Special Interest Group on Design of Communication

I am the Tumblr of the Association of Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Design of Communication (ACM SIGDOC). I care about technology, technical communication, web design, user experience (UX), information design, and all associated educational and entrepreneurial ventures, as well as associated geekery. Learn more about me at: http://sigdoc.acm.org/.

[sigdoc]

What are the top 5 libraries for #dataviz?

An explosion in the number of available data sources and data-processing tools means that more people than ever are jumping into the world of data visualization. But with so much to learn, it can be intimidating to know just where to start. So which library is best, and what advice do the pros have?

Read on and find out.

[sigdoc]

The Council for Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication (CPTSC) invites proposals to host its 2015 and 2016 annual conferences.

General information on serving as a local conference host, and submitting a proposal to host a future CPTSC conference, can be found online at http://www.cptsc.org/hosts.html

Specific information on the responsibilities of local conference hosts -- and a tentative timeline related to organizing a CPTSC annual conference -- can be found online at 

http://www.cptsc.org/Serving-CPTSC-Host.pdf

Guidelines on drafting and submitting a proposal to be a local CPTSC conference host can be found online at http://www.cptsc.org/host-proposal-CPTSC.pdf  

Individuals interested in hosting a future CPTSC annual conference -- or who have questions on the conference hosting process -- should contact CPTSC President Kirk St.Amant at [email protected]

[sigdoc]

CFP: Communication Design Quarterly (Fall 2015 special issue)

CFP: Special Issue on Health and Medical Discourses In today's often bewildering world of scientific, technological, cultural, and political change, medicine faces human problems and possibilities that transcend traditional academic disciplines. As such, communication about health and medicine is ever more important in shaping our understandings of our cultures, our politics, and ourselves. In an effort to map the changing climate of health care and medical communication, Communication Design Quarterly invites proposals for a Fall 2015 special issue on health and medicine. Recent discussions at the intersections of English Studies, communication studies, and technical and professional communication have emphasized the importance of key issues including dissemination, ethics, connections, theory, and methods. Further, scholars have noted the importance of considering how conversations about health care are always already inflected by popular understandings of genetics, disease, and embodiment (Condit; Keranen; Koerber; Scott). This special issue seeks to expand these conversations by contributing to a growing body of collaborative and interdisciplinary work in health, medicine, and society. Submissions may focus on exploring and critiquing communication design concepts and practices that shape our understandings of health and medicine; pathology, disease, and illness; ability, choice, and access; and/or wellness and fitness. We additionally welcome interrogation of tensions between public health and privatized health care, neuroscience and enculturated practice, and reproductive health care and privilege in popular communication as well as investigation of  gendered and racialized patterns of care and their uptake in news media. We are especially interested in submissions that include discussion of interdisciplinary approaches, environmental rhetorics, visual communication, and experiential/embodied knowledges. Further, we are excited to consider proposals for pieces that subvert and transgress the conventions of traditional scholarly articles. Collaborative essays, multimodal works, photo essays, posters, and other alternative media are strongly encouraged. Potential questions that submissions might address include:   -  What do evolving definitions of medical rhetoric/health communication  make possible and/or limit?  

 -  What are the primary distinctions, contradictions, and connections between humanities-based orientations and social sciences-based orientations to health and medical communication?

  -  What are best practices in the design of health and medical communication?

  -  How do health and medical researchers disseminate their work and what implications do common rhetorical choices in those communications have?

  -  What productive points of confluence in theory and methods work can help to produce more efficient health and medical communication? And for whom must health and medical communication be efficient?

  -  What practices can technical communicators engage in to promote social justice in the contexts of health and medical communication?

  -  How can various approaches to the design of health and medical  communication affect public perceptions of risk and ethical accountability?

  -  What research challenges do health and medical communications   researchers face?

  -  What roles do the Internet and social media play in health communication?

  -  In what ways have recent political interventions altered the ways we communicate about health and medicine, and what might this mean for future health/medical communicators and practitioners? Please send article proposals of up to 500 words and a short c.v. to Lisa Meloncon ([email protected]) and Erin Frost ([email protected]). Schedule is as follows:   -  Proposals due:  May 1, 2014   -  Notifications for full drafts: May 15, 2014   -  Full drafts due: December 1, 2014   -  Final revisions due: April 1, 2015 Bookmark this CFP here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IBRTYhZ2T9rjppAdns0om1t94bcXp68V_FNcSy9RVEQ/edit?usp=sharing

[sigdoc]

CFP: 2014 Annual Conference of the Council for Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication (CPTSC)

Call for Proposals

2014 Annual Conference of the Council for Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication (CPTSC)

September 25-27, 2014

  Conference Theme:  Contexts and Connections: Considering Situational Factors Affecting the Structure and the Nature of Programs

