1-01 (March 2001) Education and Training by Tytti Suojanen Finland

The demand for technical communicators in Finland has been increasing at a steady pace in the past two decades. Increasing attention is thus being paid to technical communication training. Professionals have traditionally learned their trade through practice, for university-level education only emerged in the 1990’s. In addition to two university programs leading to an M.A., continuing education courses for practicing professionals are available throughout the country.

Much of the technical communication training offered around the world is characterized by a strong tradition of cooperation between university and industry. This is also the case in the Finnish context, where some forms of cooperation between university and industry have been tested with good results. I will briefly outline one example, the Technical Communications Program at the University of Tampere.

 

Industry Cooperation

The Department of Translation Studies at the University of Tampere launched the Technical Communications Program in the autumn of 1997. The program is intended for translation and language students in the final stages of their studies. The driving force behind this one-year program is industry cooperation: 20-30 Finnish companies have been involved in organizing the courses since the program began. There are four forms of cooperation:

• Visiting lecturers. Companies employing technical communicators are very experienced in technical communication, and their representatives give lectures at the university on different aspects of technical communication.
• Traineeships. An important part of the program is a three-month summer traineeship where students work as technical communicators, and get to test the knowledge and skills they have learned during the program.
• M.A. theses. Students write their M.A. thesis in cooperation with a company. They thus learn to combine theory and practice through writing their thesis, and the companies receive the benefits of the latest research, which they can adapt to suit their own objectives.
• Student visits. Students visit companies to familiarize themselves with the work of the technical communicator, or companies visit the university.

 

Diverse Aims

Since the Technical Communications Program was launched, we have had two primary aims:

• To increase cooperation between the business sector and the university and to bring theory and practice closer together. Traditionally the Humanities have not had very close contacts with industry in Finland, and translation students, for example, often find combining theory and practice difficult.
• To offer students an opportunity to specialize in technical communication and to improve their employment opportunities after graduation. The program is an important forum for networking, and most of the students who have completed the program are now permanently employed as technical communicators.

 

Course Design

The program focuses on imparting core skills necessary in the work of the technical communicator: these skills include information gathering, audience analysis, visualizing information, and strategies for writing to different audiences and purposes both in Finnish and English. Most Finnish technical communicators write in English, and therefore language issues form one of the essential modules. In addition, the students become familiar with different publication media and some of the tools of the trade. Usability and the skills involved in project management are also emphasized in the program.

 

Challenges for Educators

Although the Technical Communications Program has been very successful, it has also raised a problem inherent in organizing technical communication training in Finland. It is difficult to find educators who have the necessary knowledge, skills and understanding of technical communication and the technical communicator’s work so that they could offer adequate training, both from the practical and from the academic perspective. A cycle has not yet emerged in which professionals with experience return to universities to carry out research, to train future generations of technical communicators and also to offer further training to professionals. It is a real challenge for educators to design courses and training programs in which the interests of all parties are taken into consideration.  

"transline Deutschland - Übersetzungsdienst für technische Übersetzung"