STC India Chapter Announces its 7th Annual Conference

The 7th Annual Conference of the Society for Technical Communication
India chapter is scheduled to be held through 15-17 December 2005 at
Hyderabad. The annual conference is the largest annual gathering of technical communicators in India. The event offers a wonderful opportunity for participants to network and interact with writers across the country, demonstrate skills and techniques and learn about emerging trends in the profession.

Domain-Special Conference in Bangalore

STC India Chapter Awards its Scholarship for the year 2005

The STC India chapter started awarding scholarships for technical communication in the year 2004. The chapter announced three scholarships to deserving students. This scholarship amount of Rs. 10,000 is meant to assist the student in pursuing a degree or a post-graduate program, in any area of technical communication that is being offered by an Indian college or university. The chapter introduced two new scholarships of Rs. 4000 each this year. This scholarship is meant to assist students pursuing short-term certificate courses in technical communication. 

The STC India chapter is pleased to award its first category scholarship of Rs. 10,000 to Ms. Resmi Binoy of University of Calicut. Resmi is pursuing her Master’s degree in Mass Communication. She has an excellent track record of marks. Her 4th semester includes a paper on Technical Writing. A check for Rs. 10,000 will be sent to Resmi.

Learning Sessions

STC India Chapter held the following Learning Sessions to the technical communicators in the past few months.

Session Topic	Offshoring experience for documentation teams: What's working; what's not - a U.S. perspective
Session Speaker(s)	JoCarol Gau & Bill Gearhart [JoCarol Gau, a senior manager in the Information & Program Management organization at BMC Software and  Bill Gearhart is the director of Distributed Systems Management Information and Program Management for BMC Software]
Topic Summary	·   US Impressions (first year): the good, the bad, and the better ·   How to position yourself for US-based companies in resume, in phone screen or an interview. What do the managers look for? ·   Teamwork on a global team: process and time zone issues ·   What US nationals learn about working with the Indian culture? ·   Easing the process--what works for us
Date of the Session	September 29
Sponsor/Venue	BMC Software (India) Pvt. Ltd, Pune
Organized by	Manoj Bokil, STC India chapter Pune representative

Session Topic	The Importance of (Being) Content, (Re) Defining Content
Session Speaker(s)	Sandeep Balakrishna [Senior Tech Writer with a product development company]
Topic Summary	Focus in today’s technical writing scenario Importance of content to a technical writer Relearning the craft of technical writing Technical knowledge is the starting point for content.
Date of the Session	August 27, 2005
Sponsor/Venue	Oracle Corporation, Bangalore
Organized by	Akash Dubey,  STC India chapter Bangalore representative

Session Topic	Usability Engineering and the User Centered Approach
Session Speaker(s)	Jhumkee Iyengar [An experienced Usability Engineering expert]
Topic Summary	Approach to understanding user requirements, and usability engineering methodology, and its fit with traditional processes. Guidelines remaining user centered. What is usability engineering? Why is it practiced and how is it measured? How usability engineering can be applied to technical writing?
Date of the Session	August 27, 2005
Sponsor/Venue	Veritas, Pune
Organized by	Manoj Bokil, STC India chapter Pune representative

Session Topic	Section 508 Guidelines for Technical Writers (Section 508 is US law which requires that electronic and information technology (EIT) purchased or developed by federal agencies be accessible to people with disabilities.)
Session Speaker(s)	Mohd Qais Mujeeb
Topic Summary	Accessible documentation: what and how? assistive/adaptive technologies ccessibility testing Section 508 guidelines and checklists for technical writers, content writers and web designers
Date of the Session	August 21, 2005
Sponsor/Venue	Virtusa India Private Limited, Hyderabad
Organized by	Janani Saraswathy, STC India chapter Hyderabad representative

