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Master's Degree Coursework and Portfolio

Below is a list of the courses I took to fulfill the requirements of the information architecture degree, along with samples of some of my work. The courses are grouped by subject area and the course descriptions are from the department's course catalog descriptions.

  • Master's Project: Goldenlegsrunning.com

    Course Description: Projects will require students to complete a theoretically based analysis of a practical communication situation, create a document appropriate to the situation, and write an analysis of or commentary on the choices made in the production of the document.

     

    For my master's project I enhanced the fuctionality of the website goldenlegsrunning.com. I focused on enhancing the user experience, site look, and documentation. Details of my work can be viewed in my final report.

  • User Experience and Information Architecture

    Usability

    Course description: An introduction to principles of user-centered design and to methods for conducting user experience research. Students will learn how to plan and conduct projects that evaluate the design, delivery, interface, and experience of a product or service. Course work includes designing studies, collecting and interpreting data, and reporting findings and recommendations from the perspective of user-centered design.

    This report was created as a final project for a class on usability. I created it as part of a team exploring the usability of the Chicago Parking kiosks.

     

    Information Structure and Retrieval

    Course description: Principles, practices and tools for indexing either print or electronic documents, along with methods and tools for storing, maintaining and accessing information for communication roles in corporate, institutional and government settings. Emphasis on web-based strategies, techniques and tools.

    For a class I project I conducted a site analysis of the University of Chicago Press intranet. My recommendations included ways to organize the information currently on the site as well as information that could be added to the site to make it more appealing to users.

  • Design

    Document Design

    Course description: Principles and strategies for effective document and information design, focusing on print media and familiarizing students with current research and theory as well as with practices in document design. Students design, produce, and evaluate documents for a variety of applications, such as instructional materials, brochures, newsletters, graphics, and tables.

     

     

     

    The newsletter and poster above were created as group projects. We used Adobe InDesign and Photoshop to create the documents.

     

    Online Design

    Course description: Theory and practice of structuring and designing information for web-enabled devices. This course emphasizes web standards, accessibility, and agile design methods. View the course website.

     

    Our major project for the class was to create a website using original hand-coded XHTML, CSS, and Javascript. The site I created for the course can be viewed at www.original.ed-scott.com.

  • Communication

    Intercultural Communication

    Course description: An introduction to the problems of communication across cultures, with emphasis on the interplay of American civilization with those of other cultural areas.

    For my final paper I analyzed the use of honorifics in Japanese culture. I concluded that honorifics in the Japanese language act to linguistically encode respect for another or distance from another and explain how this grew out of a traditional tiered class structure.

    Communicating Science

    Course description: An investigation into standards and methods to effectively communicate technical concepts to a nontechnical audience.

    This literature review focuses on describing the current state of the technical communication profession. The point of the assignment was to get practice producing scientific and technical documents.

    History of the English Language

    Course description: Study of the origins and development of key features of the English language through its important stages, including Old, Middle, and Early Modern English.

    My final paper examines the history of prescriptive grammar rules in English.

  • Management and Entrepreneurship

    Publication Management

    Course description: Intensive work developing and using systems to create and deliver content digitally and in print. Special emphasis on project management and large-team collaboration.

    This group memo explains the decisions our group made creating the first incarnation of goldenlegsrunning.com. I used this basic site as a foundation for my master's project, which sought to enhance the functionality and look of the site.

    This individual memo explains my decisions in creating a personal website using Drupal and relates my work to the course readings.

    Knowledge ManagementCourse description: Analysis of the nature and uses of systems and knowledge in business and professional settings, focusing on the technical communicator's roles and tasks in generating and transferring data, information and knowledge within organizations. View the course website.

    This paper reports the results of a project where I monitored an online development community for two months. The point was to investigate how a free and open source community created and shared group knowledge.

    Entrepreneurship in Technical Communication

    Course description: Corporate and independent roles of technical communicators. Concepts and techniques needed to market services or to address the marketing needs of clients. Modes, goals and strategies for verbal and written interaction with clients, corporate decision-makers, and communications staff, with attention to presentation technologies.

    Our final project was to write and present a business plan that used the entrepreneurship and business principles we learned in the course.