Category Archives: 2015 Articles

How and why to implement Knowledge Management

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Mathias Revelen, Michael Shaugnnessy

July 2015

Abstract

Knowledge Management (KM) is a discipline that has existed since the beginning of the nineties yet it still sometimes feels like, and is treated like, a new idea. This article explores the reasons for this current state of affairs and tries to identify the underlying cause, or causes, for its lack of support. It seems that many companies are slow to adopt systems of KM and view them with skepticism. Others dismiss them outright before even attempting them. But why are companies skeptical about KM in the first place? There must be a common reason for its failure in so many situations. These are the questions this article seeks to answer.
In addition to readings from experts in the field, information for this article was drawn from the personal experiences of the authors as well as from interviews with an expert and the results of a general survey. Since there are many articles and studies on KM, we chose to focus on a few relevant articles that provided valuable and comprehensive information. Moreover, if we had had more time and resources, we could have conducted a survey on a wider panel of companies.

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Innovation and training: Targeting, designing and broadcasting

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Alizée Caudron, Auriane Desbois, Samantha Neller, Julia Ory

July 2015

Abstract

This article deals with how innovation has revolutionized current teaching methods, especially from the point of view of the people creating educational content. There are three main steps to creating good training materials: targeting, designing and broadcasting. The first step, targeting, consists in analyzing the training project before its conception, by targeting the audience and preparing the content, in order to set up the best learning strategy. The second step is designing. Today’s technology gives instructional designers an array of different ways to create and present learning content. In addition to the attractiveness and the physical aspect of training materials which is now crucial, technologies such as 3D, games or Big Data also influence training designers’ work as well as learners’ opinions on learning. The final step is broadcasting. This part of the training material producing process is probably the most innovative of all. Indeed, nowadays new broadcasting methods keep appearing every single day. From Learning Management Sytems to the “Bring Your Own Device”, connected learners have a multitude of ways to access the educational material at their disposal.

Read the full article (PDF): Innovation and training: Targeting, designing and broadcasting

Hardware or software products: What impact on technical documentation?

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Agnès Carchereux, Marion Groix, Amandine Kempf, Harriet Logan, Camille Pépin

July 2015

Abstract

As apprentices in the software, hardware and embedded systems industries, we wondered whether the type of product had an impact on documentation. After collecting the existing literature on the subject, we sent a questionnaire to technical writers with hands-on experience in order to learn more about their methods and skills. Their answers on the subject underlined that having direct access to the product is essential, but that the methods and skills are different depending on the type of product documented. Indeed, for security reasons, hardware industry documents contain more legal requirements than software documents and have a different documentation structure. The type of deliverables and whether the product is published online or in hardcopy depend on how the product is used on site. Terminology and syntax, the illustration workload, and project management methods are also discussed in this article.

Read the full article (PDF): Hardware or software products: What impact on technical documentation?

DITA: A universal solution?

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Marion L., Catherine S., Jean-Michel V.D.B., Laureen Z.

July 2015

Abstract

During the last few years, DITA has spread in many companies and sectors and is often considered as the “must have” tool for technical writing thanks to its flexibility and adaptability. However, does DITA really live up to its reputation? We start with noting that the concept of DITA was designed to serve this purpose. We then try to learn more about DITA and its implementation through webinars, specialized articles, surveys about DITA, and especially one that we conducted from March to May 2015. We came to two main conclusions. First, financially speaking, DITA remains relatively affordable for larger or smaller companies, as long asthey are not looking into specialization, and provided that the implementation plan is complete and fully backed by management. In addition, the productivity gains they get from transitioning to DITA are mainly determined by the implication of companies and the context of the implementation. Secondly, DITA is not restricted to the software sector. It brings a lot to a wide variety of domains thanks to its universal benefits: content reuse, its linking system, the expansion of electronic documentation and the possibility to be specialized. Besides, even though DITA is for now mostly used by documentation teams composed of professional technical writers, LightWeight DITA seems to be quite promising in improving the spread of DITA outside the documentation departments.

Read the full article (PDF): DITA, A universal solution?