Session Topic	Bloom’s Taxonomy
Session Speaker(s)	Chaitanya Hakkaladaddi [Content and Instructional Designer with Tata Interactive Systems]
Topic Summary	Brief introduction to Blooms Differentiation between verbs that can be used in e-learning and those that can't Verbs for blended solutions Assessments for e-learning
Session 2nd Topic	Structuring Content in User Manuals & Online Help
2nd Session Speaker	Rakhi Bhattacharyya
2nd Topic Summary	User's manual - what is a user's manual?   Structure of a user's manual Structure of a task Online help - what is an online help? Types of online help Structure of an online help Detailed structure of a workflow-based online help
Date of the Session	August 6, 2005
Sponsor/Venue	Tata Interactive Systems, Kolkatta
Organized by	Rakhi Bhattacharyya, STC India chapter Kolkatta representative

Session Topic	Automatically Write Software Procedures
Session Speaker(s)	Paresh Naik
Topic Summary	The presentation is an introduction to the software tools that can automatically generate procedural content for GUI based applications.
Session 2nd Topic	Using DFSS Tools for Better Technical Writing
Session Speaker(s)	Paresh Naik [Technical Writer with Symphony Services, Pune]
2nd Topic Summary	The presentation is an explanation of the use DFSS (Design for Six Sigma) tools for improving the process capability in technical writing projects with specific examples. Examples include, Thought Process Map (TPM), Process Map (PM), Cause and Effect (C & E) diagrams, Root Cause Analysis, Quality Function Deployment (QFD), Failure Mode Effects Analysis (FMEA), and Supplier, Inputs, Process, Outputs, and Customer (SIPOC). The session also covered Quality, Productivity, Predictability, and Customer Satisfaction (QPPC) metrics.
Date of the Session	July 30, 2005
Sponsor/Venue	BindView Corporation (Pune R&D Center)
Organized by	Manoj Bokil, STC India chapter Pune representative

Session Topic	Writing Documentation for System/Network Administrators (Part I) Edit in Style (Part II)
Session Speaker(s)	Gururaj B. S. [Information Manager at Hewlett-Packard, Bangalore]
Topic Summary	Part I was an introduction to system/network administrator's guides. This session was useful for technical writers working in the computer hardware and networking domain. What is the difference between using "which" and "that"? What is anthropomorphism? What is morphology? Part II of the session which was a workshop addressed some of these issues about editing and style. Most importantly, participants understood how to develop an editing checklist for their team/organization.
Session 2nd Topic	Creating Multimedia Demonstrations Using ViewletBuilde
Session Speaker(s)	Tanvi Malhotra [Heads the documentation team at BEA Systems, India]
2nd Topic Summary	The workshop helped understanding how multimedia demonstrations work: ·         Creating a story-board ·         Reviewing key ViewletBuilder features ·         Creating a screenshot project ·         Adding text, color, notes, balloons, shapes, images ·         Inserting zones – text zone, click zone, quiz zone, pause zone ·         Animating cursor movement ·         Defining compilation setting
Date of the Sessions	July 30, 2005
Sponsor/Venue	EMC Corporation, Bangalore.
Organized by	Akash Dubey, STC India chapter Bangalore representative

Session Topic	Basics of Instructional Design
Session Speaker(s)	Debasree Bagchi [Instructional designer with Tata Interactive Systems]
Topic Summary	Instructional Design — a brief introduction Who is an instructional designer? What is instructional design? Why use instructional design? What are objectives? Characteristics of objectives Assessment and feedback Bloom's Taxonomy Motivation in instructional design ID strategy ARCS model
Session 2nd Topic	Project Documentation and Product Documentation: Twins or Distant Cousins
Session Speaker(s)	Debarshi Gupta Biswas [Technical Communicator at Cognizant Technology Solutions]
2nd Topic Summary	The session introduced project and product documentation and explored the differences between the two in the following sequence: ·         Overview of user documentation ·         Types of deliverables ·         Document development life-cycles ·         Differences between product documentation and project documentation ·         Key challenges and opportunities
Date of the Sessions	June 25, 2005
Sponsor/Venue	Cognizant Technology Solutions, Kolkatta
Organized by	Rakhi Bhattacharyya, STC India chapter Kolkatta representative