Go to http://parkonline.org/ You can probably look around in there about a week before the course start date, but do NOT expect content to be updated until the first day of the course.  Sometimes professors are assigned to courses at the last minute, so they have to adapt the course to their teaching styles at the last minute.

Check your syllabus to see your professor's preferred method of communication.  You can expect a response within a couple days.  If you don't receive a response, make a second contact, perhaps through a different method.  There are multiple ways to communicate with your professor: 

1. Use the internal email system to communicate inside the eCollege.  Expect your professor to check that system once a week.

2. To look up faculty contact information, go to people@park, which can be linked through http://www.park.edu/ (upper right corner of the homepage): http://people.park.edu/Public/Default.aspx?TabKey=0&TaskItemKey=2&Screen=0  Unfortunately, not everyone is in the system.

3. Use the Park email system.  Yourprofessor'sfirstname.lastname@Park.edu email  Please use your park.edu email address as well because nonPark emails are typically blocked or sent directly to spam.

4. Communicate inside the eCollege course shell Discussion Board (e.g., for the week or "Office").

5. Communicate by phone. Your professor may have a phone number in your syllabus. Park's phone numbers are (816) 741-2000 or (800) 745-7275. Faculty at a distance may not be accessible through this number.

6. Communicate by US mail. Park University, 8700 NW River Park Drive, Parkville, MO 64152.  Faculty at a distance may not be accessible through this address.

Course Developer Contact: Dr. Aitken, Professor, Department of Arts & Communication, 229 Copley, 8700 NW River Park Drive, Park University, Parkville, MO 64152.  Office 816-584-6785. joan.aitken@park.edu -- Vita

Importance of Online Discussion and Online Etiquette

This course requires frequent and active engagement in online discussion.  Some tips for posting online include the following.

1. Keep posts short, but provide substance.

2. Encouraging responses--"great post," "interesting comment,"--are always welcome, but do not satisfy the discussion thread assignment.

3. Remember to login and post multiple times per week and respond to others so that you are engaged in a conversation, and not making isolated posts.

4. Avoid sarcasm and humor or indicate clearly (e.g., "Ha, ha," "grin," smiley face).

5. Avoid plagiarism in online discussion.

6. As you read the textbook, find facts (research-based concepts), which you can apply to your own experiences to use in the discussion.

7. Seek to expand your thinking and experience about intercultural communication.

8. Seek to be open and nonjudgmental about the ideas of others.

9. Express your thoughts in a candid way so that you can be motivated to test yourself and improve your intercultural communication.

10. Use the Discussion Board to apply what you learn in the textbook.

EXAMPLE GRADEBOOK

Discussion wk 1--7 Points

Discussion wk 2--7 Points

Discussion wk 3--7 Points

Discussion wk 4--7 Points

Discussion wk 5--7 Points

Discussion wk 6--7 Points

Discussion wk 7--7 Points

Discussion wk 8--7 Points (1 extra credit point available)

Test-Midterm wk 4--10 Points

Test-Final--10 Points (If no midterm, then the final exam would probably be worth 20 points)

Core Assessment—25 points

100 total points, with 90 points and A, 80 points a B, and 70 points a C.

Late Submission of Course Materials:

Be on time.  Please submit a physician's excuse for late assignments.  In a monochronic time culture like the US, meeting deadlines is crucial to effective communication. Thus, being on time is a way of showing that you know the nonverbal meaning of time in the US culture.

Expectations for Students

Students need to be respectful of other people in this class.  Rhetorical sensitivity is the process of communicating with the context in mind, so that you are concerned about the other person's perspective.  Strive to enhance a safe and positive learning community in this class.

In this course, you will learn about the importance of saving face (protecting another person's pride), which calls for you to suspend judgmental talk or actions about the other person's values, attitudes, and behaviors.  You will want to focus on ideas and avoid prejudicial or stereotypical comments.  Please be careful about humor and sarcasm because they may not translate interculturally and are difficult to interpret online.

Any course in multicultural communication expects rhetorical sensitivity regarding topics such as gender, ethnicity, race, life-style, marriage and family, sexual orientation, disability status, religion, socio-economic class, education, minority group status, veteran status, and culture. 

Regarding your course progress, please work out problems with your professor early in the course and in advance of any serious developments. Here are example expectations of the course developer:  http://onlineacademics.org/Guidelines.html

Controversial and Offensive Course Content

You may find website links, questions, videos, photos, cartoons, or other content in this course to be offensive.  You may find Discussion Board comments from class peers to be offensive.  Remember that each student in this course, the professor, the course developer, and the course designer bring their cultural biases to this course.  Although we have tried to present a variety of perspectives, many important views have been missed.

