Inclusive Audience Analysis and Creating Manageable Content

Over the last 15 years, content management systems have dramatically changed the ways we think about our pedagogical approaches to teaching audience analysis. This is especially true when content may need to be reused in a set of discrete contexts for various audiences. This chapter introduces a heuristic that helps students think about, write, and deliver reusable content. Modeled after Ridolfo and DeVoss’s (2009) concept rhetorical velocity, this heuristic introduces students to both how they must consider primary audiences for the content they develop as well as various stakeholders, possible audiences, and potential contexts where their content needs to be reused. The chapter concludes with two scenarios/cases instructors can have students use in order to practice audience analysis and rhetorical reuse. Because many potential audiences and contexts can be ignored and/or excluded in the name of content management, this approach to content reuse allows for more inclusive conceptualizations of audiences and helps account for their needs

Creating a Higher Education Content Strategy: A Manageable Approach for an Enterprise Solution

Prospective students rely on university websites to give them an overview of the university, discover programs that match their interest and get the feel of campus to decide if this is where they apply. Many university websites, however, overwhelm interested students and parents by the sheer amount of content and content that isn’t what their website visitors are looking for. This research reviewed the scope and scale of content strategy in practice in public universities in the North Carolina System, and the results of this research found that budgetary constraints and a lack of manpower hinders the implementation of most content strategy principles. Collaborative leadership that understands the complexity of the higher education ecosystem is needed to mandate governance and to centralize the organizational structure. In many cases, organizational change is not feasible, so college communicators and site managers need tips on how to apply the principles of content strategy to the areas that they control.Master of Arts in Digital Communicatio

Creating a Higher Education Content Strategy: A Manageable Approach for an Enterprise Solution

A university’s website is its “most critical marketing asset” (SimpsonScarborough, Pantheon & SiteImprove, 2021, p. 5). As digitally-savvy students weigh their options for their future, many make-or-break decisions are made by the value and usefulness of higher education institutions’ (HEIs) digital presence. Students bring specific queries for HEIs websites — how much is the tuition? Will I fit in on this campus? What kind of majors and minors do they offer? If HEIs make this content hard-to-find or confusing (or don’t display enough needed information), then prospective students will look elsewhere (National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, 2023).Master of Arts in Digital Communicatio

Investigating engineering students' learning for global preparedness in curricular and cocurricular engineering education

2019 Spring.Includes bibliographical references.Engineering as a profession has a significant impact globally in the creation and maintenance of the infrastructure and technology on which humanity relies. As resource constraints and dramatic global population growth challenge engineering's ability to support sustainable, appropriate development globally, the education provided for engineers is increasingly important for preparing engineering students to face the challenges of the present and future. Therefore, it is essential to understand how engineering students can become more globally prepared in their studies. The purpose of this study is to compare, through student experiences, different classes, and programs in engineering education designed to develop students' capabilities in global preparedness. The data for this project were collected through interviews with students who were taking part in different learning curricular and cocurricular classes and programs. In addition, data were collected through pre/post/retrospective-pre-student surveys when possible (for participant groups of greater than 30). The outcomes of this study are presented in three articles. The first article is a structured literature review of the global and professional competencies recognized by academia and engineering practitioners as key experiences and learning designed to improve undergraduate engineering students' global preparedness. The second article is a mixed methods analysis, comparing on-campus classroom development of global preparedness and the impact of changing the context of the engineering class (from local to global) on student's global preparedness and professional competence development. The final article reports on the results of interviews with students participating in different study abroad and volunteer programs, to compare and contrast their experiences in and the impact of those programs. The value of this study is that universities and students may be able to use these results to better understand how to more effectively design and deliver classes and programs to increase the global and professional preparedness of engineering students