I am a Technical Author

Contents

Welcome to the team! Please see below a list of training resources to help you in your role as a Technical Author.

Manual for Development of Documents

Roles and responsibilities

The role and responsibilities of a Technical Author can be viewed in MDD part 1 Governance of document development . Please see in particular:

Section 4 Key roles and responsibilities (summary of your role)
Section 8 Governance process for document development (summary of the governance workflow stages and associated deliverables)
Sections 9-13 Key workflow stages from entering a document into the Standards Review Programme (SRP) through to Technical Standards Committee consultation.
Section 18 Document maintenance (dealing with feedback, routine changes and reviews of documents every 5 years).

Document layout and style

Further information on layout and style of DMRB and MCHW documents can be found in MDD part 2 Document layout and style. Please see in particular:

Section 4 DMRB document layout and Section 5 MCHW document layout
Section 9 Style of basic elements e.g. figures, list, equations, references. See also separate recorded Figures training below or PDF output to look back on slides.
Section 10 Style of DMRB clauses and Section 11 Style of MCHW clauses
Section 12 Style of constructor requirements (MCHW) and Section 13 Specifier instructions (MCHW).

Drafting rules

Further information on drafting rules in DMRB and MCHW documents can be found in MDD p art 3 – Drafting rules. Please see in particular:

Section 4 Approach to document development
Section 5 General drafting principles
Sections 6 and 7 Developing new documents and updating existing documents
Section 12 Performance based requirements
Sections 13-15 Health and safety, carbon management and sustainability, equality.
Annex 2A Legislation affecting drafting.

Use of Collaborative Authoring and Review System (CARS)

Gaining access

If you are a National Highways employee and assuming responsibility for the document as the Technical Author, please email the Technical Standards Group (TSG) and we will ensure access and that our records are updated.

TSG can set up a CARS account for new users. For a reminder of your log-in please go to the CARS home page and press the forgotten password option.

Training on using CARS

The help tutorials section contains a range of CARS guidance videos specifically for authors at this link and covers various functions such as how to draft a document, adding comments, tables. figures etc.

Please also see the ‘Using CARS‘ menu for a range of help articles tailored by topic. If you want to search for a particular keyword you can do so in the search box on the main help page. Some useful articles related to newer features are as follows:

Standards Governance Process training

Please view this training session to understand how documents are created or updated in the Standards Governance Process including interactions with CARS, Jira and SharePoint. If you need access to the governance deliverable templates and the SharePoint folders where the records are stored, please send a request to standards_enquiries@nationalhighways.co.uk

It is also available as a PDF output to look back on the slides.

Please also see the Standards Governance FAQs.

Completing the customer satisfaction element of the impact assessment form – March 2022

Commercial impact assessment training

Commercial impact assessment – training for Technical Authors October 2022

PDF copy of training slides is available here.

Help article on completion of the commercial impact assessment: https://help.futuredmrb.co.uk/commercial-impact-assessment-and-toolkit/

Please see MDD part 1 – Section 7 and Annex 1D.

Carbon, sustainable development and good design impact assessment guidance

Please view the help page guidance for advice on completion of the carbon, sustainable development and good design element of the impact assessment report: https://help.futuredmrb.co.uk/carbon-sustainable-development-and-good-design-impact-assessment-report-guidance/

Governance deliverables

All governance deliverable templates are stored here. Please ensure you download your own copy of any templates rather than editing the master template, and upload to your document specific folder. There are folders for each DMRB document or MCHW Series to store governance deliverables within the DMRB and MCHW training materials and governance SharePoint site (restricted access).

High-level narrative document: https://help.futuredmrb.co.uk/how-to-create-a-high-level-narrative-document/

Jira training for Technical Authors

Please see this training video to understand how to record your governance deliverables and associated programme management information in Jira.

Document review and feedback management

Please see this link for guidance on how to manage feedback received about your document via our online feedback form.

Please see this link for guidance on how to complete your document review checklist.

Alternatively, the training video below explains how to complete document reviews and handle feedback and routine change management.