University Libraries

By Joseph P. Mazer

In the latest issue of the Basic Communication Course Annual, the peer-reviewed scholarly and professional journal of the Basic Course Division of the National Communication Association, communication scholars from across the United States address emerging and evolving issues in pedagogy and practice in the basic communication course.

Volume 32, published Jan. 2 on eCommons, the University of Dayton’s open-access institutional repository, contains seven peer-reviewed research articles addressing:

• The measurement of essential learning outcomes for public speaking.
• A pragmatic redesign of the basic course.
• Students’ motivation in the basic course.
• Virtual reality speaking rehearsals to enhance students’ public speaking efficacy.
• Formal and informal resources students use to receive feedback about their course experience.
• Face-to-face and lecture-lab models of the introductory course.
• The importance of the basic course in the first-year experience.

The journal’s Basic Course Forum, a collection of essays on an editor-selected topic, asked authors to highlight best practices for recruiting to and/or from the basic course. Essays address best practices for recruiting students from the basic course and the need to cultivate assistant basic course director positions and nurture a pipeline of future directors.

Launched in 1989 as a subscription-only journal, the Basic Communication Course Annual went open-access in 2016, when the University of Dayton Department of Communication acquired the journal and its archives from the initial publisher. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 3.0 US), the journal is freely available around the world.

Submissions for Volume 33 are now being accepted at the journal website.