There is a learning principle that we have to face and discuss prejudices to increase multicultural tolerance. Indeed, what is taboo for one group may be acceptable for another group.  The purpose of including controversial elements is to challenge you to consider the perspectives of other people.  Thus, some of these points of view may make you feel quite uncomfortable.  We do not suggest that you should agree, but that you simply consider how multiple standpoints may be expressed in a multicultural society. 

Course Content Source Credits

Text of lectures, overviews, tests, and similar materials are directly quoted from Neuliep, J. W. (2009). Intercultural communication: A contextual approach (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Clipart is from Microsoft.  Words in other languages are greetings or "Thank you."  Photographs are by C. Aitken-Palmer. Other visuals from sources as indicated. Copyright. All rights reserved. 

If any content or copyright owner finds material on these websites, which the owner wants removed, please contact joan.aitken@park.edu .

Course Professor Introduction

Dr. J. E. Aitken is the course developer for this course.  She is Professor, Arts and Communication, at Park University. Previously, Dr. Aitken taught at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, University of Louisiana-Lafayette, and University of Arkansas-Fayetteville. She has completed 40 graduate hours as an online student and taught online courses for three universities.

Dr. Aitken has worked internationally in Jamaica and the People's Republic of China. She has two adult children who have lived abroad, and you will see some of their photography as illustrations in the course shell.  Dr. Aitken helped provide intercultural course teaching materials for Dr. Neuliep, who wrote the course textbook.

Dr. Aitken has published several books and more than 50 articles and book chapters. Dr. Aitken’s most recent book is entitled ICOMM: Interpersonal Concepts and Competencies. 

Office 816-584-6785  joan.aitken@park.edu

Contacting Your Course Professor

A good way to communicate with your professor is either in the Discussion Board (if the communication is not confidential) or via Dropbox (if the communication is confidential).  By asking questions in the weekly course Discussion Board, students can help each other and all students can see your professor's answer.  If you ask questions via the Dropbox or Discussion Board, most faculty respond to those once a week.

For the Dropbox, look at the Dropbox tab at the top of the Course Shell.  A general communication dropbox is located under the course Home.  This dropbox allows you and your professor to conduct private conversations.  You can post with attachments much like an email.  Check your syllabus to see if your professor has a preferred method of communication.

Because of federal FERPA regulations, faculty are advised not to discuss grades or other private information by email or phone because they cannot be sure they are communicating only with the student.

Please contact your professor using your @park.edu email address and put "CA 235 Student" in the subject line.  Our security system screens out most nonPark email as spam, so your professor may never receive emails from an external address. 

If you contact your professor and don't hear back within a couple business days, please contact your professor again.  You may want to try a different means of contact for your second contact.  If you telephoned for example, your professor may not understand the return number message or may not have long-distance phone access.  So, you may more effectively reach your professor via email.  If you emailed your professor using an external email address, try again using your @park.edu email address.  If you used the Dropbox or Discussion Board, most faculty respond to those once a week.

Onground location:  Department of Arts & Communication, 8700 NW River Park Drive, Park University, Parkville, MO 64152.
To Find Contact Information for Park University Faculty and Staff:

http://people.park.edu/Public/Default.aspx?TabKey=0&TaskItemKey=2&Screen=0

Tutorials

APA Writing and Grammar: http://onlineacademics.org/APA.html

APA Citation and Reference Style Formatting: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/

For Research, Park University Mass Media and Communication Complete Online Database Tutorial: http://onlineacademics.org/LibraryTutorial/

Example Virtual Museum Links

Getting Started in the Course

1. You will want to buy your textbook.  Neuliep, J. W.  (2009). Intercultural communication: A contextual approach. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Begin by reading chapter one and two.

2. Check your course syllabus for assignments and details about your course http://www.park.edu/syllabus/list.aspx

3. Introduce yourself and meet other students in the class online through the Discussion Board.  You might want to discuss an intercultural experience you've had.

4. If you've never used eCollege before, you may want to read this tutorial: http://onlineacademics.org/eCollege/ This page will explain the basic features of the eCollege course.
    

Tentative Assignments, Due Dates, and Schedule.

Directly quoted from Neuliep, J. W. (2009). Intercultural communication: A contextual approach (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Acculturation: The process of cultural change that results from ongoing contact between two or more culturally different groups.

Acculturative Stress: The anxiety and tension associated with acculturation.

Adaptors: Mostly unconscious nonverbal actions that satisfy physiological or psychological needs such as scratching an itch.

Adjustment Phase: Third stage of culture shock characterized by where people actively seek out effective problem-solving and conflict resolution strategies.