  Conference Location:University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, Colorado Springs, CO

  Overview

The structure of our programs—the courses they contain, the sequence in which these courses are offered, the requirements for our programs, and who teaches our courses and who makes curricular decisions—all  depend on the local institutional contexts in which these programs operate.  Likewise, where our programs are housed and the connections they have to other entities on campus and in the community add another layer of context to consider. Moreover, greater social, political, and economic contexts can affect—both positively and negatively—the nature and the structure of programs.  As a result of such connections, an understanding of the dynamic and interconnected nature of contexts is essential to identifying and addressing factors that can influence programs in the field.  The 2014 annual conference of CPTSC seeks to explore the factors of context and connections that can affect our programs.

  The program committee wishes to invite proposals for presentations that examine how aspects of context and connections – including curricular, programmatic, institutional, disciplinary, social, political, or economic contexts – might be used as a mechanism for thinking about and facilitating program development and program revision. Such factors may be local or global in nature, may influence and be influenced by trends in industry or society, and may result from or drive scholarly research in the discipline. We welcome a variety of perspectives and approaches—historical, pragmatic, empirical, or theoretical—that address the conference theme.

  Possible Topic Areas

Suggested topic areas for proposals include, but are not limited to, how different contexts and connections affect current and future aspects of

Program and curriculum development

Program identity and branding or marketing our programs

Recruitment and retention strategies (for both students and faculty) for our programs

Assessment practices and program evaluation

Industry-academy relationships in programmatic contexts

Interdisciplinary and intra-institutional collaborations that can benefit programs

Strategic partnerships that can facilitate program development and sustainability

Online approaches to developing and delivering classes and programs

Service learning and community outreach practices and approaches in relation to programs

Theoretical foundations for our research on programs and programmatic issues

Publishing practices affecting the faculty teaching in our programs

Professional development opportunities for faculty and students in our programs

Administrative practice related to our programs

Social forces to consider in relation to the development and sustainability of programs

Local, national, and global developments affecting our programs

Effective engagement with diversity in our programs and practices

  The CPTSC conference emphasizes discussion and a focus on programmatic issues. The audience includes people from new and established programs and anyone with programmatic interests in technical, professional, and scientific communication. We welcome participants – administrators, faculty, and students – from secondary, community college, or university levels, as well as representatives of industry and non-profit or governmental organizations.

  Presentation Formats

Proposals may be submitted for the following kinds of presentations:

Individual Presentations: A 5-minute presentations given by an individual speaker

Panel Presentation: A session in which 3-6 individuals each has 5 minutes to examine different aspects of a central topic, theme, or focus of the overall panel.

Poster Session: Posters will be on display throughout the conference, and poster creators will present and discuss their posters at a dedicated session during the conference. 

  Submission Guidelines 

Interested individuals should submit

A 250-300 word proposal for individual or for poster presentations

A 500-600 word proposal for panel presentations

  All proposals should include the following information:

The title of the proposed presentation

The kind of presentation (i.e., individual presentation, panel presentation, or poster presentation)

The submitter’s name, affiliation, and contact email

The topic or the focus of the proposed presentation

A summary of the approach or research method used to examine the proposed presentation topic

A summary of what attendees can “take away” from the presentation to apply to or use within the context of their own organizations or programs

The programmatic issue addressed or examined in the proposed presentation, panel, or poster

  For panel presentations, each member of the proposed panel should submit both her or his name and affiliation and a summary of what she or he plans to present (based on the above guidelines) during her or his segment of the panel session.

  All proposals should be submitted as .rtf or .doc files attached to an email message sent to

  [email protected]

  The subject line of the related email should read “CPTSC 2014 Conference Proposal.”  All proposals will be peer reviewed.

  Note: While individuals may submit more than one proposal for consideration, each accepted presenter may give only one presentation at the conference. 

  Submission Deadlines

Early Submission Deadline – Proposals received on or before 16 May 2014 will be considered “early submissions” and will receive expedited review and consideration for the conference. 

  Regular Submission Deadline – Proposals received on or before 7 July 2014 will be considered a“regular submission” and will undergo a slightly longer review process. 

