Business Communications

BENG 150 – 2021 Fall (3 credits)

Syllabus

Instructor: Karen McMurray (she/they)

Contact: [email protected]
Office hours: tbd

Course Description:
Business Communications is a course to prepare students to interact in written and through
presentations in professional settings. We use a variety of channels to convey messages and learn
to create concise and clear meaning for different audiences.

Learning Outcomes:

Upon completion students will be able to:

● Describe best practice theory and principles for communication in a business context.

● Write effective general-purpose business correspondence; may include memos,

good-news letters, bad-news letters, direct request letters, and persuasive letters.
● Prepare a compelling job application letter and a resume.

● Develop and deliver an effective and professional presentation.

● Demonstrate professional communication in all interactions.

● Model a professional persona in all formal communications.

● Adopt personal values for communicating with others.

Communication Guidelines:

The best way to get in touch with me is through email. I commit to respond to your email within
24 hours. If you don’t hear from me within 24 hours, please email me again. I can overlook some
correspondence accidentally although I do try to prioritize student emails. My expectations for
communication are you will strive to communicate professionally in our correspondence. This
means you include an appropriate subject, an appropriate salutation, a friendly but professional
tone and a clear and concise message with a sign off. If you are requesting something from me be
clear in your request. If I receive an email that needs improvement, I will send it back asking you
rewrite it.

Class Sessions:
There are 6 class sessions in this course where we will meet online to work with concepts in the
course. There are two scheduled sessions on each of the days. You choose one to attend, not
both. They will cover the same content.
Sessions are 10am-11am (PST) or 7pm-8pm (PST) on the following days:

September 9 November 4
September 16 November 25
October 7 December 10

Along with class sessions I will have open office hours posted weekly. These are guaranteed
times you can find me in a zoom link so if you have questions, need clarification, or want some
feedback on assignments. The days and times will be posted each week in Brightspace. The
office sessions are not obligatory to attend. They are times you can find me for any of your
questions or you can use it as a tutorial time as some of my students have in past courses.

Course Format:
This is a distributed learning course utilizing Brightspace, my personal site and some google
shared drives.
For each week you should be prepared to spend 4-5 hours to complete the activities and
assignments.

Required Materials / Texts:

There are no required textbooks in this course because I refuse to be a part of the private
textbook industry as it capitalizes on creating inequality in education through gatekeeping.
There is a whole webspace of resources available for us, so we are going to use those resources.
A few of the open education resources I will be assigning for reading are linked here below:

Communication for Business Professionals – Canadian Edition by the Ontario Business Faculty
and eCampus Ontario Program Managers.
https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/commbusprofcdn/
Management Communication by Lisa Thomas, Julie Haupt and Andy Spackman.
https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/management-communication

Professional Communications: A Common Approach to Work-place Writing by Jordan Smith,

Melissa Ashamn, eCampusOntario, Brian Dunphy and Andrew Stracuzzi
https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/llscomm/front-matter/acknowledgements-2/

Your readings will be posted for each unit in your checklist in Brightspace from these sources. I
do not recommend printing these books as we do not rely on one book enough to warrant the
expense.

Technology Requirements:
You will need to have the ability to video conference into synchronous sessions. We will be
using zoom technology and will require camera capability in some sessions. I realize this is not
always possible and beyond our control. Still come to sessions if you can no matter what your
technology allows.
Please download zoom to your device to ensure you are able to attend and participate in sessions.
Word or similar word processing program. Office 0365 is available free to students of CMTN. To
access your free license, follow this link:
https://www.coastmountaincollege.ca/student-services/campus-services/it-services/microsoft-office-365
Flipgrid is a tool we will be using in this course. You can find information about flipgrid here:
https://info.flipgrid.com
A code and class grid link will be sent to you so you can post your responses, view your
classmates, and engage with that learning tool.

