Policy writing
During my career at Columbus State University, I have written, edited, tracked, and collated many policies and procedures. While I regularly wrote many policies and procedures for the tutoring center I ran, the largest policy project on which I collaborated was President's University Policy Task Force in 2017. We gathered over 300 policies and procedures from across eight areas of the university, which include the following:
- Organization and Administration
- Academic Affairs
- Student Affairs
- Personnel
- Business Affairs
- Public Affairs and Development
- Information Technology
- Physical Plant Operations and Real Property
With the help of subject matter experts in these areas, we edited the content to align with University System of Georgia standards, reformatted the layouts and section, recorded versions and dates, and cross-referenced the policies with university system policies. Here are lists of the featured skills and common challenges related to the policy task force project:
Featured skills
- Comprehensive Policy Writing and Editing: Skill in writing, editing, and collating policies and procedures to align with university and system-wide standards.
- Collaborative Content Development: Working with subject matter experts to refine content, demonstrating strong collaborative and communication skills.
- Document Standardization and Formatting: Expertise in standardizing policy documents, ensuring consistent layout, recording versions, and cross-referencing.
Common challenges
- Aligning Policies with System-wide Standards: The challenge of editing and aligning over 300 university policies with broader system standards.
- Balancing Voice and Style Preferences: Managing the preferences of departments or SMEs for passive voice, despite encouraging active voice constructions.
- Incorporating Procedures within Policies: Navigating requests to include procedural sections in policy documents, rather than having separate procedure documents.
Policy Sample 1
The policy linked in this section—Computer Equipment Use Policy—represents one of the critical policies of the university. Since most of the work that administration, instructors, students, and support staff perform is on computer equipment, this is a key policy that needs to be accurate. All policies contain six sections: Summary, Purpose, Policy, Related USG Policy, Last Update, and Responsible Authority. Occasionally, as with this sample, the department or SME would request a section on procedures, rather than having a separate procedure document. Additionally, while we encouraged active voice sentence constructions, the department or SME preferred passive voice in some instances.
Policy Sample 2
The policy linked in this section—Software Licensing Policy—represents another critical policy of the university. As with the first sample, most of the work that administration, instructors, students, and support staff perform is on computer equipment that requires various software licensing. Again, all policies contain six sections: Summary, Purpose, Policy, Related USG Policy, Last Update, and Responsible Authority. Occasionally, as with this sample, the department or SME would request a section on procedures, rather than having a separate procedure document. You can find some instances of passive voice constructions, though we encouraged active voice.
Disclaimer
Work samples are provided for the sole purpose of evaluating my skills and capabilities. The files shared on this online portfolio contain confidential consultant-client privileged information and consultant work product. Any disclosure, copying, distribution, or use of any of the information contained in or attached to this transmission is STRICTLY PROHIBITED.