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This dissertation unites two seemingly unrelated fields, writing centers and technical writing, to study the feasibility of creating an online technical writing resource. Despite prolonged attention to multiliteracies and collaboration in both subfields, writing centers and technical writing do not commonly implicate one another in their shared mission of shaping students to become savvy writers with an awareness of rhetorical concepts and situations. This dissertation establishes how complementary these two fields are based upon their shared pedagogies of collaboration and multiliteracies. I suggest that a service design approach is beneficial to writing center research. Similarly, the technical writing field has little research and scholarship dedicated specifically to online writing instruction and pedagogy. Historically, writing centers have served students from all disciplines, but research demonstrates the effectiveness of specialist over generalist writing support. Taking a specialist perspective, I use service design methodology to gather input from student and instructor stakeholders about how online writing tutoring and web resources can address their needs. Using survey and interview data, I designed and piloted an online tutoring service for students enrolled in the Technical Writing service course at Virginia Tech. In student and instructor surveys, participants reported that they were highly unlikely to use online tutoring sessions but were more likely to use a course-specific website. Additionally, student interviews revealed that the Writing Center is not necessarily a highly-used resource, especially for upper-level students. Instructor interviewees indicated some misunderstandings and limited views of the Writing Center's mission. Nevertheless, a small number of participants in both groups spoke to a need for specialized tutoring in the Technical Writing course. In terms of feasibility, integration of online services for this course poses the greatest challenge because it relates to the amount of change needed to successfully integrate online tutoring or web resources into the curriculum. With some attention to how OWLs and synchronous online tutoring can be an asset to teaching technical writing online, I argue that the pilot project described in this study is relatively feasible. / Doctor of Philosophy / A feasibility study addresses whether or not an idea or plan is good. In the case of this dissertation, the idea is whether or not to offer online writing services—such as tutoring and a repository website—to students enrolled in Technical Writing at Virginia Tech. In order to study the feasibility of this plan, I first argue for bringing together the fields of writing centers and technical writing. Two strong reasons for uniting these fields are based upon their shared methods and practices of teaching collaboration and multiliteracies. Multiliteracies in this dissertation refers to critical, functional, and rhetorical computer literacies; each literacy is important for Technical Writing students to develop as they enter their future careers. Historically, writing centers are places on a college or university campus where students from all disciplines can go for tutoring; this is known as the generalist approach to writing tutoring. However, research demonstrates the effectiveness of a specialist approach—where a tutor is familiar with a student’s discipline—to writing tutoring over generalist writing support. Therefore, I take a specialist perspective in this study. I use service design system of methods to gather input from student and instructor stakeholders about how online writing tutoring and web resources can address their needs. Service design is commonly used in the service economy, such as restaurants and hotels, in order to design or redesign services. In particular, service design focuses on people and their needs. Using survey and interview data, I designed and piloted an online tutoring service and a website for students enrolled in the Technical Writing service course at Virginia Tech. In student and instructor surveys, participants reported that they were highly unlikely to use online tutoring sessions but were more likely to use a course-specific website. Additionally, student interviews revealed that the Writing Center at Virginia Tech is not necessarily a highly-used resource, especially for upper-level students. Instructor interviewees indicated some misunderstandings and limited views of the Writing Center’s mission. Nevertheless, a small number of participants in both groups spoke to a need for specialized tutoring in the Technical Writing course. In terms of feasibility, integration of online services for this course poses the greatest challenge because it relates to the amount of change needed to successfully integrate online tutoring or web resources into the curriculum. With some attention to how online writing labs and synchronous online tutoring can be an asset to teaching technical writing online, I argue that the pilot project described in this study is relatively feasible.

Microcomputer software users require varying degrees of instructional assistance to effectively operate the software they purchase. Chapter I recognizes that this demand for quality documentation places a burden upon software suppliers to expend additional time, energy, and money to satisfy users. This research recommends a set of procedural guidelines for microcomputer software suppliers to follow as a means of supplementing basic documentation techniques. Literature regarding microcomputer software documentation is an item of increasing demand in today's technical marketplace. The literature review, Chapter II, reveals that the most significant improvement in the documentation process has been the development of two specific reference standards, physical layout and instructional components. Chapter III describes the research experiment used in obtaining information regarding the documentation associated with two current microcomputer word processing programs. Four university students provided background information regarding the personal characteristics, attributes, associated with a given user population. The research experiment evolved from a comprehensive documentation review to a structured data collection process. Chapter IV indicates that the discrepancy between actual and expected research gains justifies improving data collection techniques and recommending specific procedural guidelines for future documentation reviews. The final chapter provides a detailed analysis of the research experiment and conclusions related to the documentation's effectiveness. Additionally, it proposes procedural guidelines designed to improve the experiment's data collection techniques. These guidelines can help future documentation writers more accurately gauge user capabilities and limitations. / Master of Science

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