It’s not too late to renew your STC membership for 2020!

By Lori Meyer, IDL SIG membership manager

It’s 2020 — Can you still renew your STC membership? Yes! 

Now that 2020 is one quarter completed, you might be wondering if it’s too late to renew your STC membership for this year. The answer is no, it is definitely not too late! Although 2019 memberships have expired, you can still renew your membership and continue to benefit from all of the programs and services that make STC an excellent partner in your tech comm career development. Those include:

  • Member discounts for educational programs, including courses, webinars, and the STC Annual Conference, Summit — the gathering place for all technical communicators to learn from the best and the brightest in our profession. The 2020 Conference will take place virtually this year, due to COVID-19.
  • Free subscription to Intercom, the STC monthly publication, which offers informative articles about the topics of interest to today’s technical communicators.
  • Access to the Technical Communication Salary Survey, from which you can gain valuable knowledge about compensation in our profession.
  • The opportunity to become industry-certified through the Certified Professional Technical Communicator program.
  • The opportunity to build your network of professional colleagues through involvement in STC chapters and special interest groups.
  • The opportunity to have your work recognized through regional technical publications competitions.

You can renew your STC membership online quickly and easily. Once you have completed the online renewal form and submitted your membership dues payment, your membership will be reactivated.

To renew your membership

  1. Go to org and log in with your member ID and password. Your STC membership number is your user name.
  2. Click Join or Renew Now.
  3. Read through the Membership Levels and Benefits section, then click the Renew Your STC Membership Today
  4. Click the Renew Today link at the bottom of the page.
  5. Complete the renewal form. If your contact information (home/work address, email, or phone number) has changed, make the necessary updates. Make sure that your email address is current and correct, so you can receive acknowledgement of your renewal and other information about your membership.
  6. Choose the communities to include in your membership. Each chapter costs $25.00; each SIG costs $10.00.

Please note: 

  • If you are currently unaffiliated (do not belong to any chapters or SIGs), you can add communities now.
  • If you are already a member of one or more chapters and SIGs, you must choose them again, because the renewal system does not automatically carry over community memberships from the previous year. If you are currently a member of the IDL SIG, be sure to check IDL SIG on the renewal form! And if you’re not a SIG member, we would love to have you as one!
  • If you are an STC Gold member, one chapter membership is free, and all SIG memberships are free. The system will remove the charges for these memberships at the end of the renewal process. However, you must still select a chapter and the SIGs you want included in your memberships, so you will be added to the membership database for those communities.
  1. Select or bypass any other options as you prefer.
  2. Enter your credit card information when prompted, and submit the renewal form. STC will send an acknowledgement email. Keep this email for your records.

We look forward to having you as a member of STC and our SIG!


If you have any questions or concerns about your membership, please feel free to contact me at membership@stcidlsig.org. I will be happy to answer any questions you have, or guide you to resources you need.

Thank you for being a member of the IDL SIG!


Lori Meyer
Lori Meyer

Lori Meyer, an STC Fellow, has more than 20 years of experience as a technical writer, editor, and help developer. She began her technical communication career in Rochester, NY, and relocated to the San Francisco Bay area in 1998. Lori has been active in STC since the early 1990s, starting with the Rochester Chapter, where she created the chapter’s first Web site.

Since then, she has held in many volunteer positions, including employment manager, secretary, conference co-chair, membership manager, director-at-large, and SIG co-manager. She has delivered leadership presentations at the STC Summit international conference and via webinar.

On the community level, over the years Lori has served as a director at large for the Carolina Chapter, secretary and president of the Washington DC-Baltimore Chapter, membership manager of the Rochester, East Bay, and San Diego Chapters, and president of the East Bay Chapter. Lori stays involved with these communities, and also volunteers for the Technical Editing and Consulting and Independent Contracting SIGs.

Manager’s Report

By Marcia Shannon

SIG Manager

Welcome to the first manager’s report of 2020. First, thank you for renewing your membership with STC and IDL. With your support and participation, the IDL SIG continues to thrive. Your leadership team has planned activities throughout 2020 to provide the education and community networking that support your career in technical communication. Watch for email announcements and check the website for details of upcoming events.

First quarter was busy. January 31 was the deadline to submit the Community Achievement Award application. Completing that very detailed form was a good review of all that the SIG accomplished in 2019. It is also a good checklist of what other activities we can complete in 2020. In February and March, Ed Marsh and Kelly Schrank shared useful information that you can use to advance your technical communication career. Both webinars are available on our YouTube channel.

