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Documentation

What is documentation?... Why should it be a course of study in the current community of university education?

   * We are a team of people interested in defining "documentation" 
     and its role and significance in life and learning. We believe that 
     "good" documentation slows your life down in a "good" way, allowing 
     you to breath easier, smell the proverbial scents of life that are 
     so easily crowded out by "information overload." No matter who you 
     are or what you do, documentation is like a bridge from one point to 
     another. It can be an elegant, simple tool to make life and learning 
     enjoyable. It can also be a nagging distraction, sapping energy and time.

• Please know that your invite to this group is evidence of your qualification and importance. Someone here knows you and you can be sure there are others who need to know you and what you think as well.

• The main goal of this wiki is to create a dynamic overview of the topic, with a functional body of paradigm types linked to specific applications in the real world. Each of you has been invited to this effort because you represent a unique and effective role in society with giftings, training and experience that equip you to enhance the life adventure that we all share.

• A secondary goal of this effort is to establish the feasibility of creating a new course of major study within the current system of graduate and undergraduate education. This new course of study would encompass the role of documentation in all educational disciplines. Each educational discipline has unique needs relating to documentation and corresponding paradigms of effective documentation that apply. The assembly of paradigm sets for all disciplines need to relate to each other. The overview created by the interpretation of these relationships creates a larger document, that aids the institution in identifying and examining itself both in the marketplace and in the greater workshop of human endeavor.

An example of this can be seen in the following...

overview

Anyone who uses computers will benefit from the documentation process known as "backing up your harddrive." What, where, how, how often and when you backup depends on a number of factors. Factors like...

• "Why backup?"
• "What's at risk if I don't?"
• "How much is that risk worth?"
• "How much does good backup cost?"

paradigms

   # I. Computer operating systems and relative documentation process
      # A. Microsoft Windows
         # 1. on-site backup
            # a. software
            # b. hardware
            # c. service
         # 2. off-site backup
      # B. Linux/...etc.
      # C. Mac OS X/...etc.

Here's another example:

overview

We all can somewhat relate to the fact of family photos. If your house is burning down they are often cited as the top priority for salvation after all the living creatures are safe. Modern means have complicated the storage for photos somewhat and digital photos emerge as the primary example of challenge to the task of preserving your family's heritage.

paradigms

   * I. Photo storage systems/ album or box/ negatives, prints, transparencies
   * II. Digital Media/ hard drive/ CD/DVD/ servers/ prints

So...if you are interested, proceed to the next page (under the discussion tab) and put down a documentation overview and paradigm that works for you.

	Related links:
IBM DeveloperWorks Museum Documentation Association Courses in Online Documentation	Developing a Teaching Portfolio Great User Docs

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