Learn what's happening in STC and in our SIG!

Wanna find out what's happening in STC and in the Instructional Design and Learning SIG? Well here are just a few things that you might find interesting:

SIG Goals | Web-Based Training Survey | Intercom Online | Salary Survey | New Membership Categories, Rates. and Dues Renewal

IDL SIG Goals

Greetings SIG Members,

A hearty thanks to each and every one of you who participated in the survey that our leadership team member, Jenny Achtemichuk, developed during the summer. From your responses, we were able to determine some of your concerns and begin to take steps to address those. The SIG Leadership Team met early in September to determine goals and begin to make plans towards obtaining those goals.

First, as a SIG, we need to pat ourselves on the back for our participation and presence at this year's conference. Because of that presence, we are in a better place to communicate our needs and concerns with the International staff. Second, we are in a better position to retain and gain members and to invite more active participation from you.

At our September meeting, the team decided on two broad goals, based on your responses and our own conversations with members individually or at the conference:

Goal 1: Provide meaningful and timely information to members regarding SIG activities, SIG/ID-related issues, and how to participate.

To do this, we plan to:

• Add more links and resource information to the Resources section of our website. Jackie Damrau is heading up that task, and you can help by giving her names of job resources, organizations, events, training resources, and ID sites by completing the contribution form at http://www.stcsig.org/idl/resources_add.shtml or sending an email to Jackie at jdamrau3@airmail.net . Thanks, Jackie!

• Create a business directory in which members can advertise their services. Jackie has also assumed responsibility for this section. You can submit information at: http://www.stcsig.org/idl/directory_new.shtml. Thanks, Jackie!

• Solicit and find meaningful articles and information related to instructional design and learning for the newsletter. The due dates and publication dates have already been established. David Williams, williams.210@nd.edu, is heading up this effort. You can submit articles to him or volunteer to assist with the newsletter. He has successfully distributed three newsletters this year, including this current edition. Congrats, David!

Goal 2: Organize teams and committees to streamline work efforts, minimize duplication of efforts, and involve as many members as possible.

To that end, we organized these teams:

• Newsletter Team, managed by by David Williams, to coordinate the newsletter including obtaining articles and information, and publishing the newsletter,

• Web Site Team, managed by Matt van Sickle with Chris Emanuelli as primary technical guru who has been doing it all so far. Thanks, Chris! And Welcome, Matt!

• Conference Committee, headed by Karen Baranich, to coordinate SIG sessions and SIG activities at the conference, including a luncheon, SIG table materials, give-aways, business meeting, and any other activities decided by the team or suggested by members.

• Online Forum, headed up by Michelle Didier, who has finished her Master's degree and has returned to the SIG leadership. Thanks, Michelle!

• Membership Committee, headed up by Sylvia Miller, who is responsible for sending welcome letters and maintaining membership information including obtaining member news for the website and newsletter.

Some of these folks may be contacting you directly or via the listserv to obtain help for their teams. After reading your input, we realize that we need to be more specific, so expect to see lists of skills and specific help that we can use to keep the SIG information flowing and growing. If you want to contact any of these people to volunteer your services and ideas, use the links provided.

Thanks again to all of you who gave us feedback and thanks, in advance, to those of you who are willing to contribute your ideas and time. We appreciate you!

Jane Smith

P.S. A quick note. At my request, STC will be adding the job title, "instructional designer" to their membership form. Please be sure to select it if it applies. It will give us some good data for moving forward, and we want to be sure to have enough select it to keep it on the form. Thanks.

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Participate in a Survey on Web-Based Training

Does your work involve some aspect of the design, development, production, administration, support, and/or evaluation of web-based training (WBT)? If so, you can contribute to our body of knowledge about those who work with WBT by participating in an online national survey and asking others who also work with WBT to take the survey.

Briefly, you will access the online survey here

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=7419633537

…and respond to the 36 main survey items (quick choice selections) and some demographic questions. Preliminary tests show that the survey takes 15-45 minutes to complete. More about this research project and procedures are detailed at the survey site including contact information for Texas Tech University Human Resources, my dissertation chair, and my survey sponsor. The survey closes November 30, 2004.

Note: The survey is housed on SurveyMonkey, and they do use cookies for the time you are taking the survey. However, they do not store information on you. Also, their servers have been pretty slow lately. I apologize for that.

If you are in my survey population, please help by taking the survey! If you are not in my survey population but know someone who is, please help by forwarding this survey announcement to them.

Thanks!!!!!!

Ida L. Rodgers, ABD
Texas Tech University
Technical Communications & Rhetoric
ilr@rhettime.net

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Intercom Online

The new Intercom Online is now available on the STC Web site! You can view the site at http://www.stc.org/intercom.

Previously, the Intercom section of the STC Web site contained links to the feature articles of the current issue. The new Intercom Online contains links to the entire Intercom article index for the current issue, including letters to the editor, Society Pages, and departments such as Witful Thinking and Off Hours. The new Intercom Online also features a full-text search utility that allows precise searches of all back issues from 1999 to the present. Some articles from the current issue will be available as "teasers" to non-members, but most of the articles will be reserved for members only.

Intercom Online is completely data-driven and has been entirely designed using CSS. Like the rest of the STC Web site, Intercom Online has been validated using W3C utilities and should prove extremely accessible and compatible. Intercom Online includes built-in accessibility features; to learn more about these features, click the "Accessibility" link in the footer of any page in the Intercom Online site.

Improving the value of STC remains our goal, and we're excited to add this helpful feature to the STC Web site!

STC: 2004 Technical Communicator Salary Survey

STC's 2004 Technical Communicator Salary Survey is now available on STC's Web site at www.stc.org/salarySurvey.asp. As in past years, the survey features information about salaries and benefits for STC members in the U.S. and Canada. The survey breaks down salary information by levels of experience, levels of education, gender, and ZIP Code/postal code.

This year, for the first time, the survey form was sent to STC members all over the world. Two countries outside of North America—Israel and India—produced enough responses to be statistically significant. Salary information about those countries has been included in the survey results.

To access the survey, you'll need to log onto the members-only section of the STC Web site using your member number and password. Your member number appears on your STC membership card and just above your address on the mailing label of Intercom. Password help is available on the logon screen.

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New Membership Categories, Rates, and Renewal Deadlines

STC is introducing new membership categories this fall. The new categories vary in price and give members the option of joining multiple STC communities (chapters and SIGs). Membership dues have not been increased.

Printed dues renewal invoices will be mailed in late November to all members who do not renew their memberships online at the STC Web site. For membership dues, STC accepts checks in U.S. dollars or Canadian equivalent, and American Express, MasterCard, and VISA payments. Dues payments must be received by January 1, 2005. (A grace period extends to February 28, 2005.) Note that only members who have paid their dues by February 28, 2005, will be eligible to vote in the STC election.

The renewal invoices for 2005 allow members to choose one of four new individual membership categories approved by the STC board of directors. (For more information on the new categories, see “Board Establishes New Membership Categories” in the September 2004 Tieline.) The rates for 2005 dues are as follows:

*Postage covers costs of mailing printed copies of Intercom and Technical Communication.

**To qualify for the retired member rate, an individual must be retired and have been an STC member for at least ten years.

Two groups of members do not receive a dues renewal invoice in November: members who join STC on or after November 1, 2004, and sustaining organizations. Sustaining organizations are billed separately in July.

If you have any questions about dues renewal, please contact the membership department.

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STC-related news reprinted with permission. Originally appeared in STC Newsletter, Tieline, July - October 2004 issues. All rights reserved.