An assessment of using online editing of students´ assignments in an advanced technical writing class

At the end of an upper-division technical writing class, students (n=11) were surveyed to ascertain their perceptions of the differences of their being edited in a sequence of writing classes, of being edited using online editing functions, of online editing exercises, and of their writing skills before and after the course. For online editing, students perceived no difference between being edited on paper and pencil and being edited online. They found the online editing helpful to their careers. Students came to the technical writing class with high levels of computer literacy skills, and report that the technical writing class reported increased expertise using Adobe´s FrameMaker, Microsoft´s MS Power Point, HTML tagging software, and overall Web site development. Students reported that the editing of their assignments became more detailed in higher courses as they developed their writing skills. Finally, students reported they had improved writing skills after the technical writing class.