Abstract

The Department of Technical Communication in the College of Engineering requests support from the STF for two main components of its student offerings:


• The Technical Communication major, which provides over 100 UW students at the undergraduate, master’s, and PhD levels with professional education in three main areas: Web design and development, documentation design (print and online), and usability and user-centered design methods

• The Engineering/I-School Writing Center, which provides engineering, i-School, and other students with one-on-one peer tutoring for writing projects or presentations
With help from the STF in previous years, we have been able to develop an “intradepartmental media space” composed of several different labs that provides first-class computing and usability tools to our students. This year we request several upgrades to our computing capabilities and usability lab to maintain our ability to offer our students first-class professional preparation for their careers. Below we discuss the request for support for students in each of these two programs separately.

Background

1. Support for students in the TC major

To prepare this proposal, we surveyed our students to find out more about their technological interests and needs. They indicated that their main areas of interest were (multiple answers allowed; n=21): Web design and development (11), documentation design (print, online) (11), usability and user-centered design methods (11), science writing (5), theory, culture studies, and policy (4), and TC systems (3).

Our students are very technologically literate. Based on our survey, about 95% have a computer with Internet access at home; about 95% have a PC (with some overlap with Mac and Linux). Over half have laptops. They use our TC computer labs in a variety of ways (from email to class assignments to multimedia development). They also take advantage of our multi-function usability lab, the Laboratory for Usability Testing and Evaluation (LUTE), which supports user-testing of student designs. When asked how important they think computing skills will be in order for them to succeed, 20 out of 21 indicated that computing skills will be “very important” or “somewhat important”(n=21; very important=18, somewhat important=2, slightly important=1).

Web and Documentation Design

Our students indicate they like to use our labs to create high definition 3D animation and artwork, produce line art and photo art, analyze website and study statistics; edit audio and digital video, and generate streaming and broadcast quality video. These activities are part of their everyday Web, documentation, and multimedia design activities.

TC students become communication design professionals (website designers, usability specialists, user assistance designers). In the present market it is imperative our students graduate with a working knowledge of the tools used in the professional community.

We would like to upgrade some of the software and hardware students use to complete these projects as well as introduce some new software tools that have become available. To keep us up to date with the current trends in design software we require the purchase or upgrade of the following software:

EndNote (30), MadCap-Flare (30), Camtasia (30), CaptureIT (30), Macintosh OS X 10.4 Tiger (5 licenses), Admit Mac (5 licenses).


Computer labs are public spaces. When editing video and audio, a lab can become quite noisy. To allow our students to edit their video and audio projects while not disturbing others we would like to add 4 sets of Sony Headphones to our lab workspace. To give our students a more artist means of “drawing” their line and photo art, we would like to purchase 4 Wacom Intous art pads. The Wacom art pad makes Photoshop easier to use and is more accurate than a mouse.

Wacom Intous art pads (4), Sets of Headphones (4).


Student Project Data Backup and Security

Using funding from a College of Engineering grant, we purchased a Dell DLT tape drive to back up our student’s networked data and projects. For the time being, we have been using the very basic back up program which is included in Windows server with some very limited features.

We would like to purchase Veritas BackupExec, a back up program that would easily integrate into our Windows environment and allow us to use all the features of our tape drive and library ensuring our students have a complete back up of their work available.

Veritas BackupExec for Windows server (1 server license and 3 remote server licenses)


Usability and User-Centered Design

TC students also request support for usability testing and user-centered design practices, especially through upgrades to our Laboratory for Usability Testing and Evaluation (LUTE). A large percentage of our undergraduate and graduate students are now training for careers in usability engineering and user-centered design, and even those for whom usability is not the main focus consider it to be an essential part of their education. These students urgently want access to state-of-the-art usability technologies for use in student projects that they can show to prospective employers.

In 2004, TC received STF support for hardware and software upgrades from Eye Response Technologies for LUTE’s ERICA eye-tracking system. This equipment allows our students to determine how people process information displayed on a computer screen. During the 2004-2005 academic years, LUTE supported multiple eye-tracking projects by students from TC, Computer Science, and Education. These projects have led to students presenting their findings at conferences, having student-authored publications, and being offered employment as usability engineers at major companies.

Our current eye-tracking system requires a participant to keep his or her head perfectly still, which requires repeated recalibration and severely limits the duration of a study. We request the Tobii 1750 with the ClearView Analysis software (required to run the Tobii system) and integrated monitor. The system also requires one Dell computer (without monitor). This system is capable of accurately tracking eye movement while allowing for a wide range of head movement and supports studies of up to about 60 minutes in duration.

Tobii 1750 eyetracker with integrated monitor (1), ClearView Analysis software (1 license), Dell Optiplex SX280 (1).

