Pittsburg State University Partners With MadCap Software to Foster Students' Expertise in Using Advanced Technical Writing Tools, Positioning Them for Success in Technical Communications Careers
-
La Jolla, CA and Pittsburg, KS — May 20, 2014 — Pittsburg State University (Pitt State or PSU) is joining forces with MadCap Software to ensure students pursuing its Technical and Professional Writing Bachelor of Art Degree have clear competitive advantages when entering the workforce. The university is taking advantage of MadCap Flare—the state-of-the art, future-proof authoring and multi-channel publishing software that supports print, Web, desktop and mobile—to provide students with the most advanced authoring and publishing solution available today. As a result, students are building expertise in modern technical writing techniques through hands-on experience with the software used by thousands of companies across the globe. Pitt State is dedicated to providing students in its English Department with leading technical communications tools and practices that will help enhance their skillsets and position them for thriving careers. Currently, Pitt State is using MadCap Flare in its "ENGL 501: Document Design" course to help students build projects that take advantage of single-source publishing to generate different outputs and targets for online Help, PDF files, and print documentation from the same content. Additionally, they are using the image import capabilities in Flare to incorporate screen captures, illustrations, videos, and other multimedia in their projects. Students also are building a central online Help system for the student community, which is focused on Flare usability tips. In spring 2014, Pitt State plans to incorporate Flare in two additional classes: "ENGL 704: Advanced Technical/Professional Writing" for students specializing in writing software manuals, and "ENGL 503: Technical/Professional Editing" to strengthen best practices for implementing standards, using templates, and maintaining and editing long documents. "I'm very excited to introduce our students to all of the possibilities with MadCap Flare for real-world technical communications. Working with the tool, we're constantly surprised at how intuitive and easy it is to use,” said Jamie McDaniel, Pittsburg State University assistant professor of English and assistant director of technical and professional writing. “MadCap has given us the confidence to build up our own online Help system, serving as a reference for all students working with Flare. We firmly believe in a user-centered experience, supporting each other and growing together. MadCap has demonstrated this value through its stellar customer support, response and u