Notes that many companies want to reduce paper documentation necessary to support their products. Maintains that, if technical communicators are to avoid being downsized out of a job, they must build on their existing communication skills and move toward product design, helping to produce products so obvious that they need no manuals. (SR)

Discusses "open source": a method of distributing software in which programmers make available to all the actual text of their programs. Notes that this makes possible "open-source" writing in the same way that the printing press made possible "open-source" reading, enabling mass literacy. Examines implications of…

A shortage of information-technology professionals is leading some companies to recruit and train people from other fields. Some dissenters believe the shortage is an excuse to fill positions with lower-paid foreign nationals and college students. (SK)

Suggests why conceptual design is so often neglected by development teams. Presents a five-step process for developing a sound conceptual model for a software application. Describes how technical communicators can reinforce and support conceptual design in their projects. (SR)

Presents recent changes in the technology, expansion of courseware, and distribution to other institutions of the interactive videodisc courseware utilized as a significant part of the undergraduate chemistry curriculum at the University of Illinois since 1986. (JJK)

This report summarizes one of a series of workshops organized by RAND's Critical Technologies Institute, on behalf of the U.S. Department of Education, to take advantage of the experience of those already implementing new technologies in the schools. The workshop consisted chiefly of dialogues with educators and experts from the private sector who…

This paper argues that Merrill's instructional transaction theory provides a framework that can decrease learners' problems in using computer simulations by specifying transaction shells rather than frames in designing interactive courseware. The three types of data used in a transaction, i.e., an instructional algorithm, are identified as a…

The 49 short (one- or two-page) conference papers presented here document concern for the use of hypermedia and multimedia technology in education. Discussion includes the use of multimedia technology in various subject areas, programming languages, electronic books, intelligent tutoring systems, distance education, knowledge representation,…