Steven Albert

My work experience is mainly in educational publishing, where I gained experience in the production of adult learning material, both print and online, as a quality assurance specialist/proofreader/copy editor and project manager. I also edited a self-published book for a novice author.

As quality assurance (QA) specialist, I worked on projects for international clients. My role was to ensure the quality of online learning programmes through editing and proofreading of material at each phase (raw content, storyboard, and developed solution), checking consistency through the courses, style as per style sheets, illustrations, animations and voice-over elements, videos, assessments and support materials as well as user interface functionality and usability. I was also involved in research and writing of course material whenever needed.

As a freelance proofreader/copy editor, I worked on projects for several publishers, mostly in educational publishing. I was also employed on a freelance basis as a sub-editor at a magazine publisher, where I worked on both Word and Indesign documents, proofreading, fact-checking and research, as well as overall layout quality control. I also currently work with Adobe Acrobat Pro in my freelance data visualisation work.

As a project manager (managing editor) in distance education, I gained experience coordinating various resources, balancing divergent goals within the same project, keeping projects on deadline, coordinating and ensuring delivery from components of the project to meet deadlines, as well as dealing with team members at different levels and across different functions within the project. Part of my job was to ensure that the principles of accessibility, clarity and readability were carried through the material, without compromising on content or quality. I was responsible for the quality of the final print-ready document, and as such I conducted thorough proofreading and checking of all written and graphic content as well as style elements. At the same company, I was also engaged in a training capacity and I rewrote the training material and trained new authors. I reworked all the existing content to eliminate duplication, cover gaps and create a document with ‘one voice’.