Education

This page lists courses that are of interest to technical communicators. Please send contributions to the webmaster.

UCLA Extension Technical Communication Program 2007

UCLA Extension would like to remind Chapters about the $50 discount available to STC members enrolling in online courses in the Technical Communication Program, a 9-course certificate. Please make this information available to your members via listserv or newsletter. Winter courses begin in January 2007.

• Strategic Communications Planning — January 10 to March 7, 2007
• Technical Writing — January 17 to March 14, 2007
• Creating Readable Documents — February 1 to March 29, 2007

Fees without the discount are $525 per course. The $50 discount is also applicable to all online business and management courses in accounting, personal financial planning, real estate, human resources management, finance, and taxation. This offer cannot be combined with other discounts. Just identify yourself as an STC member when enrolling online, by fax, or phone.

Technical requirements: A PC or Macintosh computer with reliable access to the Internet with Explorer or Navigator (latest version). UCLA Extension uses Blackboard for its online courses. An orientation is available at http://www.uclaextension.edu/UNEX_Blackboard/index.htm

Payment: UCLA Extension accepts all credit cards and company purchase orders for fee payment.

Contact: Helen Williams

Visit UCLA Extension www.uclaextension.edu

Project TecDoc-Net

Technical documentation has become an important marketing tool in conjunction with after sales services and plays an essential role in customer satisfaction.

To be successful in the European and global markets, quality is indispensable. This applies not only to products, but also to the information on those product. However, not all European countries offer vocational and further training programmes for technical communicators. In many cases, documentation tasks are performed by engineers, marketing experts or others who have no specialised qualifications in this field.

This is why a consortium of technical communications associations, universities, private training institutes, chambers of commerce, documentation service providers and manufacturing companies from 11 European countries have joined, with the support of the European Commission, to create a European network. This network aims to promote the vocational and further training of technical communicators and to improve the quality of technical documentation.

This project, called TecDoc-Net, produced an inventory of existing study and training programmes and courses. You can find the summary, entitled 'The current state of vocational and further training of Technical Communicators in Europe', on the web site of the European umbrella organisation of technical communicators, TCeurope http://www.tceurope.org/tecdocnet/news_1.htm.

The project partners are working on a European guideline for vocational and further training for technical communicators, outlining minimum requirements and core competences. This guideline will be available beginning in May 2005.

For more information about the project, contact Ursula Wirtz 

Belgian educational establishments

Details to be included soon.

Online courses