Evaluation Profile
Reflective Writing Exercises 10%
Discussions 15%
Individual Assignments 25%
Group Assignments 25%
Final Exam 25%

Grading

A+ = 96-100% B+ = 81-85% C+ = 66-70% P = 50-55%

 A = 91-95% B = 76-80% C = 61-65% F = Below 50%

A- = 86-90% B- = 71-75% C- = 56-60%

Throughout the course class members will be expected to negotiate with the instructor and come
to an agreement on what will constitute any or all of their ‘products’ for the course. This is very
much part of the process by which professional people take greater responsibility for the
evaluation of their professional performance.

College Policies
CMTN has policies on Academic Appeals (including appealing final letter grades), student
conduct, cheating and plagiarism, academic probation and other educational issues. Copies of
these and other policies are available on the CMTN website.

Cheating/Plagiarism
Plagiarism is the presentation of another person’s words, ideas, interpretations, insights or order
of points as your own. All work submitted must be in your own words and content. Whenever
you use sources for an essay or assignment document them.

Incomplete Grades
Incomplete “I” grades will only be given after a contractual agreement outlining requirements
and dates for course completion has been negotiated between the student and instructor. Failure
to meet this contract will result in a change from “I” to a grade based on assignments and exams
completed up to the contract date

Course Schedule *

Unit Dates Topics Class Sessions

(Thursdays)

1 Sept 7-15 Course Orientation September 9

 2 Sept 16 - Oct 6 Communication Processes September 16

3 Oct 7 – Oct 20 The Writing Process October 7

4 Oct 21 – Nov 3 Informative Messages

5 Nov 4 – Nov 17 Negative Messages November 4

6 Nov 18 – Dec 1 Persuasive Messages November 25

7 Dec 2 - 8 Digital Footprint

Dec 10 - 16 Final Projects & Wrap Up December 10

* Schedule subject to change

Assessments

Reflective Exercises 10%

There are 7 reflective writing assignments in this course. The purpose of these assignments is for
you to take the time to think about what you are doing and learning. Each synchronous session
will be followed by a reflective assignment and some of your activities will also have a required
reflection. Your reflections should reveal how you are making sense of the materials. Use the
prompts as a guide to reflect on your learning.

At the end of class, you will provide some brief reflections on what you learned or are still
wondering after our time together. A prompt will be provided to you to help you start.

3 2 1 0
 Your reflection answered Your reflection Your reflection Your reflection
the questions answered the did not answer the makes no sense or
thoroughly. There is questions somewhat majority of the was not submitted.
evidence you are making superficially. questions.
your own meaning of
from the session.

Discussions 15%

The discussion forum is an opportunity for you to interact with your classmates, assist one
another with learning and contribute to our class community. Your contributions will be graded
twice, once in October and once at the end of the course, however you are expected to complete
each discussion topic by the end of the corresponding week. After your initial post, you should
give a minimum of two posts commenting on your classmates. I may ask you to clarify and/or
expand on something you wrote, and the expectation is that you will respond.
Each discussion forum is open for two weeks the first week is to allow you time to formulate
your initial post, the second week is where you respond to your colleagues. The discussions will
close Wednesdays at midnight.

Assignments 50%
Raw score will be converted to a weighted score out of 50.

You can expect a small assignment to be due each week of the course. To complete your individual assignments, you
will engage with the learning activities for the unit and then complete your submissions. There is a mixture of
presentation (using flipgrid) and written submissions for the individual assignments.

There are also two assignments where you submit your work as a group. You will be assigned groups and drawing
on the communication principles you have learned you will complete the tasks together and submit your work
together. These are meant to help you engage and practice your professional communication skills in a group. Is
group work frustrating? Typically, yes. Working in groups is a skill that professionals must practice throughout their
careers, and I hope in this course we can help you consider how you work in groups and how to improve your
practice so you can carry this forward into your career.
 Final Exam 25%

The final exam details will be released in week 13 of the course.