1. Technical Communication and the RosE-Portfolio
Documenting and Reflecting on the Development of Your Communication Skills

2. Technical Communication and the RosE-Portfolio
Skills of Effective Technical Communicators
Documenting Your Development of Communication Skills
Demonstration of the RosE-Portfolio System
Reflecting on Your Development
Sharing Your Work with Employers

3. Skills of Effective Technical Communicators
5 minute writing
What skills do effective technical communicators possess?
What tasks do they customarily perform when they prepare documents?
What kinds of documents do they produce?

4. Learning Objectives for RH 330, Technical Communication
Familiarity with the forms of communication appropriate to workplace communication
Ability to apply organizational patterns to structure technical information
Ability to perform audience analysis as the basis for planning and completing any communication task

5. Learning Objectives
Ability to locate information and assess its accuracy
Consistent use of proper spelling, grammar, punctuation, and mechanics
Experience with testing audience response
Familiarity with various technologies useful in the completing of communication tasks

6. Institute Communication Learning Objectives
Defined as: An ability to communicate effectively in oral, written, graphical, and visual forms
Specified further by 5 criteria
Identify the readers/audience for a communication task by assessing their technical knowledge and information needs.

7. Communication
Organize and/or design information to meet readers/audience needs..
Provide content that is factually correct, supported with evidence, explained with sufficient detail, and properly documented.

8. Communication
Test readers/audience response to communication tasks to determine how well ideas have been relayed.
Submit work with a minimum of errors in spelling, punctuation, grammar, and usage.

9. Documenting Your Development
Opportunities to work on developing your communication skills: Assignments, Peer Review, Conferences, Final Report, Oral Reports
Feedback on your work
Course Objectives Matrix
Electronic system to store your work
Available to prospective employers

10. Electronic Documentation Method: RosE-Portfolio

11. Reflecting on Your Development
Industry Standard: Performance Review Forms
Example from Cummins Engine
Reflective Statement for Communication

12. What is a Reflective Statement?
A very important element in portfolio
Helps you assess your accomplishments at Rose
Reflective statement “makes a case” or argues for the relevance of the submitted file to a particular learning objective

13. Questions that the RS answers
What did I do?
What does it mean?
What have I learned?
How might I do things differently?
Why is it relevant to this objective?

14. Sample 1
I wrote my Tech Comm report for two reader types, a RHIT student and a professional non-expert. The report topic is recent development in DVD technology. It is a really good paper.

15. Sample 2
I wrote this report on DVD technology for the Tech Comm class. In order to plan this report, I had to take into consideration the audience I was writing for. I decided to address my report to junior-level electrical engineering students who are interested in learning more about DVD. For these readers, I included a glossary of terms that . . .

16. Sample 2 (continued)
provide a basic vocabulary for DVD. I also thought my readers would be better informed if I included a section on the history of DVD development. My professional non-expert reader was accommodated in section 4, which gives a case study analysis of DVD application in the entertainment industry. I assumed that the second reader would be more interested in how changes in technology affect specific industries.

17. Sharing Your Work with Employers
Professional Portfolios
Your Job Search this year
Access for Employers
Determined and Controlled by You

18. Why is RHIT doing this? Quality control:
Are students achieving desired outcomes?
How can we improve our educational process?
Provide evidence to constituencies:
accreditation & funding agencies
recruiters, prospective students
faculty

19. Who will be looking at your portfolio?
Your faculty advisor
Faculty raters
Technical support team
Anyone else to whom you give permission (e.g., potential employers)

20. What will faculty raters do with the information?
Report assessment results in aggregate
Make recommendations for improving the educational process
Give feedback to students that were rated

21. Technical Communication and the RosE-Portfolio
Skills of Effective Technical Communicators
Documenting Your Development of Communication Skills
Demonstration of the RosE-Portfolio System
Reflecting on Your Development
Sharing Your Work with Employers