Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

This course introduces three closely related subject areas: Creating and Adapting Technical Information and Linear Narratives for Multimedia; Writing for Multimedia; and Intellectual Property Rights.
"Creating and Adapting Technical Information and Linear Narratives for Multimedia" includes such topics as Audience Analysis, including human factors analysis; Conceptual Design, Metaphors, and World Building; Treatments, Content Outlines, Storyboards, and Flowcharts; and Navigation for Interactivity.

"Writing for Multimedia" includes such topics as multimedia script formatt-ing and prototypes; writing narration, including the traditional elements of storytelling; writing for motion; deciding when to use words and when not to; writing for voice-overs; presenting text on-screen; integrating media and interactivity; writing precise, concise text; and editing for precision, clarity, and conciseness.
"Intellectual Property Rights" introduces copyright, trademark, patent, and trade secret laws important to multimedia developers.
 

Upon successful completion students will be able to:
 

Use advanced and detailed project conception strategies (story boards, flow charts, design treatments) to articulate project communication goals and the development process.
Plan, design, and write treatments for non-linear, interactive digital media based on human factors analysis, target audience, and communication goals.
Write a multimedia script design that integrates text and the traditional elements of storytelling with various media and that includes interactivity and navigation for interactivity.
Solicit and incorporate audience feedback as a regular part of the design and writing process.

Students read from the textbook; analyze multimedia products; review and edit multimedia scripts; and over the course of the term, design and write a short multimedia project, including a "world" or project  "metaphor," a storyboard, a script, a flowchart of the navigation structure, the user interface, and selection and management of the media resources.
Methods of instruction may vary but can include lectures; collaborative projects; audience analysis and peer feedback; writing online using
multimedia authoring software; in-and-out-of class writing and editing exercises; demonstrations, assigned readings; or field trips to learn
about multimedia development, writing for multimedia, project management, human computer interface, and new hardware and software. The class will be conducted in a college computer lab. All out-of-class writing should be typed or keyboarded. Some in-class writing is required.
 

Assessment is designed to indicate achievement of the course outcome and performance tasks. The instructor will outline the methods used to assess student progress and the criteria for assigning a grade at the beginning of the course. Assessment will be based upon a combination of  participation, attendance, and supervisory evaluations and conferences.