Dear colleagues,
We are returning with another installment of updates from the Building Digital Literacy research cluster at the Digital Life Institute. We hope your new academic year is going well so far!
Announcements
Our cluster members will be attending the annual conference of the Council for Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication, October 9th and 10th. We will be presenting and facilitating a workshop, exploring how artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies are reshaping technical and professional communication, introducing a “stacked layers” framework to help technical and professional communication programs evaluate technology integration across various institutional dimensions.
We will also be attending and leading a workshop at SIGDOC on October 23rd. We will lead a discussion centered around questions of GenAI in the classroom, exploring how educators can continue to form critical and stable pedagogical solutions in institutions faced with the challenges of unclear policy and rapid technological changes.
Publications
BDL members are leading innovative studies of emerging technological conditions within and beyond the classroom. Here, we would like to call your attention to two new articles featuring human-centered and equity-driven values when engaging with unfamiliar tools. Gustav Verhulsdonck and Jialei Jiang collaboratively introduce the idea of "knotworking" as a cocreation strategy in AI-assisted compositional work. Presented at the 2026 IEEE Professional Communication Society annual conference in Edmonton, Alberta (Canada), Jason Tham and team offer a narrative-based heuristic for deliberative AI literacy that carries recommendations for professional communication practices. This entry was awarded the James M. Lufkin Award for Best ProComm Paper.
-
Verhulsdonck, G., & Jiang, J. (2026). Knotworking with artificial intelligence: A case study of emergent student user-experience composition with AI-assisted cocreation. Journal of Business and Technical Communication. Online First. https://doi.org/10.1177/10506519261485276
-
Tham, J., Campbell, J., Breuch, L. A. K., Duin, A. H., Hocutt, D., Fonash, S., Wilton, L., Verhulsdonck, G., Jiang, J., & Davis, K. (Forthcoming). Ethos and ethics before efficiency: Toward a deliberative AI literacy for professional communication. In Proceedings of the 2026 IEEE International Professional Communication (ProComm) Annual Conference. IEEE. Pre-print version.
Connect With Us
We meet twice a month during the academic year to discuss ongoing work and share insights. If you’d like to join our virtual meetup, please email jason.tham for details. To stay updated on our work, we invite you to follow our cluster’s Facebook page and the Digital Life Institute’s LinkedIn page.
Dr. Jason Tham
Associate Professor, Texas Tech University
Editor-in-Chief, Computers and Composition
Website: www.jasontham.com
Note: This is my non-university account.
For Texas Tech business, please email jason.tham