Establishing Practitioner and Academic Relationships

Establishing Practitioner and Academic Relationships

The relationship an academic program has with practitioners in the technical communication profession is beneficial to the academic program, university or college, the academic students, and the practitioners.

By establishing a relationship with practitioners, academics can bring real-life scenarios and examples to students for hands-on opportunities and learning experiences. In addition, the academic programs make use of the relationships to create additional programs, such as mentoring, internships, or co-operative learning jobs.

Other avenues are available for developing a practitioner and academic relationship, such as the following:

Bibliography

Bushnell, Jack. (1999, Spring). “A contrarian view of the technical writing classroom: Notes toward future discussion”. Technical Communication Quarterly, 8(2), 175-188.

Coggin, W. (Ed.). (1989). “Establishing and supervising internships”. Association of Teachers of Technical Writing Anthology Ser. 9. Lubbock, TX: Association of Teachers of Technical Writing.

Coon, A.C., & Scanlon, P.M. (1997) “Does the curriculum fit the career? Some conclusions from a survey of graduates of a degree program in professional and technical communication”. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 27(4), 391-399.

Dillon. W. T. (1997, March). “Corporate advisory boards, portfolio assessment, and business and technical writing program development”. Business Communication Quarterly, 60(1), 41-58.

Hirst, R. (1996). “The value of faculty internships in technical communication”. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 26(1), 79-96.

Little, S.B. (1993). “The technical communication internship: An application of experiential learning theory”. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 7, 423-451.

Melancon, L. (2009, May). “Master’s programs in technical communication”. Technical Communication, 56(2), 137-148. [comments on internships and practitioner-academic relationships]

Savage, G. J., & Seibel, M. K. (2010, January) “Technical communication internship requirements in the academic economy: How we compare among ourselves and across other applied fields”. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 40(1), 51-75.

Sides, C. H. (1998). “Corporate advisory boards”. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 28(1), 1-2.

Smith, H. J. (2003). “German academic programs in technical communication”. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 33(4), 349-363. [internships]

St. Amant, K. (2003). “Expanding internships to enhance academic-industry relations: A perspective in stakeholder education”. Journal of Technical Writing & Communication, 33(3), 231-241.

Thomas, S. & McShane, B. J. (2007, November). “Skills and literacies for the 21st century: Assessing an undergraduate professional and technical writing program”. Technical Communication, 54(4), 412-423. [practitioner input on portfolios and curricula]