Affect Displays: Nonverbal presentations of emotion, primarily communicated through facial expressions.

Affective Component: Approach-avoidance tendencies during intercultural communication. The extent to which one experiences intercultural communication apprehension and one's willingness to communicate.

African-Americans: Micro-cultural group in the United States whose ancestors were brought to the United States as slaves.

Amish: A micro-cultural religiously oriented group whose members practice simple and austere living.

Analogic Communication: Nonverbal communication, including vocal elements such as voice pitch.

Anxiety Uncertainty Management Theory: Theory that describes how individuals can manage (rather then reduce) uncertainty and anxiety during intercultural communication.

Arab-Americans: According to the Census Bureau, people with ancestries originating from Arabic speaking countries or areas of the world.

Arranged Marriage: Marriage that is initiated and negotiated by a third party, other than the bride and groom.

Assertiveness: An individual's ability to make requests, actively disagree, and express positive or negative personal rights and feelings.

Assimilation: The degree to which an individual takes on the behaviors and language habits and practices the basic rules and norms of the host culture while relinquishing ties with the native culture.

Avoiding communication style: The degree to which a person ignores both self-face need and other-face need.

Avoiding Facework: Behaviors that focus on an attempt to save the face of the other person.

Built Environment: Adaptations to the terrestrial environment, including architecture, housing, lighting, and landscaping.

Carpentered-World Hypothesis: Learned tendency by those living in industrialized cultures to interpret non-rectangular figures as rectangles in perspective.

Categorization: Classifying or sorting of perceived information into distinct groups.

Chronemics: The perception and use of time.

Cognition: Higher mental processes, such as perception and memory.

Collectivism: Cultural orientation that the group is the primary unit of culture. Group goals take precedence over individual goals.

Communication Apprehension: The fear or anxiety associated with either real or anticipated communication with another person or group of persons.

Communication: The simultaneous encoding, decoding, and interpretation of verbal and nonverbal messages between people.

Compromising communication style: The degree to which a person tries to balance both self-face and other-face needs.

Conflict Interaction Styles: The ways individuals manage actual conflict.

Context: The cultural, physical, social, and psychological environment.

Cultural Context: An accumulated pattern of values, beliefs, and behavior held by an identifiable group of people with a common verbal and nonverbal symbol system.

Cultural Transmutation: Mode of acculturation where the individual chooses to identify with a third cultural group (e.g., microculture) which materializes out of the native and host cultural groups.

Culture Shock: The effects associated with the tension and anxiety of entering into a new culture combined with the sensations of loss, confusion, and powerlessness resulting from the forfeiture of cultural norms and social rituals.

Culture: An accumulated pattern of values, beliefs, and behaviors, shared by an identifiable group of people with a common history and verbal and nonverbal symbol system.

Decay: Memory loss due to lack of use.

Denotative meaning: The literal meaning of a word; the dictionary meaning.

Digital communication: Verbal communication.

Dominating communication style: The degree to which a person asserts a high self-face need while simultaneously discounting the other-face need.

Dominating Facework: Behaviors that are characterized by an individual’s need to control the conflict situation and defend his or her self-face.

Dozens: A verbal battle of insults between speakers who are judged for their originality and creativity by a small group of listeners.   This is the highest form of verbal warfare and impromptu speaking in many African-American communities.

Dynamic: Something considered active and forceful.

Ebonics: From the terms ebony and phonics, a grammatically robust and rich African-American speech pattern whose roots are in West Africa.

Emblems: Primarily hand gestures that have a direct verbal translation. Can be used to repeat or substitute for verbal communication.

Emotional Expression: How one might use his or her emotions to guide conflict. This is demonstrated by the type of person who listens to his or her base feelings and proceeds accordingly.

Environmental Context: The geographical and psychological location of communication within some cultural context.

Environmental Context: The physical, geographical location of communication.

Episodic Memory: A component of long-term memory where private individual memories are stored.

Ethnicity: The group affiliation or ancestral origins of an individual. A more appropriate word than the social construct of "race," ethnicity may refer to religious, language-based, or geographic origins, according to an individual's genetic or self-definition.

Ethnocentric Attributional Bias: The tendency to make internal attributions for the positive behavior of the ingroup while making external attributions for its negative behavior.

Ethnocentrism: Tendency to place one's own group (cultural, ethnic, or religious) in a position of centrality and worth, and to create negative attitudes and behaviors toward other groups.

Ethnocentrism: Tendency to place one's own group or ethnicity in a position of centrality and worth while creating negative attitudes and behaviors towards other groups.

