[Sigia-l] SIGDOC 2004 Call for papers

[Michael Albers]

Hurry to submit your abstracts.  They are due April 30.

Call for papers
SIGDOC 2004
The 22nd Annual International Conference on Design of Communication
Theme:  The Engineering of Quality Documentation
Memphis TN
October  10-13, 2004

Web site:    http://www.sigdoc.org/2004/index.html
Conference chair:  Johndan Johnson-Eioloa   <johndan at clarkson.edu>
Program chair:  Shihong Huang   <shihong at cs.ucr.edu>

Important Dates
Paper Abstracts Due:   April 30, 2004
Workshop Abstracts Due:   May 21, 2004
Notification to Authors:   June 11, 2004
Full Papers Due:   July 16, 2004

The engineering of quality documentation is a cross-disciplinary challenge 
affecting all team members, including technical writers, graphic artists, 
software developers, usability experts, and project managers. As the field 
of documentation matures, we would like to consider the implications of 
making design a systematic process of specification, creation, management, 
and evolution--in short, an engineering approach. How would the design of 
documentation and other communication artifacts and processes improve under 
an engineering model? What might be lost?

Documentation quality is an elusive concept that includes characteristics 
of the document product (such as readability and efficacy) and of the 
documentation process (such as automation and predictability). In this 
context, technical communicators' traditional knowledge and expertise is 
more important than ever. Designing effective communication may benefit 
from an engineering model of disciplined creativity.

SIGDOC 2004 will provide an opportunity for the exchange of information 
related to exciting new research and empirical results in areas such as:

-  Tools and techniques for engineering quality documentation
-  Assessing documentation quality attributes
-  Changing roles of technical communicators in 2004 and beyond
-  Single sourcing, artifact repositories, and document repurposing
-  Methods to keep documentation accurate and up to date



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Dr. Michael J. Albers
Professional Writing Program
Department of English
University of Memphis
Memphis  TN  38152
malbers at memphis.edu