The Student Outreach Essay competition deadline was February 22. Judging continues through March, so watch for announcements about the results. If you missed this year’s deadline, start planning to enter the next competition. Submissions are welcome throughout the year. The SIG needs support from educator members to encourage their students to enter the competition. It’s a good opportunity to be published before graduation. Suggest that students rework an essay they submitted in class to meet our newsletter style.

The hot items for second quarter are holding the annual SIG election and planning our Summit activities. Both are opportunities for you to become involved in the SIG. We plan to introduce new leaders and members during the IDL SIG Business Meeting at Summit. We invite you to be part of our celebration.

The strength of any community depends on participation and the willingness of members to work together to make the group thrive. Your next opportunity to do that is the annual elections. There are many open slots on the leadership team, both elected and appointed. Appointed means that you step up and say “I can do that”. Cheers from the other leaders will welcome you!

We need two assistant co-managers to transition to 2021’s co-managers. This is a coordinator role, not as burdensome as managing. If your career goal is any level of management, this is an opportunity to try your wings with plenty of support from other leaders.

We need a secretary. My experience as secretary was uncomplicated: Attend the monthly meeting, or listen to the recording, then write and publish the minutes. It usually took about three hours across a couple sessions each month.

Committee members can take turns covering a position or work one part of it. For example, one member of the Social Media committee could handle Twitter while someone else posts to Facebook. The committee chair would coordinate the work.

You could learn webinar management as part of the Programs committee and add it to your skills list for that next job review.

Without participation, there is no SIG. Please share your talents to keep our SIG thriving!


Marcia Shannon
Marcia Shannon

Marcia Shannon was secretary from 2016 to 2018, assistant co-manager for the SIG in 2018, and transitioned to co-manager in 2019.

Letter from the editor – Q4 2019

By Kelly Smith

Welcome to the last issue of IDeaL: Design for Learning for 2019!

A lot has happened this year in your SIG! Your volunteer leaders have brought you webinars, events, and great articles throughout the year, and I would like to thank them for all their hard work in organizing, promoting, and recording these events to share with all of us.

Speaking of articles, if you’d like to contribute to the newsletter, please email me! The deadline for the March issue is March 3, 2020. I am always looking for more book reviews, articles about how you use instructional design in your work, and biographies of new members. If everyone contributes, we’ll have a stronger newsletter, and a stronger body of knowledge on our website.

Also, if you’d like to edit the newsletter, please let me know. I have been in this position for nearly two years now and would like to start training a backup with an eye toward transitioning it to a new editor. The ideal editor should be someone with a passion for instructional design, a good editing eye, and a commitment to staying on schedule. We use the AP Style guide and WordPress, so knowledge of one or both of those would definitely be a plus! (But never fear, we’re happy to teach you!) If that sounds like something you’d like to get involved in, drop me a line!


This is a relatively short edition of our newsletter, so take a few minutes out of your holiday week to check out what’s new in your SIG!

  • Our co-manager, Marcia Shannon, shares information about the student essay competition and asks for more SIG members to step up and volunteer for leadership positions in her co-manager’s column.
  • Jamye Sagan provides a year-end treasurer’s report.
  • Viqui Dill fills us in on upcoming programs about podcasting, networking, and adding value as a technical communicator.
  • And finally, we have the last of our 2019 student essay competition articles, this one by Nicole Wylie on the topic of storyboarding in instructional design.

I hope you are all having a happy and relaxing holiday season and I look forward to seeing you all at Summit in Bellevue in May! Happy Holidays!

Kelly


Kelly Smith
Kelly Smith

Kelly Smith has been Managing Editor of the IDeaL newsletter since May 2018. She also serves as membership manager for her local chapter – STC Southeast Michigan. Kelly works as Senior Technical Writer at Dart Container in mid-Michigan and has been active in the STC since 2015. In her free time, Kelly is a quilter who enjoys quilt retreats and buying fabric.

Storyboarding Instructional Design

By Nicole Wylie

Introduction

Instruction designers (ID) develop educational experiences. This task comes with the challenges of developing a product that is user friendly in a timely manner. Storyboarding is a tool that instructional designers use to deliver instructional designs and experiences through a linear sequence of images. These images visually predict and explore a user’s product experience. Storyboarding can aid to streamline the creation of instructional products. Ideally storyboarding is the solution for instructional designers to enhance their workload; however, that may not be the case. It is important to compare the benefits of storyboarding to the disadvantages, allowing instructional designers to determine if the process will benefit them.

