Request a Knowledge Article

Guide Topic

Process for employees to request a new knowledge article (KA) to be published to the Service Center Knowledge Base (KB).

Information

A KA is a document that describes a process, workflow, or that contains instructions to help users find the information they need.  It is intended to be self-service so users can solve problems independently. Always remember your audience. Who is this KA for – students, faculty, staff, colleagues?  

See TDX Knowledge: What is a Knowledge Article? (opens in new tab) for more details.

Access Levels

We are able to restrict access to articles based on groups. Typically, restrictions are as follows:

  • None – Student – Login not required - These articles are publicly available. Typically these are student-oriented articles, students do not have access to log in to the Service Center. These are articles you see on the Knowledge Base Homepage before logging in.
  • All TCC Employees – Login required - These articles are available to all TCC employees once they are logged in to the Service Center. This includes articles that any TCC employee may benefit from. These are articles you see on the Knowledge Base after logging in.
  • Specific TCC Employee Groups – Login not required - These articles are available to specific TCC Employee groups only. This includes articles that departments would like to reference internally without all employees accessing. This is set by category, it is possible to have a parent category available to the whole department, then within have additional categories with more restrictions. Information Management is able to create new categories and confirm group members.

Request a New Knowledge Article

If you would like to request a knowledge article to be published to the knowledge base, the steps below will guide you through the process.

  1. Submit a Ticket (opens in a new tab) through the Service Center. In the request mention:
    1. You are requesting a new knowledge article
    2. What the article is about, include any attachments. See the attachments section for more information. If possible please include Word document copies of any PDFs.
    3. Your intended audience - students (public), all employees, or specify groups of employees.
    4. The category it should be under (if known).
    5. If this article is priority to be published and the time frame you need it by.
  2. Typical response time for Information Management is within 1 business day of the initial request.
  3. Publishing time varies up to 5 business days depending on several factors such as additional questions/information needed, complexity of information, ease of copying to the Service Center, etc.

Attachments

Knowledge Articles and attachments must meet accessibility standards and guidelines. See InsideTCC's Digital Accessibility page (opens in new tab) for more information. Information Management checks all articles and attachments to ensure compliance.

When creating documents, it is essential to remember that people who are visually impaired or have limited vision will be using screen readers. The screen readers need to be able to identify all parts of your documents, including text, graphics, images, and tables.

To adhere to these standards here are some key notes:

  • Attachments are supplementary to the article only. The article body should contain all information necessary to the reader.
  • The body text should not be an image. If you can't grab the text in by highlighting it to copy and paste somewhere else, then it is not accessible.
  • Images must have alternative text. Alternative text describes images to visually impaired users.
  • Make sure the image is not central to the message. If you were to take out the image or photo, would the message still make sense to someone who is blind?
  • Do not use image links.
  • When inserting links, use descriptive text instead of the a long URL. The screen reader will read the links and tell the user where they might choose to navigate. It's helpful to the user to hear descriptive text rather than a long line of URL jargon they may not understand.
  • Do not use the words Click Here. That doesn't tell the person where the link will take them.
  • Any audio or video you link to needs to have a transcript for closed captioning.
  • If using a PDF, verify your document is accessible by running the Adobe Acrobat accessibility checker.
  • To learn accessibility basics, best practices and view a list of more resources, visit usability.gov.

 

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