A Mercer University engineering program has been redesigned and renamed to reflect technological advances and give students a competitive edge in the field. The human-centered information design and technology program replaces the undergraduate technical communication program to better reflect the human aspect of the major.
“Technical communication” is a broad term for a large field, and Mercer faculty in the department were increasingly finding that the name was not resonating with students, said Dr. Pam Brewer, professor and chair of the department. So after extensive research, they settled on a name that they felt better reflected the skills that students would acquire through Mercer’s courses.
“We arrived at the name ‘human-centered information design and technology.’ We thought if we used that, it was a clear indicator to students that we would be focused on communication for human beings at the confluence of technology and user functioning,” she said. “Fundamentally, we still want to teach human-centered information design. We’ve done that from the beginning. We are still that.”
The Department of Technical Communication also has been renamed as the Department of Human-Centered Information Design and Technology, or Information Design for short.
While the undergraduate degree program now mirrors the new department name, the Master of Science in technical communication management still exists.
The core undergraduate courses, including basic usability and technical writing, are still offered, but their pedagogy has been adapted to incorporate areas of technological changes and growth, including artificial intelligence. A new minor has been added in user experience research and design, as well as new undergraduate- and graduate-level courses on AI.
“We believe that AI will fundamentally change our field — both the field of tech comm and how we teach it — and we are committed to helping our students learn that in such a way that they can be successful and responsible members of the community. We’re using (AI) in every one of our classes in one way or another,” Dr. Brewer said.
Assistant Professor Dr. Bremen Vance has been leading the department’s AI initiatives. Faculty members work closely together, and over the past several years, they have integrated AI into their thinking as they plan their courses, he said.
Dr. Vance and his colleagues have piloted different AI activities and explored AI through their own research. For instance, he and Assistant Professor Dr. Philip Gallagher created a website, Techneforge.com, where people can share creative ideas for teaching with AI.
Mercer’s courses aim to familiarize students with the tools out there, as well as the new questions and opportunities that AI presents, Dr. Vance said.
“Students need to understand the information ecology they are in. In order to be up to date on how information is being produced and presented, students need to be aware of (AI) and hopefully know enough to respond appropriately to it,” he said. “What we are doing is fairly forward-looking. We’re probably ahead of the national curve as far as taking steps to educate students on AI, but we’re also attempting to be responsible. We want to make sure that students are skilled, knowledgeable and capable of making quality decisions on the work they’re doing.”
In addition, the information design department is addressing industry needs related to content strategy; growing immersive technologies like virtual reality, augmented reality and extended reality; omnichannel design; global standards for plain language; and user experience skills.
Using cutting-edge technologies, Americans with Disabilities Act compliance evaluation and accessibility training has been added to Mercer’s user experience program. In addition, students learn to use state-of-the-art software such as Figma, Adobe Captivate, Lucidchart, Canva and Gazepoint.
“There are so many technology changes in the field, and we have to keep up,” Dr. Brewer said. “You can’t dodge these changes. We’re not serving our students well if we teach them to avoid innovation. It’s just going to be part of their lives. So we’ve got to teach them how to understand innovation and how to evaluate and use it. That’s where our students are really going to be ahead of the curve, if they can employ all of these innovations critically.”