We have previously received STC funding for computer software and hardware that supports digital video editing in LUTE. To complete our support for digital video, we request a Dell PowerVault 220S Drive Storage Array with 1 terabyte data storage for streaming digital video over the Internet with our media servers. It is common practice in industry to stream video capture during usability studies over the network. Our students need to learn how to create and set up streaming media and they have requested the ability to include streamed video as portfolio components. Furthermore, group projects require students to share digital video data and they need an appropriate location to store and retrieve this data.

Dell PowerVault 220S Drive Storage Array

LUTE and the TC student computer laboratory have previously received STF funding for qualitative data analysis and Web site analysis software packages. Over the past year, our students have made extensive use of these packages and view computer-supported data analysis as a critical skill desired by employers and a necessary component of their education. In order to stay current with industry expectations, we need to expand our data analysis software two include event logging and data visualization:

• Usability event logging: Morae captures the complete sequence of keyboard and mouse events and records the sequence of computer screens as a person uses a computer. This would allow our students to more accurately collect and analyze usability data during a study. (http://www.techsmith.com/store/default.asp)

• Data visualization and exploration: Tableau supports rapid data visualization and visual analysis through a highly interactive user interface.

Morae (4), Tableau Professional with MySQL support (4)

2. Support for students who use the Engineering/I-School Writing Center

The Engineering/I-School Writing Center (EiWC) is open year-round, including summer quarter. We serve from 50-150 students per quarter from pre-engineering, Engineering (the largest component), the Information School, Forestry, and Biomedical and Health Informatics. Right now, we offer 1-to-1 peer tutoring services to any engineering or i-School student. Among these students, there is a great demand for a place to practice and get feedback on oral presentation skills.

Currently on campus, Odegaard Media Center has presentation practice rooms; students can record themselves on video, and then upload the file to their student web space, where they can view it from any computer. While this is a great service and helps students build confidence, it does not provide any feedback to students. COE and i-School students are giving technical presentations using visuals; it's important for them to have a practice audience give them feedback about their content, organization, delivery, and visual aids. Currently, in the EiWC, we can watch a student give a presentation in an office and give them feedback, but there isn't a way for students to show visuals or see themselves giving the presentation.

The EiWC would like to provide a space where students could give their presentation to a real audience while it's being recorded, then immediately play it back for the student with a tutor pointing out areas that are strong, areas that need improvement, etc. We would like to set up a presentation practice room as part of the Engineering Writing Center. TC already employs the staff and peer tutors who would provide the feedback and will provide a room for the activity; we request the equipment needed for us to offer this service.

iSight camera with tripod and cables (1), 12” iBook laptop computer with iMovie (1), digital LCD projector (1), iMac desktop computer (1).

Benefits

This proposal, if funded, would equip TC students with the knowledge and experience they need to remain high-demand graduates in Web design, documentation design, and usability engineering; it would also give engineering students a critical resource for improving their oral communication skills, which we constantly hear from employers are central to their professional success.

Student Access

Everyone who is registered in a TC course or independent study has free access to all of our computing facilities. Others who want to use our facilities can request permission to do so with a description of the intended use, complete an appropriate-use statement, and get a door code or key (as appropriate for the facility in question). In some cases (as with the usability lab), some specialized training is required and sessions must be scheduled ahead of time.

Available Resources

TC employs one permanent computer professional and currently has two half time student-hourly computer assistants who are responsible for our student labs and department technology. TC also has hired a halftime graduate student Assistant Director of LUTE.

Installation Timeline

The STF-funded project consists of purchasing hardware and software to enhance TC's computing environment for students. The TC student lab components involve ordering, setting up, and configuring equipment and software, with the only dependency being the lab remodel. The portions of the proposal for LUTE and the Engineering Annex Lounge computing space do not have any dependencies. If approved, these items will be immediately integrated into our lab spaces.

Departmental Endorsement

This proposal has received the endorsement of Mani Soma, Dean, College of Engineering, and the Technical Communication faculty: Philip Bereano, Mary Coney, David Farkas, Mark Haselkorn, Deborah Illman, Karen Kasonic, Masashi Kato, Beth Kolko, Carolyn Plumb, Judith Ramey, Jan Spyridakis, Michio Tsutsui, Jennifer Turns, and Thomas Williams.

Student Endorsement

This November our undergraduates and graduate students answered detailed questions about our computing services and facilities in our most recent annual Computing Survey. A copy of the survey and its results are available on request or online at: http://www.uwtc.washington.edu/stfsurvey.

Items

Below are the items making up the current proposal. The asterisk (*) beside items signify that they were approved by the committee. This however was not implemented correctly for our database before 2005, so earlier years may not show this.

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