CORE-09 · Foundations

Documentation and Knowledge Management

Required for all majors →

Teaches students to create documentation that outlives them — process docs, playbooks, templates, and knowledge bases that enable teams to scale without depending on any one person. The course that turns individual expertise into organizational capability. Students learn not just how to write docs, but how to build documentation systems that people actually use.

20 Hours
7 Learning objectives
Create Bloom's ceiling (?)
4 Competencies

Learning Objectives

Objectives

Depth
  • Write process documentation that a new hire could follow to replicate a workflow without additional guidance or explanation Apply
  • Create playbooks and standard operating procedures for recurring multi-step processes, including decision points and exception handling Create
  • Build and maintain a team knowledge base with consistent structure, searchable content, clear ownership, and review cycles Create
  • Organize files and folders using naming conventions and structures that scale beyond one project or one person Apply
  • Implement version control for non-code assets: naming conventions, change logs, archival rules, and "single source of truth" principles Apply
  • Write handoff documentation that makes your work usable by the next person: context, decisions made, known issues, dependencies, and recommended next steps Apply
  • Audit existing documentation for accuracy, completeness, findability, and actual usage — identifying docs that are outdated, redundant, or missing Evaluate

Levels: Remember · Understand · Apply · Analyze · Evaluate · Create — highest demands most original thinking.

What You'll Master

Process Documentation

Writing clear, step-by-step procedures that others can follow without you.

Knowledge Base Management

Building searchable, maintainable, governed team knowledge systems.

File & Version Organization

Naming conventions, folder structures, change tracking that scales.

Handoff & Continuity

Transition documentation that prevents knowledge loss when people change roles.

What You'll Build

Knowledge System — Student designs and builds a small knowledge base (in Notion or equivalent) for a team or project in their major domain: 3 process documents (at least one with decision branching), 1 playbook/SOP, a file/folder structure with naming conventions, and a handoff document for a completed project. Includes a brief reflection on what makes documentation actually get used vs. ignored.

Industry Tools, Not Toy Projects

Notion / Confluence

Knowledge base platforms for building structured, searchable, team-maintained documentation systems.

Google Drive

File organization and management platform for implementing naming conventions and folder structures.

Loom

Video documentation tool for recording complex processes that benefit from visual walkthroughs.

Claude

AI assistant for documentation drafting, structure planning, and content organization.

Prerequisites & What's Next

This Course Unlocks

  • Domain-specific courses in your chosen major

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