Case Study

The Technical Publications team at Sybase, Inc. maintains many thousands of pages of user documentation and online help topics for a diverse set of software products. Writing teams work in nine locations around the globe; a given project often involves writers from multiple locations. To achieve greater efficiency, increase opportunities for reuse, and improve user experience, the department is moving to the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) from a variety of source formats. Early adopters realized the need for more detailed information models for several types of content than required by the DITA standard. This chapter discusses why models are a critical component to successful collaborative writing, especially for topic-oriented content. It then describes the collaborative processes and tools by which Sybase® Technical Publications team members propose, evaluate, develop, test, and enforce new content models, challenges encountered, and key success factors.

Case Study

The application of quality management tools in the content development process provides a range of benefits to writing, production, and program teams. This case study of a Natural Language Processing (NLP)-based information quality management solution developed by acrolinx® GmbH describes the results that real-world virtual collaborative writing practitioners have realized, and provides a roadmap for applying quality management strategies within writing organizations. When information products have consistent style, voice, terminology, and brand identification no matter where, when, or by whom the materials written, they are easier to read, understand, translate, and use. Quality management tools support collaboration within writing teams by centralizing access to the standards as writers are creating content, and providing objective quality metrics and reports at handoff points in the information supply chain. This process ensures consistency and clarity across information products, which makes them easier for writers to develop and for customers to use.

The Mutual Presence of RP-7 and the Future of Virtual Collaborative Writing

This chapter examines virtual collaboration, including the production and use of writing, between doctors at different hospitals mediated by RP-7, a robot that enables a specialist at one hospital to evaluate the vital signs of and provide diagnosis for a patient at another hospital. Analysis of RP-7 is situated in a theoretical deliberation about the shift from print to digital texts and technologies. I argue that a consequence of this shift is the loss of mutual presence—the alignment of materiality, practice, and expertise—in the production and use of texts. This alignment is transparent and intrinsic to print texts but is lost in digital environments precisely because they afford access to texts irrespective of a user’s background, location, or access to and familiarity with other tools, technologies, or workplaces. Study of the writing used and generated during the collaboration between doctors mediated by RP-7 is grounds for the claim that the future of virtual collaborative writing in professional contexts will involve the re-alignment of mutual presence. In other words, the success of digital writing technologies in social practice will depend on the extent to which they bare similarity to, rather than differ from, print texts and technologies. The chapter concludes by emphasizing the value of this research to both academia and industry.

Inventing Non-Discursive Text in Virtual Collaboration Environments

Virtual collaborative writing must acknowledge and encourage a range of symbolization practices because textual products simply are likely to be hybrids of words (discursive) and visual images, aural images, haptic images, olfactory images, and even gustatory images (all non-discursive). Though digital technologies are still limited to aural and visual technologies, the authors must theorize collaboration for and within media that are as yet not widely developed or possible. Today’s collaborative environments require more from interfaces if we are to invent texts that become edited images, Web pages, films, and/or animations. This chapter argues that virtual collaborative environments must accommodate the invention of non-traditional, multimodal texts.

Collaborating Virtually to Develop This Book

The focus of this chapter is to describe how the writers and editors of this book attempted to employ virtual collaborative writing strategies, including those described throughout this text, in the process of developing and writing this book. This discussion reflects on the processes the writers of this book used to write collaboratively in a virtual environment, as well as strategies and tools that facilitated or hindered their efforts. The discussion draws on the six principles underlying virtual collaborative writing to evaluate the experience of using technology to develop content collaboratively. In so doing, the writers present recommendations that workplace teams can use to manage virtual collaborative writing more effectively. This chapter provides practical examples of success and failure that can guide professionals committed to improving virtual collaborative writing in range of workplace environments. These experiences point to lessons for improving overall performance— whether teams are just forming, looking for ways to manage or plan collaborative writing projects, confused about making decisions virtually, or in search of standards and processes that enable virtual collaborative writing.

