Getting "dissed": technical communicators in interdisciplinary engineering teams

Abstract

In this article, we discuss what we identified as the perils and promises of matching our technical communication students with teams of engineers in a capstone, client-based engineering course. Specrfically, we identifi the key issues that su$aced, focusing the discussion around three themes we saw as contributing to multidisciplinary success: participation level, role definition, and connections between interim processes/products and final deliverables. We conclude by sharing a series of initial recommendations and modrfications established as we continue to improve this multidisciplinary endeavor and reconfigure models for working in multidisciplinary teams.Since Jack Selzer's landmark essay, "The Composing Processes of an Engineer," the technical communication field has spent more than a decade researching communication in the engineering discipline. The increased attention paid to communication within engineering stems in part from trends in industry and in part from the interests of rhetoricians in what Ackerman and Oates (1996) refer to as "highly specialized professional discourses7' @. 81). For instance, Herrington's (1985) "Writing in Academic Settings: A Study of the Contexts for Whting in Two College Chemical Engineering Courses" examines writing skills among engineering students, paving the way for fiuther studies devoted to specific curricula and pedagogical methods incorporating writing into engineering programs.

Integrating Communication and Engineering Education: A Look at Curricula, Courses, and Support Systems

“…Students work in teams on client-based projects involving a significant design documentation, reporting and presentation component. Entering its fourth year of implementation, the class has been extremely successful in the way that engineers have learned more about communication from technical writing students and technical writing students have gained valuable experience in working on project teams with engineers [26] [27].…”

Influences on Engineering Instructors’ Emphasis on Interdisciplinarity in Undergraduate Courses

“…Engineering education researchers are among the few who are systematically examining the conduct and impact of interdisciplinary courses and programs [15][16][17][18][19][20] . Most of this research, however, has focused on the experiences of students in interdisciplinary teams [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] or interdisciplinary programs 26,27 . Only a few studies have considered the role of engineering faculty in designing these educational experiences 28,29 .…”