Advantages of storyboarding in ID

Storyboarding is known to solve problems that instructional designers face in their everyday workload. The two main problems ID faces are:

  1. Slow turn-around time.
  2. Lack of guidance from subject matter experts (SME).

A solution for both of these problems lies within storyboarding.

Slow turn-around time

Instructional design involves two groups of people—IDs and SMEs. Both parties have very different jobs and are required to find common time to work on a project, causing difficulty in collaboration. This process becomes increasingly difficult when both parties come from different departments or companies. Traditionally, once an ID project has begun development, changes are difficult to make due to the nature of the project, causing an slower output when designers have to backtrack.

Storyboarding is a way to streamline a lengthy communication and development process by creating a visual representation of the learning process. This allows a SME to look at an instructional product and point out errors, and places in need of improvement. A storyboard structure will limit communication errors that will hinder the development process. It is easier to change content in a storyboard, than in an instructional product. Before finalizing a product, this is the most efficient way to work out any issues an instructional designer may face after development has begun.

Lack of guidance

Due to the communication issues instructional designers face with SMEs, there also is a lack of guidance on the content they are developing. Instructional design is a field where many of the developers on not well versed in the content they are creating. With that, their SMEs often don’t dedicate time for questions and clarification. Storyboarding can help with that process.

By creating a visual map of your instructions, it is easy to point out areas where you need clarification, or issues in the users learning process. By having this map, you can easily share where you need guidance with little explanation. This can also help the designer develop questions that will help the overall process before a meeting, to ensure there isn’t an overwhelming need for back and forth the SME may not have time for.

Constraints

With the advantages of storyboarding to develop ID there are also disadvantages to the process. As the solution solves major issues in the process it develops others.

The two main issues surrounding ID and storyboarding are:

  1. Lack of software.
  2. Linear output.

For storyboarding to work there are assumptions about the ID development process that may not be true.

Access to storyboarding software

For professional instructional designers a company will give them a set of tools needed to do their jobs correctly. Seldom will an organization feel it is beneficial to invest in storyboarding software and training to develop content. With that, there is no software dedicated specifically to ID. The designer would have to invest their own money in it, and use a program that is made for film. That step would cause further issues as one member of a team would be working separately. Unless storyboarding is a solution a company is invested in or the designer is freelance, the process will not work.

Linear output

Storyboarding is a linear process causing a linear output. This approach to learning can hinder the user’s experience. A concept may be best presented in a matrix fashion where learning points can be cross-referenced or taught parallel to one another, in order to enhance an understanding of concepts. The design is not always going from point A to point B.

Conclusion

Storyboarding can be a useful tool in the world of ID but it is not for everyone. If a designer is creating a learning process that is best developed in a linear fashion, while having access to the correct software, it can help the ID development process in a positive way. Creating a storyboard when it does not best fit the learning plan can cause issues in development and user interaction. It is up to the designer to research and determine what development practice is best for them to make the most impactful user experience.

References

Sunil Kumar B. “Creating e-learning Content Storyboard Based on Instructional Design Principles”. 2013 https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/creating-e-learning-content-storyboard-based-on-instructional-design-principles-2165-7912.1000156.php?aid=16139

Cultta, Richard. “storyboarding”. 2018 http://www.instructionaldesign.org/concepts/storyboarding/

Bio:

Nicole is currently completing a Graduate Certificate in Technical Communications at Seneca College, after receiving an undergraduate degree at York University in Professional Writing. She is excited to transition into the field of Technical Communications. Outside of writing, she is interested in Art History and enjoys reading.

IDL SIG Treasurer’s Report – Q4

By: Jamye Sagan, IDL SIG Treasurer

The SIG continues to maintain a healthy amount of funds for 2019. As of October 31, we have $1,759.15 in our account.

The SIG did not incur any expenses during August, September, and October. The SIG made a modest profit from Viqui Dill’s October 1 webinar and may also make some profit from the remaining webinars offered this year.

In November and December, the SIG anticipates the following expenses:

  • Speaker honoraria for the remaining webinars this year
  • STC student membership reimbursements for students whose works were published in IDeaL
  • Virtual Open House door prizes

The SIG is also currently working on its budget for 2020. Our team reviews the budget to ensure funds benefit as many IDL SIG members as possible.

If you have any questions about SIG finances, please email me at treasurer@stcidlsig.org.


Jamye Sagan
Jamye Sagan

Jamye Sagan currently serves as treasurer for the IDL SIG, and is a senior member of STC. She served as a co-manager of the SIG from 2010-12.

At work, she uses her tech comm skills to make sense out of the seemingly senseless. At play, she uses sticks and hooks to transform yarn into pretty objects.