the skepticism white paper readers show. Many technical communicators write white papers, and white papers provide them another way to add value to their organizations.Item Ethos and exigence: white papers in high-tech industries(Texas Tech University, 2005-05) Willerton, David R.; Carter, Joyce L.; Dragga, Sam A.; Barker, ThomasIn recent years, many high-tech firms have used documents called white papers to describe the products and services they offer, and white papers on high-tech subjects have had an increasing presence on the World Wide Web. On TECHWR-L, an e-mail list for practicing technical communicators, discussions have shown that some companies ask technical communicators to help write white papers, but that many technical communicators are unfamiliar with these documents. The extent to which technical communicators produce white papers has not been studied, and white papers have not been examined for their fit within the field of technical communication. In this study, I examined the history and background of white papers, and I compared them to reports and proposals – better known genres of technical communication – to make applications for pedagogy. I examined the exigencies that lead companies to produce white papers and the forces that shape the white paper genre. I described how white papers are read and used in high-tech industries. I also examined the extent to which practicing technical communicators are involved in writing white papers, and the extent to which white papers have a place in academic technical communication curricula. I employed methodological triangulation to answer my research questions. I examined reports and proposals in a sample of technical communication textbooks; I interviewed professionals who write white papers in high-tech industries; I observed and interviewed engineering consultants at a particular firm as they read white papers; and I surveyed practicing technical communicators as well as directors of academic technical communication programs. White papers do not completely resemble reports or proposals. My investigation shows that current white papers generally function as marketing documents that mix objective and promotional material; they help shape a company’s ethos or credibility in crowded marketplaces. Readers expect white papers to provide valuable technical information, and yet they realize white papers promote the sponsoring companies’ interests. Academics need to acknowledge white papers’ hybrid nature as well as the skepticism white paper readers show. Many technical communicators write white papers, and white papers provide them another way to add value to their organizations.Item New media communication in education(2012-06) Livingston, Kat; Bichard, Shannon; Baake, Ken; Stoker, KevinResearch and teaching are the crossroads at which higher education exists. Great scholar-researchers in the field understand that new media communication in education is a very fluid area of study, rich with opportunities to glean context and insight in every interaction. This project evaluates the learning processes and experiences that took place in my pursuit of a Master of Science in the interdisciplinary studies of new media communication in education. The research included in this portfolio is a reflection of my growth and development as a professional scholar. The content provides an assessment of the academic work I completed, and a means for self-examination and exploration. The papers within this portfolio draw attention to research and literature related to different elements within the realm of Mass Communications, Educational Instructional Technology, Technical Communication and Rhetoric, and Educational Psychology. The content, research, and subject matter seek to explore various concepts and challenges within these four areas of study. Additionally, this research provides a bridge of understanding in regards to the role of new media communication in education, and analyzes the relationship and connectedness of new media and instructional learning. In the study and exploration of these areas of interest, I was able to gain great focus on a research agenda that concentrates on generating research pertaining to the psychological effects of new media on teachers and students, and how these areas work together to better pedagogy and instruction in education. In analyzing the various issues surrounding Mass Communications, Educational Instructional Technology, Technical Communication and Rhetoric, and Educational Psychology, I was able to develop a greater understanding of the world and a foundation upon which my interest in higher education is built.Item THE DYNAMICS OF FAT ACCEPTANCE: RHETORIC AND RESISTANCE TO THE OBESITY EPIDEMIC(2010-12) Mcmichael, Lonie R.; Koerber, Amy; Baehr, Craig; Rickly, Rebecca; Beard, Laura J.Our current solutions to the obesity epidemic are only making individuals less healthy in their pursuit for thinness while creating an environment of prejudice towards fat individuals. In response, a group of fat individuals are banding together in informal, online communities, which they call “the Fatosphere,” rejecting the belief that they must lose weight to be healthy, a proposition that fails 95% of the time, and embracing ideas such as Health At Every Size, a non-weight-centric health approach with much better results than dieting. Using bell hooks’ ideology of domination as a theoretical basis, I examined these ideas through digital interviews of Fatosphere participants and a rhetorical analysis of Fatosphere blogs. In conclusion, I assert that fat individuals experience domination much as other oppressed groups with a significant exception: the belief that the majority of fat bodies can be permanently made thinner – a belief that has no scientific evidence backing it. This societal belief leads fat individuals to experience a particular bind – a Sisyphean bind – demanding that the individual succeed at a futile task, one that must be performed over and over again, before being considered worthy to receive what others are granted automatically.Item Tutoring technical documents in the writing center: implications for tutor training and practices(Texas Tech University, 2009-05) Hughes, Lori R.; Baake, Kenneth; Kemp, Fred; Rickly, RebeccaThis work examines tutor training and practices for working with students who bring technical documents to the writing center. The researcher considers how the process of tutoring technical documents such as resumes, proposals, and reports influences the direction of the tutorial and offer suggestions for how administrators can prepare tutors to work with these types of documents. The researcher conducted a three-part qualitative study of formative and evaluative methods. After visiting three university writing centers of comparable size and scope and conducting interviews with the centers’ administrators and tutors followed by a rhetorical analysis of the top technical communication academic program writing center Websites in the United States was conducted in order to look for trends and practices. In addition, the researcher conducted a series of three online focus groups with members of the writing center community (administrators and tutors) in order to better contextualize the best practices of tutor training methods for working with diverse populations—in particular, students who bring technical documents to the center. Information gathered from the site visits and interviews, website analysis, and online focus group discussions helped to determine the best practices for writing centers to work with students who bring technical documents to the center, and provide future directions for tutor training to better meet the needs of this population.Item Understanding users undergoing change: exploring responses to an innovative, hybrid first-year writing program(Texas Tech University, 2003-08) Gillis, Kathleen TTechnical communication, rhetorical theory, user-centered theory, diffusion theory, and complexity theory—five disparate areas brought together in this dissertation for the purpose of examining the 'real life' adoption of an allegedly user-centered innovation. The consequences of this project are vast and may be of particular interest to technical communication scholars and practitioners, writing program administrators, software developers, usability engineers, and writing instructors who teach technical communication and/or first-year composition. The project contains five chapters, each of which represents a hierarchy of concerns, the ultimate of which is the tension that arises whenever technical communication scholars and practitioners apply the term user-centered to the design or development of an innovation. Chapter II provides a critical analysis of the term user-centered as applied in much of current scholarship in Technical Communication. Chapter III explains the rationale behind the methods used in this project. Through an introduction to diffusion theory, this discussion suggests an alternative way to examine the theory and practice of user-centered design. Chapter IV provides preliminary results from the first two sets of data collected using the primary research instrument from this study. Chapter V takes a closer look at the data collected via three methods, the Stages of Concern Questionnaire, the ICON listserv, and the first Composition Program Town Hall meeting. Chapter VI offers a brief summary of the research project, discusses its significance to the field of technical communication and rhetoric, looks to some alternative methods for analyzing the data surrounding this innovation, then looks to some of the specific ways I intend to expand and extend this project. Thus, the purpose of this project is to gain a better understanding of some of the ways in which writing instructors respond to the simultaneous adoption of both a pedagogical and technological innovation. Its goal is to develop more effective means for accommodating the needs of writing program administrators, software developers, writing instructors, and their students.