Object-Oriented Technical Writing: Theorizing and Operationalizing Content Management Systems

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Object-Oriented Technical WritingTheorizing and
Operationalizing Content Management Systems

• George Pullman Baotong Gu
• Georgia State University
• gpullman_at_gsu.edu
• bgu_at_gsu.edu
• ATTW Conference
• New York, March 21, 2007

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Overview

• Challenges and Promises
• Defining Content Management (CM vs. CMS)
• (Dis)Placing the Rhetorical Context
• Reinventing the Role of Writers and Editors
• Separation of Form from Content
• From Tools to Implementation
• Pedagogy, Anyone?
• Some Inconclusive Thoughts
• Case Analysis

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Defining Content Management

• a system-based approach to indexing content,
  ensuring that it can be accessed through all
  platforms and providing direct publishing
  mechanisms (Cracking content management, p. 5)
• a set of tasks and processes for storing,
  managing, publishing and repurposing all forms of
  digital assets throughout their lifecycle, from
  creation to archive, on any digital platform
  (Jefferey-Poulter, p. 157)
• a platform for managing the creation, review,
  filing, updating, distribution, and storage of
  structured and unstructured content (White, p.
  20)
• a process of collecting, managing, and
  publishing information to whatever medium you
  need (Boiko, 2005, p. xv)

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Defining Content Management

• Challenges System or Approach?
• System managing people?
• People managing system?
• People managing content?
• Promises
• Simplified content
• Streamlined process
• Revolutionized approach

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(Dis)Placing the Rhetorical Context

• Challenges
• Shift away from the audience
• Writing concerns not only the text but also the
  means and mechanism of production (Grabill and
  Hicks)
• Shift of emphasis in rhetorical cannons from
  invention to arrangement, memory, and delivery
• Promises
• An epistemic perspective on technical
  communication
• A reconceptualization of users and audience

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Reinventing the Role of Writers and Editors

• Challenges
• Devaluing of technical writers and editors
• Reducing the role of technical writers to
  assembly workers
• Promises
• A re-conception of the notion of authorship and
  the writer/reader relationship (Erin Smith)
• A re-conceptualization of writers role from the
  creator of content to the manager of information
• New roles for technical communicators member,
  manager, owner, reviewer, in addition to graphic
  designer, code developer, content manager, and
  usability/accessibility expert (Kuralt and
  Williams)

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Separation of Form from Content

• Challenges
• The rhetorical choice of one data structure over
  another (Karl Stolley)
• Decontextualized chunks of content and challenges
  to the conventional rhetorical expertise of
  technical communicators (Rebekka Andersen)
• The potential conflict between developing
  content as discrete blocks of information and
  developing text as coherent, unified passages
  (Gattis)
• Promises
• Reconceptualizing and revamping our technical
  communication practice

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Redefining Technical Skills

• Challenges
• A new set of technical skills
• A shift from tools to implementation (Clark and
  Anderson, 2005)
• A higher demand for managerial capabilities
• A greater need for collaborative relationships
• A shift from creation of content to its delivery
• Promises
• An expanded set of technical skills

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Pedagogy, Anyone?

• Challenges
• What should we teach?
• What to do with rhetorical skills
• Promises
• Reconceptualized pedagogical approaches (the need
  to teach students how to analyze the
  technological situation and then select the most
  appropriate technological strategies to discover
  technologys limitations, to interrogate tool
  availability within and without an organization,
  and to articulate alternative software
  selections) (McShane)

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Some Inconclusive Thoughts

• The introduction of CM and CMSs promises a
  change of revolutionary nature in our
  conceptualization of the field of technical
  communication and what we teach.
• Were not venturing into a totally foreign land
  by going into content management, so theres no
  need to panic.
• Theres a glaring lack of involvement in CMS
  design by technical communication practitioners,
  teachers, and researchers.
• Research in some areas within our discipline,
  such as single sourcing, knowledge management,
  and course management, is already paving the way
  for our inevitable involvement and participation
  in cm research.

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Case Analysis