Industry and University Join Hands in Technical Communications Education in China

Track: Content Management | CM5 |
Thursday, February 28, 2019, 9:00am – 9:45am
Held in: Penang
Presenter:
May Li - Tongji University
Host: Celina Cao

As part of language service, technical communication (TC) has developed rapidly in China in recent years. Statistics show that the market demands for TC increased from 20% in 2016 to 38% in 2018, which accounted for the dramatic growth of technical communicators in China. Therefore, it is alarming to notice that nearly 80% of the technical communicators are self-taught without proper education in TC because there have been no TC degree or diploma programs in China so far. Against this background, pioneering TC courses have been offered in a small number of universities in an attempt to fill the gap between market needs and education. But how can teachers teach a TC course when they do not have a background in TC? The answer lies in a close link between the industry and the university in providing students with both knowledge and hands-on experience in TC. In this session we will explore a market-oriented, project-based approach adopted in a TC class at Shanghai’s Tongji University and demonstrate through case studies how industry supervisors from Alibaba, Huawei, IBM, Kudos, Megalink, Microsoft and SAP managed to help with TC education in China by employing their expertise in organizing TC projects outside of class.