The new AI Communication Skills Microcredential combines technical communication skills with applied AI training, helping students and professionals use generative AI effectively, critically, and responsibly in the workplace.
We spoke with Shannon Kelly, BCIT Communication Department Program Head, about the new AI Communication Skills Microcredential, why these skills are increasingly important, and how the program fits into a changing workplace.
Interested in learning more about our Technical Communication offerings? Please join our online Info Session on December 3 at 6 pm.
Why did your department develop the AI Communication Skills Microcredential?
The Communication department has been steadily innovating with AI since 2023, when we developed our first AI course for the Technical Writing Associate Certificate program. Since then, we have added AI competencies throughout the Associate Certificate courses and offer dedicated AI courses as electives.
With this new Microcredential, we have made AI-assisted communication the focal point, in response to industry and alumni feedback showing a clear demand for AI awareness and training. This demand is also reflected in announcements from both provincial and federal governments.
The Microcredential provides essential AI Communication training along with the AI Capstone Industry Project course, where students demonstrate integrated knowledge through an applied AI project.
What will students learn?
This Microcredential includes four required courses:
- Using AI for Technical Writing: introduces AI and large language models, prompt patterns, AI tools, emerging trends, and ethical and legal considerations.
- Technical Writing: develops the ability to create clear, professional documentation and communication strategies, including the responsible integration of generative AI.
- Writing for the Web: focuses on communicating effectively for online audiences, including information organization and information architecture.
- AI Capstone Industry Project: gives students the opportunity to design, implement, and evaluate an applied AI project in a workplace context.
The Capstone Industry Project can be used as a workplace applied project if students have a willing employer, or developed as an applied portfolio project that showcases their AI competency.
What workload can students expect?
The Microcredential consists of four 1.5-credit courses, with each course requiring approximately 20 hours of asynchronous instructor-led learning.
Students can expect a combination of weekly learning activities, short assignments with instructor feedback, peer reviews and/or team activities, and longer assignments that integrate concepts and skills developed throughout the courses.
Each of the four courses will have about 4 hours of weekly homework.
Can you tell a bit more about how these courses were developed?
Over the past several years, we have maintained steady contact with industry partners, which has shaped our AI training development, including through the recent Alumni AI Workforce Readiness Survey.
Our Communication department members have also been early AI adopters and innovators, including direct involvement with the pan-Canadian Amii AI Workforce Readiness initiative (Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute, one of three Canadian AI institutes under the CIFAR Pan-Canadian AI Strategy). This has given us early access to Open Educational Resources on AI competencies, helping us stay on top of trends and best practices in AI literacy and applied AI Communication.
What kinds of students and professionals will be interested in this microcredential?
The program is open to all, but it will likely appeal especially to those interested in clear, effective, and ethical professional communication in the AI era and who see AI becoming part of their everyday communications and technical communication workflows.
The Microcredential also provides a pathway for learners who want to continue developing their Communication expertise. It ladders into BCIT’s Technical Communication Essentials Microcredential and Technical Writing Associate Certificate.
How will organizations benefit from professionals with these skills?
The Capstone Industry Project is particularly relevant to the workplace. Students design and scope an AI project, consider its anticipated benefits and risks, implement the project, measure its results, and provide recommendations for responsible implementation, including ethical and legal considerations, human-in-the-loop guardrails, inclusivity, and accessibility.
Why is communication expertise important when working with AI?
With AI, it’s especially important that students don’t just learn how to use AI tools. To use AI effectively and responsibly in communication-related tasks, students first need to understand Communication best practices and the principles of responsible AI use.
As well as addressing the impact of AI on everyday workplace communication tasks, we are also addressing its use in technical documentation such as training materials, engineering manuals, design specifications, software documentation, and online help.
In these contexts, we are talking about products and processes with high complexity and risk, such as enterprise systems, aeronautics, and healthcare. This complexity makes it all the more important that AI use is appropriately supervised.