An-Najah National University

Faculty of I T Business Communications

1
st

MIS 132320 Semester 2009-2010

Instructor:Maher Yousef Arafat

Class Time : Mon., Wed. 13h00 14h00 Office : 2430, Faculty of IT, Department of MIS, 2nd floor. Office Hours : Sun., Tue., Thu 9h00-10h00 12h00-13h00, Mon. & Wed. 09h30-12h30

Course scope and objectives

Every student who plans to work in business or industry must master the art of communication. Indeed in this new century your ability to communicate effectively in print, in presentation, and in electronic media will play a major role to succeed in your chosen career and profession. Therefore, good communication skills are essential in any career you choose. As the right decisions require accurate information at the right time, IT specialists are required to produce clear and accurate reports that contain the right information. To help you become an excellent communicator. Businesses are increasingly dependent on ICT and are becoming more and more technology-centered, from determining what information to communicating and processing information and sharing it. This course will prepare you to complete the kinds of practical communication projects often required in professions such as those you will enter. Emphasis will be placed on:

1- Providing the necessary knowledge and comprehension for effective

communication Language skills. Identifying the process of completing any on-the-job writing assignment. Defining the pattern organization and organizing of information. Defining the writing formats most often used. Defining communication tasks such as oral presentations and graphics. Highlighting Internet-Based workplace communication (Paperless Communication).

2- Applying technical writing and communication skills. (Putting words into action) 1. Professional Commercial Correspondence 2. Essential Technical Report writing, 3. Use of computer for the production of high quality presentation materials. Also in this course, students are encouraged to gain basic skills of communications including: 4. Telecommunication. 5. listening and comprehension, 6. Public Speaking & Critical Discourse 7. speech presentations, ( Interpersonal relationship ) 8. barriers to communications,

Instructional method and delivery

Youll learn to write well by doing as much writing as possible.
Through out the course well stress on one simple principle: This course, will provide the learners with the opportunity to develop knowledge and will stress on the fact that The learner is responsible for his own learning, therefore the learners are encouraged to change their learning attitudes to developed skills to diagnose and solve their problems. This course will be delivered in an ( e-enabled method of teaching and learning) mixing the traditional Face-2-Face and e-learning using the Online Course Container OCC as Learning or Content Management System LMS, www.najah.edu/occ where most of the course web activity will take place like email, chat, forums and on-line materials. OCC can provide all students with the opportunity to maintain interaction with the instructor and can benefit from interacting with other students as a platform to collaborate with team members and work ON-LINE. Students who already dont have an OCC account are required to visit the university site and register for an OCC account using his/her official student number. Companion website for student to visit at www.prenhall.com/pfeiffer where students are required to participate in online activities to search for learning exercise materials and the use of OCC.

Course Timeline:
1st Week Aug. 16th Preparation Week. During this week everyone must: 1Carefully read this contract and acquaint yourself with OCC. 2Have a Wikispaces account and familiarize yourself with it. 3Familiarize yourself with the OCC environment, reading materials and presentation. 4Familiarize yourself with Google products and services, eg. Google docs, blogs, twitter . 5Check with Baidar for copies of reading materials. 2

2nd Week Aug. 23th Use of OCC, Wikispaces, Google docs, forum, Business English Seminar (Parts of Speech) The Communication Process. Interpersonal comm.. Johary window The role, forms and purposes of communication in businesses. rd 3 Week Aug. 30th Comm. Technologies. Barriers to communication. th 4 Week Sep. 6th Business English Seminar (Sentence Structure) Communication Channels Writing in groups, Work-Team communication th 5 Week Sep 13th Characteristics of effective business writing. Page Design 1st Exam/ A th 6 Week Sep 20th Communication correctly Business English Seminar (Punctuation, Language mechanics) th 7 Week Sep. 27th Business letters: Structure, Parts and styles and format. th 8 Week Oct. 4th Business English Seminar (Style) Types of Business transactions enquiries, quotations, order, follow-up ... 1st Exam /B 9th Week Oct. 11th Order letter, Sales letters, Circular letters. Letters of claims, payments, collection th 10 Week Oct. 18nd Letters, memos, Electronic Communication 2nd Exam A 11th Week Oct. 25th Business reports. Memorandums. th 12 Week Dec. 1st Applying for vacant post, Responding to vacancy requests. Business English Seminar (Word usage) th 13 Week Dec. 8th 3

 Oral Communication Public speaking 2nd Exam B 14th Week Dec. 15th
Internet-Based workplace communication Internet-Based workplace communication

15th Week Dec. 22th

Internet-Based workplace communication

In-class report Presentations In-class Presentations @12h00-13h30 th th 16 Week Dec. 29 In-class Presentations In-class Presentations @12h30-13h30 Final/ TBA Attendance:Class work is an important part of this course, so attendance
will be taken regularly. If you do not attend class, make sure to find out what you missed. If you are late for class, inform the instructor at the end of that class, so that you will not be counted absent.

Plagiarism:Plagiarism is the act of parading someone else's work as your

own, either intentionally or unintentionally. In this course, plagiarism will result in a zero on the assignment and, possibly, a failing grade in the course.

MaintainingDailyContact:Weekly assignments and activities will be

posted on-line and changes may be announced in class and/or on OCC, it is your responsibility to be aware of all these changes.

Assessmentandgradingsystem: 1st Test ( 2 Exams ) 20% 2nd Test ( 2 Exams ) 20% On-line writing activities and assignments 10% In-class writing activity and reports 10% Final Test 40% TextbooksandReadingresources: 1Business Communication, Krizan, Merrier, Logan, Williams, 7th
2008. 2Effective Bus. Comm. Hussein Harrim, 2003 Additional: 3Technical Communication: A Practical Approach, 6th edition, by William Sanborn Pfeiffer, Prentice Hall, 2006 4Successful Commercial Correspondence, Radi Al-Shorafa, Nablus 5Internet-Based Workplace Communication: Industry and Academic Applications, Kirk St. Amant, and Pavel Zemliansky.

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Functional English Language, for Commercial students, 1st Secondary class. Ministry of Education, Jordan 1997