Content
Legal requirements and standards
Students need to know the laws, regulations, and standards relevant for technical communication
Relevant for providing correct information according to laws and standards that are important for technical communication
This discipline deals with standards and regulations.
Legal and standard research
- Know basic principles of legal and standard research
- Know laws that are relevant to technical communication
- Know public information sources, sources of supply and information portals, standard repositories, information portals for standards
- Know legal research tools
- Know basic principles of archive search
- Know the agencies responsible for developing, updating and maintaining such standards, laws, and regulations and know where to go to find updates on/remain current in terms of standards, laws, and regulations
- Search for standards and related information
- Understand interplay between standards, regulations, directives and national law
Standards
- Understand relevance of standards for technical communication and requirements placed on information products as a result of normative requirements
- Know standard IEC/EN 82079 for preparation of instructions for use
- Understand the legally non-binding nature of standards
- Know market relevance of standards (e.g., harmonized EU standards, ISO standards, DIN standards)
- Know fields of application of standards (for products, e.g., low-voltage directive, pressure equipment directive, medical equipment standard)
- Know difference between international standards and European standards that regulate the same subject matter (e.g., standards in the ANSI series, IEC/EN 82079)
- Know principal purposes and principles of standardisation work
- Know national and international standards bodies
- Know horizontal and vertical standards (product standards)
- Know how to identify type of standard by referring to the name of a standard
- Know safety-related distinction between A, B and C standards according to ISO/IEC guides
- Know international classification for standards (ICS) as an international classification criterion for standards
- Know how to cooperate on national and international standardisation
Risk assessment
- Know how to determine risks and dangers associated with the product
- Understand the legal significance of risk assessment
- Know risk categories and hazard classes (hazard levels)
- Know how to plan and perform a risk assessment
Product safety
- Know basic principles of product safety
- Know main topics of product safety law
- Understand characteristics of safe and unsafe products
- Know safety requirement-related regulations
- Know requirements placed on information products pursuant to Product Safety Law
- Know manufacturer’s product observation obligations
- Know organisation and operating principles of market observation (e.g., at European level)
- Understand methods of achieving or improving product safety (e.g., design measures, safety devices, safety notes and warning messages)
Duty to instruct
- Know requirements based on duty to instruct:
- Know which types of information products must be supplied according to which
- Particular specifications (e.g., Product Safety Law, EU Machinery Directive)
- Know possible ways of meeting documentation obligations
Contract law and liability
- Understand how contractual requirements impact technical communication
- Know main features of contractual liability
- Know main features of legal product liability
- Know requirements regarding content placed on information products as a result of product liability
- Understand liability in the field of technical communication (e.g., personal and entrepreneurial liability)
- Know formal requirements placed on information products as a result of product liability
- Know possible legal consequences arising from defective information products
- Know how supranational laws (e.g., EU Directives) are transported into national law; significance for product liability
Product compliance
- Know basic principles of product compliance
- Know how to declare conformity in information products
- Understand how tasks and roles must be allocated with regard to ensuring product compliance
- Know requirements placed on technical communication for product compliance and placing products on the market
Compliance with standards in particular
- Know normative requirements of international markets
- Understand documentation requirements (e.g., in requirements specifications and functional specifications)
- Know how to use checklists from standards
- Apply and implement standards
- Know accredited testing institutes
- Be able to check compliance with standards
- Know country-specific legal and normative requirements placed on information products
Copyright law and right of use
- Know basic principles of copyright law and legal right of use (license law)
- Know relevance of copyright law and legal right of use in technical communication
- Know potential conditions of use
- Know copyright law for sources and requirements placed on legal use of sources (e.g., images, text, software licenses)
- Be able to use materials protected by license rights (e.g., software, photographic material)
- Know legal situation where open source materials are used
Data and IT security
- Understand data and IT security in relation to content of information product
- Understand data and IT security in the creation process
- Understand data and IT security in relation to delivering the information product
Document management and archiving
- Know consequences and liability in event of inadequate document management
- Know requirements for archiving of information products (audit reliability, retention period, storage location
In-house standardisation
- Understand purpose of factory standards
- Know subject matter of factory standards
- Know areas in which factory standards are applied
- Understand the relation between factory standards and technical communication