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Hi Nina,
I am a tech writer at a small software company and I also do some of the training course development. My education is in TW, and I learned the Instructional Design piece on my own by attending courses, webinars, reading, etc. There's actually quite a bit of overlap in that many of the TW principles align nicely with ID. I have developed a variety of training presentations, videos, and supporting materials. One benefit of doing both is that I can ensure the consistent material and messaging is presented across all resources (e.g., the online help matches the course instructions). Â
I'm happy to discuss with you directly if you want more information,
Laurie Marshall
From: Nina Rogers <janina -dot- rogers -at- gmail -dot- com>
To: TECHWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Sent: Wednesday, August 1, 2018 9:01 AM
Subject: Training design
Hello!
Our company is looking for someone who can both do tech writing (software
documentation, Help Center management, forum management, etc.) and design
training courses. To me, this sounds like two jobs in one--a tech
writer/software documentation person and an instructional designer. So I'm
just throwing this question out there because I don't know the answer: Is
it pretty standard for tech writers to have training design experience (and
to have both job responsibilities in a single job), or is instructional
design typically considered a wholly separate specialty?
I think the people writing the ad are thinking that tech writing would take
up about 60% of the job while training design would take up 25% and other
tasks would take up about 15%. I see training design as a much bigger
thing, since it includes determining the best training methods, developing
the materials (including video courses), developing assessment strategies,
etc. (I have teaching/education experience outside of my tech-writing life,
and I know from that experience that course design for multiple audiences
can be complicated.)
Would love to hear from anyone who does both tech writing and training
course design for insight. Thanks!
Nina
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