Brooklyn College TW105 Online Helps and RoboHELP: Schedule

TW105: Online Helps and RoboHELP
Schedule Page

Although most of the links have been removed, the following course schedule gives you an idea of what we'll cover in this course. (Remember that this is an 8-week course.) When you are ready, return to the Brooklyn College Technical Writing Certificate Program course listing.

This is your main working page for TW105: Online Helps and RoboHELP in Brooklyn College's Technical Writing Certificate program. Use this page to find out what to name your files, see when projects are due, go to the online textbook and resources for this course. See the syllabus links following the schedule for information about objectives, required and recommended books, grades, and other resources. (Exact units and sequence of units may vary slightly from instructor to instructor and semester to semester.)

On all quizzes, please select Brooklyn College as instructor.

This course starts mmddyy.

Your instructor is instructor_name at instructor_email.

Click the units you've completed and then press Send at the top or bottom of this page. Remember that this tracking chart is for your convenience; the instructor uses other information to determine whether you've done adequate study to pass this course. If you mistakenly mark a unit as completed, contact your instructor (or just wait until you've actually completed it.)

Check	Project (Use these links to see project details.)	Due date	File names/comments	Completed
	Online helps: overview and structure. Use the overview of online helps to get an understanding of online helps, software tools for creating helps, criteria for effective helps, common organizational and structural techniques used in helps, navigational devices, chunking strategies, and more.	mmddyy	Complete the exercises and quiz on this unit.
	Exploring online helps. Use the guide for exploring helps to study the organization, structure, content, writing style, and style of a set of online helps that you select. Fill out a questionnaire on each online-help system you analyze.	mmddyy	Fill out an analysis form on each help system you find.
	Helps: learning a help-authoring tool. Choose your help-authoring tool! RoboHELP is the recommended tool, but it's expensive! Instead, you can use Microsoft's HTML Help, which as of January 2001 is a free download.	mmddyy	Complete your learning process on the help-authoring tool by the date shown at the left.
	Help-modeling project. Reformat plain text to create several online-help topics to look exactly like model help topics provided by your instructor.	mmddyy	Name the compiled version of this project your_name_model1.chm if you use RoboHELP; .hlp if you use HTML Help or some other application that uses this extension. If you revise, change 1 to 2. Send this project as an e-mail attachment to your instructor.
	Page design: review. Review standard design guidelines for headings, lists, notices, tables, figures, cross-references, and highlighting. (This is a quick review of material covered in depth in TW101: Technical Writing: Fundamentals. You can still access all the same study materials.)	mmddyy	Complete the exercises and quiz on this unit.
	Task analysis. Learn or review the basics of identifying user tasks related to a product and then structuring a documentation project accordingly.	mmddyy	Complete the exercises and quiz on this unit.
	CSS and styles. Learn how to apply existing styles to your help projects as well as create and apply your own.	mmddyy	Complete the exercises and quiz on this unit.
	Skins for online help. Learn how "skins" can be useful in help projects, how to apply existing skins, and how to create and apply your own skins.	mmddyy	Complete the exercises and quiz on this unit.
	Snippets and online help. Learn how "snippets" can be useful in help projects and how to create and apply snippets.	mmddyy	Complete the exercises and quiz on this unit.
	Help-formatting project. Use plain text to develop an online-help system. Format the text for headings, lists, and notices; incorporate highlighting, graphics, and tables.	mmddyy	Zip the entire project folder, including the .chm file, and name it your_name_format1.zip if you use RoboHELP; .hlp if you use HTML Help or some other application that uses this extension. If you revise, change 1 to 2. Send this project as an e-mail attachment to your instructor.
	Indexing. Learn or review the basics of creating indexes. You'll use these techniques to create an index in your online-help projects, as well as any book-length documentation you do in the future.	mmddyy	Complete the exercises and quiz on this unit.
	Context-sensitive help. Learn how to create help that provides help information specific to the dialog that the user is in.	mmddyy	Let your instructor know if you completed this unit successfully.
	Help-documentation project. Develop a help system for a smallish computer application or component (for example, shareware available out on the Internet).	mmddyy	Zip the entire project folder, including the .chm file, and name it your_name_project1.zip if you use RoboHELP; .hlp if you use HTML Help or some other application that uses this extension. If you revise, change 1 to 2. Send this project as an e-mail attachment to your instructor.
Note: All work in this course must be complete no later than mmddyy.

Syllabus

Objectives

Learn or review the basic theory and concept of hypertext.
Learn the basic structure of online helps—content, chunking, organization, navigation.
Review several online-help systems for the structure, navigation, and formatting.
Learn how to create basic help systems using RoboHELP.
Get an overview of other help-authoring software commonly used in technical documentation.
Design and create online helps in RoboHELP using unformatted text.
Learn or review basic indexing skills for use in creating indexes in online-help systems.
Learn or review basic page design in relation to online helps: headings, lists, notices, highlighting, tables, graphics, links.
Learn common techniques for "single-sourcing" technical documentation to print, web pages, and online helps.
Develop a complete help system for a small software application.
Practice the standard of good writing and document design.

Grades

A: All projects completed and approved by your instructor.
B: All projects completed and approved by your instructor except for the help-modelling project or the help-formatting project and except for the task-analysis unit or the indexing unit.
C: All projects completed and approved by your instructor, except for the task-analysis and indexing units and the final help-documentation project.

Contact your instructor concerning credit for projects you have completed but are still not approved by the time the course is over.

Books

The following texts are required:

Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications. Use the help-file version of this resource. Before you purchase this item, contact your instructor on how to get the correct copy of this help file.
Webber, Granor. Is the Help Helpful?: How to Create Online Help That Meets Your Users' Needs. Hentzenwerke ISBN 1930919603.

Resources

Online-helps resource page. Software manufacturers, listservs, articles, tutorials, forums, and more.
TECHWR-L articles. Lots of articles on all aspects of the field.
Technical Writing, Help Authoring Tools, Jobs, and More. Good general collection of links and articles.
Writer Write. Plenty of good articles!
computerjobs.com: Technical Writer Jobs. Good resource links also.
EServer TC Library. Super collection of links related to all aspects of this field.

Table of contents for the Online Textbook.
Policies for courses in the Brooklyn College Technical Writing Certificate program.
Online Technical Documentation site search facility.

Course Evaluation

Use the course evaluation form to give your opinions on the effectiveness of the study materials and organization of this course. (This evaluation is strictly optional, strictly voluntary.)

Information and programs provided by hcexres@io.com.