Business and Professional Communication Quarterly

Business communication faculty often assign projects that require students to interview, survey, or observe human subjects. Depending on the nature of the project and the policies at the faculty member's university, such projects may require prior approval by the university's Institutional Review Board (IRB). Therefore, business communication faculty will benefit from an understanding of three areas related to IRB review of class projects involving human subjects research: (1) whether their institution requires such class projects to be reviewed by the university's IRB and, if so, what form the review takes; (2) how they can adapt classroom activities, materials, and assignments so that human subjects research by students complies with IRB policies; and (3) how they can relate IRB policies to issues that students may face in their future professional lives.

Thus far, listening training has been limited to lectures on the process of listening and experiential exercises designed to provide for practice in listening and for assisting in a person's ability to recognize his or her own beneficial and detrimental listening behaviors. Using a new process—silence—for developing listening skills, this study compared the effects on perceived listening effectiveness of a self- imposed period of silence versus attending a lecture on listening skills versus a combination of a self-imposed period of silence and attending a lecture. While no significant differences were found for either lecture or silence or the combination of the two on measures of perceived listening effectiveness, qualitative data from journals kept by the participants suggest that the act of self-imposed silence greatly improves awareness of one's listening effectiveness and the value of developing beneficial listening skills.

Researchers, including students, must accommodate to the mutating character of hyperlinks on the World Wide Web. A small study of citations in three volumes of BCQ demonstrates the phenomenon of "URL rot," the disappearance of sites cited in the sample articles. Digital technology itself is now being used to create pockets of permanence, but with the understanding that preservation of content is only one ingredient in the mix of media and format migration. Databases like JSTOR offer digitally preserved copies of many scholarly journals. Online journals and search engines may offer their own archives. In general, researchers should cite digital articles in databases where possible and consider avoiding references to online journals with print editions.

Distributed learning theory is valuable for teachers of online business communica tion courses because it 1) highlights complexities of software tools, not only the online course interface, but also tools used to produce Websites, brochures, CDs, and other multi-media elements; 2) provides a way to address online communica tion dynamics, such as online chats and discussions, that students will practice in the workplace; and 3) allows teachers to examine how their previous experiences teaching business communication in more "traditional" classrooms affect teaching online. Highlighting these areas allows business communication teachers to focus on the critical use of technology in online formats that entail relatively new teach ing media. The critical application of technology use can be seen in areas like tool evaluation and use, power and divisions of labor, and community participation.