Technical Communication (Optional Co-op)

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Courses - September 2024

Level 1

Course details

Career Management
CDEV8132

Description: This course focuses on career management skills needed to navigate the evolving workplace. Students will evaluate their skills, attitudes, and expectations within their chosen careers and explore emerging trends in the workplace. Students will refine their networking strategies and create marketing documents to position them for success. Mock interviews will provide the opportunity for practice, feedback, and reflection as students prepare for future interviews. Students will explore communication strategies that support workplace success and advancement. By the end of this course, students will have created a personalized career management plan.
  • Hours: 28
  • Credits: 2
  • Pre-Requisites:
  • CoRequisites:

Technical Communication I
COMM8300

Description: This course will introduce students to fundamental skills required for successful technical communication. Students will differentiate between various technical communications genres and create technical documents that inform, persuade, and instruct. Emphasis will be placed on technical context, message, audience, and purpose.
  • Hours: 42
  • Credits: 3
  • Pre-Requisites:
  • CoRequisites:

Document Design and Illustration
COMM8310

Description: In this course, students will develop knowledge and skills for designing and illustrating technical documents. They will study principles and theories of document design and illustration and apply them in a variety of technical communication situations. .
  • Hours: 42
  • Credits: 3
  • Pre-Requisites:
  • CoRequisites:

User Experience
COMM8320

Description: In this course, students will apply principles of user-centred communication and design to improve the usability of documents, products, and systems. They will perform user research, test usability, and analyze data to produce technical documentation that meets end-user needs and expectations.
  • Hours: 42
  • Credits: 3
  • Pre-Requisites:
  • CoRequisites:

Authoring Tools in Technical Communication
COMM8335

Description: In this course, students will explore the role of technologies, tools, and best practices in technical communication. You will develop skills to work with document sharing software such as DITA/XML, Microsoft Office, Adobe FrameMaker, Adobe RoboHelp, Google Suite tools Slack, and other common technical communications tools to manage workflows. Students will apply their knowledge of software to the completion of several complimentary forms of documentation..
  • Hours: 56
  • Credits: 4
  • Pre-Requisites:
  • CoRequisites:

Editing and Publications in Technical Communication
COMM8340

Description: In this course, students will enhance knowledge of grammar, tone, and word choice to a publication standard. Students will learn to adapt writing to various styles and conventions while writing and editing documents to adhere to field-specific guidelines, levels of technicality, and levels of formality.
  • Hours: 42
  • Credits: 3
  • Pre-Requisites:
  • CoRequisites:

Conestoga 101
CON0101

Description: This self-directed course focuses on introducing new students to the supports, services, and opportunities available at Conestoga College. By the end of this course, students will understand the academic expectations of the Conestoga learning environment, as well as the supports available to ensure their academic success. Students will also be able to identify on-campus services that support their health and wellness, and explore ways to get actively involved in the Conestoga community through co-curricular learning opportunities.
  • Hours: 1
  • Credits: 0
  • Pre-Requisites:
  • CoRequisites:

Research and Information Design
RSCH8070

Description: In this course, students will develop primary and secondary research skills necessary for technical communications. Students will also learn to organize complex information using a variety of modalities depending on purpose and audience. The delivery of this course may involve problem/project-based learning with the creation of final portfolio in collaboration with industry partners.
  • Hours: 42
  • Credits: 3
  • Pre-Requisites:
  • CoRequisites:

Level 2

Course details

Co-op and Career Preparation
CEPR8200

Description: This series of modules will prepare graduate certificate students for job searching for their co-op work terms with the guidance of a Co-op Advisor. Students will familiarize themselves with the co-operative education policies and procedures and will learn the expectations, rules, and regulations that apply in the workplace regarding social, organizational, ethical, and safety issues while deepening their awareness of self- reflective practices. Students will critically reflect on their skills, attitudes, and expectations and evaluate available opportunities in the workplace. Successful completion of these modules is a requirement for co-op eligibility.
  • Hours: 14
  • Credits: 1
  • Pre-Requisites:
  • CoRequisites:

Technical Communication II
COMM8350

Description: Students will apply skills obtained in level one courses to create technical documents in response to diverse organizational and community needs. Students will develop problem-solving and critical thinking skills, and they will collaborate to present technical information. The course will emphasize transcultural communication as well as legal and ethical issues in technical communication.
  • Hours: 42
  • Credits: 3
  • Pre-Requisites:
  • CoRequisites:

Technical Training and Tutorials
COMM8360

Description: In this course, students will build on knowledge of UX to develop skills related to creating accessible teaching material. Such skills include choosing content based on needs analysis, structuring information, developing usability tests, and maximizing multiple formats and online platforms.
  • Hours: 42
  • Credits: 3
  • Pre-Requisites:
  • CoRequisites:

Document Management and Production
COMM8370

Description: In this course, students will identify and apply practices of managing and producing technical documentation projects. Students will study project management principles and models, planned interactions, and document production for the digital age. They will apply their knowledge of authoring tools to the management of several complimentary forms of documentation in a project cycle.
  • Hours: 42
  • Credits: 3
  • Pre-Requisites:
  • CoRequisites:

Major Project - Technical Communication
MGMT8700

Description:

Building on the skills developed in Term 1, students will complete a research-intensive technical communications project that will form the basis of a professional portfolio to show prospective employers

  • Hours: 84
  • Credits: 6
  • Pre-Requisites:
  • CoRequisites:

Web Design and Applications
PROG8530

Description: In this course, students will learn the fundamentals of effective online technical communication. Students will plan and produce a prototype online help system that adheres to both user and client requirements while adhering to responsive website design principles. Students will develop technical content using proven methods that accommodate non-linear reading behaviour and digital environments.
  • Hours: 42
  • Credits: 3
  • Pre-Requisites:
  • CoRequisites:

Level 3

Course details

Co-op Work Term (Technical Communications)
COOP8190

Description: This co-op work term will provide students with college-approved work experience in an authentic, professionally relevant work environment. Students will be provided the opportunity to connect theory and practice by leveraging their academic knowledge to develop specialized vocational skills. The practical applications of this work term will promote students’ awareness of key concepts and terminology in their field, improve their competencies in problem-solving and decision-making, further their application of professional judgement, hone their leadership skills (independently or as part of team), and enhance their capacity to critically analyze and reflect on their demonstrated abilities in the workplace.
  • Hours: 420
  • Credits: 14
  • Pre-Requisites: CEPR8200
  • CoRequisites:

Program outcomes

  1. Compose messages that are clear, concise, and error free to address the needs of a specified audience and purpose.
  2. Produce print and electronic media that apply industry-led principles of style, design, layout, and format to address client goals and user needs.
  3. Employ requisite levels of the editing process to craft content across a variety of media formats for purpose, concision, clarity, and usability.
  4. Produce text that applies appropriate and stylistic conventions of genre, logic, and rhetoric for a variety of audience types and communication needs.
  5. Integrate credible sources with appropriate industry and/or academic citation styles, to create documents that demonstrate professional rigour.
  6. Address user needs by providing a range of complementary documents in a project cycle.
  7. Apply key functions of leadership and team-orientation to ethically manage the life-cycle of writing projects appropriate to a given medium.
  8. Employ entrepreneurial strategies to identify and respond to new opportunities across the technical communication field.
  9. Combine end-user needs with sound environmental and cost-efficient principles to promote active stewardship in documentation and publication design.