Incorporating Database Education Into The Graduate Technical Communication Curriculum.

The purpose of this study was to identify if there existed a need for database education in technical communication programs. This was achieved using a two part approach: Jobs data was collected from three major search engines and the results plotted showing a roughly 20% requirement for techcomm positions to have some database knowledge and skill. Then the data was further striated by which techcomm positions were expected to have which skills. The jobs data was also supported by the database skills taught in computer science education, and that of information technology. Next, twelve graduate programs were analyzed for their database educational requirements to show that the need for database skills was not being met in techcomm graduate programs. Finally course content was proposed for five new database courses: OS and Networking Basics, Introduction to Databases, Database Design, and Using Databases. A single course outline is proposed for programs wishing to implement the material more easily.