Case Study - Writing, Rhetoric, and Design

This chapter presents a case study of virtual collaboration that focuses on a research and production team’s approach to making choices about the most appropriate technologies to support the team’s interactions. The study highlights the importance of establishing clear, well-defined roles for collaborators as well as the importance of explicitly acknowledging the institutional context within which the work was undertaken. The chapter concludes with a series of recommendations based upon the experience of this virtual collaboration.

Preparing Writers for Virtual Environments

This chapter offers practical strategies for instructors, trainers, and managers to use while preparing writers for virtual collaboration. It first considers various existing barriers to successful virtual collaboration, both in the writers’ individual preparation and in organizational structures within which they work. Next, the chapter offers a set of specific guidelines designed to prepare writers for virtual writing collaboration and to facilitate their work. In order to prepare writers for virtual collaboration, instructors and trainers must develop trust among members of virtual teams, carefully structure writing assignments, and design learning spaces that promote collaboration and interaction.

Developing Content in a Reuse Environment

The need for reusing content and automating the writing process to gain efficiency in workplace environments is a priority in many work settings. Writing teams seek effective strategies for integrating reuse principles, and increasingly they need to accomplish this work virtually. Reusing content across an organization requires coordinated collaboration in terms of both establishing standards and ensuring that all team members follow those standards. In view of this high-level requirement, setting up a reuse environment seems familiar; that is, developing and implementing a style guide to promote consistency always has been central to good technical writing. Also familiar is the fact that as long as there have been style guides, adherence to them has been difficult to achieve. What makes a reuse environment different from those less focused on reuse is that degree to which standardization among writers must occur. Whereas style guidelines typically have emphasized word or phrasing nuances, standards for reuse move beyond terminology or syntax, involving all aspects of the writing process. An effective reuse environment thus depends on collaborative input from writing teams, which poses significant challenges in virtual environments. This chapter provides insight into the principles of reuse and how virtual collaboration is essential to making content reusable.

Caution, Empowered Reviewers Ahead

One aspect of writing in government, business, and academia that always has been collaborative is the document review process. In this process, all persons with a stake in the final writing product are invited to help shape the piece in terms of content, style, or structure. Their review work has primarily been both serial and parallel. However, problems and perils of document review can strike at any stage in the review process: from the reviewer not knowing how to give useful comments to the writer not knowing how to interpret and use comments constructively. In today’s Web 2.0 world, what once was a more closed and controlled collaboration review process becomes open and organic because digital and online information is accessible to intended and unintended audiences alike for commenting, ranking, and reviewing. Response to this new openness in review has been mixed among and within institutions. And yet, the momentum for open and even unsolicited reviews is not only impossible to stop but also difficult to manage. While computer-mediated communication (CMC) and content management system (CMS) tools have automated the writing process, the review process has lagged in terms of being efficiently collaborative. This chapter explores collaborative review in a user-empowered Web 2.0 world, including how CMC tools can facilitate the review process. Finally, this chapter exemplifies Principles 1, 2, and 4 that ground this book.

Optimizing Team Performance

Increasingly, collaborative writing occurs in distributed work environments. Collaboration is essential for technical writing teams that develop and share, or single source, content using content management system (CMS) technology. Technical writers must be proficient not only in developing content that can be shared but also in carrying out complex writing tasks virtually. However, research indicates that asynchronous-distributed collaborative writing can lead to productivity losses unless teams implement explicit processes for interacting and using computer-mediated communication (CMC) technology. With highly structured processes to guide their efforts, teams are more likely to see productivity gains. To achieve these gains, effective collaboration must address six key areas: (1) targets to guide team performance, (2) assessments of collaborative writing skills in virtual teams, (3) role delineation, (4) process scripts to promote efficient virtual collaborative writing, (5) a training framework, and (6) performance measurements and a recognition framework for reinforcing team accomplishments. Organizations must be willing to create a culture that supports a team environment committed to these specific areas. This chapter explores how to establish an infrastructure that promotes collaborative writing efficiency in virtual settings.