  Questions

Individuals who have questions or who wish to discuss proposal ideas are encouraged to contact the 2014 Conference Program Committee at [email protected] 

[sigdoc]

In search of more Presidential Innovation Fellows

The U.S. General Services Administration is now accepting applications for the third round of the Presidential Innovation Fellows program. The initiative gives people from outside the federal government an opportunity to work with federal innovators on projects intended to help make the government run better. The three high-impact initiatives of the third round are big data, crowdsourcing, and digital services, and the program will look to tap people who are experts in these areas. Fellows will help create a digital experience that will enable the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide better, faster access to services. They also will assist the government in its effort to make information resources more accessible to the public and usable in computer readable forms, and to encourage the use of data by companies, entrepreneurs, citizens, and others to drive the creation of new products, services, and jobs. In addition, fellows will help the government leverage technology and innovation to engage the public as a strategic partner in solving problems and improving government operations. There will be 14 projects in the three areas, and the application deadline is April 7.

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[sigdoc]

British Library opens exhibit about the history of science visuals

Check out some of these historical big data artifacts on display in the British Library's Beautiful Science exhibit. Included below is a sample image from 1854 plotting cholera deaths. 

William Farr, Report on the Mortality of Cholera in England 1848-49, 1852

[techcommblog]

Product Announcement: Tech Writing Handbook by iFixit

This handbook will teach you how to create everything from manuals to work instructions. We’ll help you avoid the most common pitfalls of tech writing, from poor planning to outdated publishing.

Authors:

Kyle Wiens, CEO, iFixit

Julia Bluff, Lead Writer, iFixit

Full handbook available for free at: http://www.dozuki.com/tech_writing

Some of my students helped create this: http://guiseppegetto.com/teaching/-WCD

[techcommblog]

Google Employees Confess The Worst Things About Working At Google (GOOG)

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How could a gig at the biggest, most ambitious tech company on the planet possibly be bad? Google has a very high hiring bar due to the strength of the brand name, the pay & perks, and the very positive work culture. There are students from top 10 colleges who are providing tech support for Google’s ads products, or manually taking down flagged content from YouTube, or writing basic code to A|B test the color of a button on a site.

[sigdoc]

http://sigdoc.acm.org/publication/

Communication Design Quarterly 2.1 is now available for free at the above link.

Enclosed you will find our first-ever book reviews of new titles in UX design and accessibility, a state-of-the-SIG report by our Chair, as well as research articles on accessible icon design for medical devices and student digital composing as communicative action.

Happy reading!

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[sigdoc]

STEM Talent Shortfall Frustrates Tech Recruiters

CIO.com

As lawmakers gear up for another push for immigration reform that could expand the number of visas granted to highly skilled foreign workers, a new study is warning that U.S. schools aren't producing enough graduates with degrees in the STEM fields. In a survey commissioned by Bayer and released in conjunction with the Change the Equation coalition, 150 talent recruiters at Fortune 1000 companies said that their companies are creating scientific and technical positions faster than non-STEM jobs, and competition for graduates with degrees in those fields is brisk. Bayer's report comes as the latest warning from the private sector about a shortfall of STEM workers, a major issue in the IT sector, where many companies have been lobbying for reforms to the nation's immigration laws that would expand the annual allotment of H-1B visas for skilled foreign workers.

The notion of a STEM shortage is not without controversy, with some claiming it's just a myth. Indeed, critics of expanding the H-1B cap have argued that such a move would simply give businesses a license to hire more low-wage foreign workers at the expense of their American counterparts. However, the new report argues that post-secondary institutions aren't keeping up with the hiring demands of the private sector. In particular, that shortfall is seen in candidates with degrees from two-year or four-year institutions, what is described as the engine of the STEM workforce. Eighty-nine percent of the respondents said that competition for graduates from four-year STEM programs for positions in those fields is extremely high.

Just 55 percent of recruiters polled said that they can typically fill a position with a STEM-educated candidate with a two-year degree in a timely manner, while an even half of respondents said the same about candidates with a degree from a four-year program. But the demand for graduates with STEM degrees isn't just confined to technical positions. After all, more than half of the recruiting managers polled work for companies outside the STEM fields. And of the total group of respondents, a substantial majority said that STEM graduates are more desirable for non-STEM positions than job seekers with nontechnical degrees. People who have STEM degrees are being sought after for jobs that traditionally have not been considered STEM jobs, and that's going to tighten up the STEM workforce.

Click Here to View Full Article 

[techcommblog]

[image: an infographic of the “estimated decomposition rates of common marine debris items,” including a tin can (50 years), fishing line (600 years), disposable diaper (450 years), etc.]

[sigdoc]

Job Market Embraces Massive Online Courses

The Wall Street Journal (09/26/13) Douglas Belkin; Caroline Porter 

Employers are increasingly joining the massive open online course (MOOC) fray, allowing workers to acquire skills with market value at a low cost. Although MOOCs have made top-quality courses available to a much larger pool of students, most have not offered any type of credentials--but that situation is starting to change. Udacity last week announced the Open Education Alliance to offer online courses developed in collaboration with companies including Google and AT&T, and providing students with a free certificate. In addition, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and MOOC partner edX are launching their XSeries courses, with assistance from about 50 companies. Students will be able to earn a verified certificate in computer science, supply-chain management, and other subjects for about $700. Open Education Alliance companies will create at least one class at a cost of about $250,000, for which they will receive access to a talent pool with desired job skills, says AT&T's Scott Smith. Although critics worry that corporate involvement will slant the educational experience in favor of companies at the long-term expense of students, many students are looking for ways to make education more affordable. "What we are really establishing are educational pathways for people who want skills that are relevant to contemporary jobs," says Stanford University professor Sebastian Thrun.

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[sigdoc]

Which World Governments Are Most Likely to Snoop on Your Facebook?

Atlantic Cities (09/27/13) John Metcalfe 

The United States, Italy, the United Kingdom, India, and Australia have the highest rates of government surveillance of Facebook accounts, according to a map of Facebook security created by New Zealand-based digital media lecturer and a 2013 Code for America fellow Anselm Bradford for this month's EU Hackathon. To create the map, Bradford used information from Facebook's transparency report for the first six months of 2013, combined with other statistics. Each country's ranking is weighted by population, number of Facebook users, and frequency of official data demands. Bradford then estimated the amount of time that would pass before each nation's users have more than a 1-percent chance of their data being accessed by an intelligence or judicial agency. The U.S. government led with 11,000 to 12,000 government requests for data, while Barbados, Japan, Russia, Uganda, Mongolia, Montenegro, and Botswana had very low rates of government snooping.

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[sigdoc]

Stretchable OLEDs for Displays, Lighting

EE Times (09/27/13) R. Colin Johnson 

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) researchers have demonstrated a transparent, elastic organic light-emitting diode (OLED) prototype. The researchers say future stretchable and bendable OLEDs could redefine the user experience with a new class of smartphones, smart electronic clothing, and wallpaper-like lighting panels. "Being stretchable and highly flexible means that OLED lighting panels and displays could be like wallpaper--very thin, lightweight, and collapsible into a small volume when not in use," says UCLA professor Qibing Pei. To prove the concept, the researchers fabricated two small stretchable OLEDs, one a lighting panel and the other a passive 5-by-5 pixel display. Both devices were demonstrated to be bendable, foldable, and stretchable. In order to achieve a stretchable, bendable OLED, the researchers reengineered all the materials in an OLED stack. "First was the development of a transparent compliant conductor comprising a percolation network of silver nanowires in the surface layer of an elastomer film," Pei says. "The second key development is an OLED architecture that we call light-emitting electrochemical cell." In the future, the researchers want to develop encapsulation methods that protect the organic materials from deterioration in the presence of air.

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[sigdoc]

Android Fingerprint Sensors 6 Months Away

USA Today (10/01/13) Byron Acohido 

The FIDO Alliance, a group of 48 tech companies led by PayPal and Lenovo, is aggressively pushing a new standard of biometric identification for consumer access to mobile payments and other services. FIDO Alliance president Michael Barrett anticipates the rollout of Android models with FIDO-compliant biometric fingerprint sensors in six months. FIDO is designed to reduce, if not completely eliminate, the use of passwords to access accounts on mobile devices. Although the Touch ID fingerprint sensor included in Apple's latest iPhone is not FIDO-compliant, Barrett says it is a simple matter to adapt the technology to his group's standard. In the meantime, he is working to convince other hardware manufacturers and online companies to agree on common rules for enabling consumers to use their computing devices more centrally in the authentication process. "We make tradeoffs to balance security with convenience," notes RSA's Manoj Nair. "The next generation of identity protection will allow us to be more convenient and secure at the same time."

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[sigdoc]

Study Finds Math and Science Exposure Has Significant Impact on Intent to Study STEM Fields

Inside Higher Ed (10/01/13) Megan Rogers 

Early exposure to math and science has a greater influence on high school students' interest in majoring in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields than does math achievement, according to a new study. Math achievement was once thought to be the biggest predictor of enrollment in STEM programs. Exposure to math and science gives students an opportunity to develop their interests and experience the wonders and joys of math and science, says University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Xueli Wang. "It's speaking to the holistic experience rather than the one-shot test score," Wang notes. However, for students from ethnic groups underrepresented in STEM, the exposure effect has a smaller impact. The study also found that male students reported more belief in their math skills than female students with comparable achievement. "We all need to be mindful of racial differences, especially if we are thinking of diversifying our STEM pipeline," Wang emphasizes. Other factors affecting a student's likelihood to major in a STEM field that the study covered included initial post-secondary experiences such as interaction with faculty and academic advisers, and the receipt of financial aid.

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