Face: A person’s sense of favorable self-worth or self-image experienced during communicative situations; an emotional extension of the self-concept; considered a universal concept; that is, people in all cultures have a sense of face, but the specific meanings of face may vary across cultures.

Facework: The communicative strategies employed to manage one’s own face or to support or challenge another’s face. Can be employed to initiate, manage, or terminate conflict.

Fixed-feature Space: Space bounded by immovable or permanent fixtures, such as walls.

Gender: A socially constructed and learned creation usually associated with one's sex; masculinity and femininity. People are born into a sex group, but learn to become masculine or feminine. The meaning of gender stems from the particular culture's value system.

GENE: Self-report instrument designed to measure generalized ethnocentrism

Haptics: Nonverbal communication via physical contact or touch.

High Context: Cultural orientation where meanings are gleaned from the physical, social, and psychological contexts.

High Load: Situation with a high information rate.

Hispanic: Defined by the U.S. Government as a person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race.

Hmong: Microculture belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family and are culturally similar to the Chinese. The Hmong, which means "free people" or "mountain people" fought for the United States during the Vietnam War and many have immigrated to the United States since the end of the war.

Horizontal Collectivism: Cultural orientation where the self is seen as a member of an ingroup whose members are similar to each other.

Horizontal Individualism: Cultural orientation where an autonomous self is valued but the self is more or less equal with others.

Illusory Correlation Principle: When two objects or persons are observed to be linked in some, people have a tendency to believe they are always linked (or correlated).

Illustrators: Primarily hand and arm movements that function to accent or complement speech.

Individualism: Cultural orientation that the individual is unique and emphasizing individual goals over group goals.

Informal Space: Space defined by the movement of the interactants.

Information Rate: The amount of information contained or perceived in the physical environment per some unit of time.

Ingroup: A membership group whose norms, goals, and values shape the behavior of the members. Extreme ingroups see the actions of an outgroup as threatening to the ingroup.

Integrating communication style: The degree to which a person assumes a high self-face need while also attending to the needs of the other-face.

Integrating Facework: Behaviors that allow for the shared concern for self- and other-face and strives for closure in the conflict

Integration: Mode of acculturation where the individual develops a kind of bicultural orientation which successfully blends and synthesizes cultural dimensions from both groups while maintaining an identity in each group.

Intentionality: During communication, the voluntary and conscious encoding and decoding of messages.

Interactive: A process between two people.

Intercultural Communication Apprehension (ICA): The fear or anxiety associated with either real or anticipated communication with a person from another culture or co-culture.

Intercultural Communication: Two persons from different cultures or co-cultures exchanging verbal and nonverbal messages.

Intercultural competence: The ability to adapt one’s verbal and nonverbal messages to the appropriate cultural context.

Intercultural Conflict: The experience of emotional frustration or mismatched expectations between individuals from different cultures who perceive an incompatibility between their values, norms, goals, scarce resources, or outcomes during an intercultural exchange.

Intercultural willingness to communicate: Predisposition to initiate intercultural interaction with persons from different cultures even when completely free to choose whether or not to communicate.

Interference: During recall, when new or old information blocks or obstructs the recall of other information.

Intermediary level: The actual location and context of the conflict.

Involuntary Membership Group: A group to which a person belongs and has no choice but to belong, such as a person's sex, race, and age group.

Involuntary Nonmembership Group: A group to which a person does not belong because of ineligibility.

Kinesics: General category of body motion, including emblems, illustrators, affect displays, and adaptors.

Knowledge Component: The extent of one's awareness of another's culture's values etc. Also the extent to which one is cognitively simple, rigid and ethnocentric.

Long-term Memory: Cognitive storage area where large amounts of information are held relatively permanently.

Low Context: Cultural orientation where meanings are encoded in the verbal code.

Low Load: Situation with a low information rate.

Macro or Societal level: Factors that are out of the control of the interactants. These conditions include any history of subjugation, ideological/ structural inequality, and minority group strength.

Membership Group: A group to which a person belongs where there is regular interaction among members who perceive of themselves as members.

Memory: The storage of information in the human brain over time.

Micro or Individual level: Each individual’s unique attitudes, dispositions, and beliefs that he or she brings to the conflict.

Microculture: An identifiable group of people coexisting within some dominant cultural context.

Microculture: An identifiable group of people who share a set of values, beliefs, and behaviors and who possess a common history and verbal and nonverbal symbol system that is similar to but systematically varies from the larger, often dominant cultural milieu.

Minority Group: Subordinate group whose members have significantly less power and control over their own lives than members of the dominant or majority group.

Monochronic Time Orientation: Cultural temporal orientation that stresses the compartmentalization and segmenting of measurable units of time.

Muted Groups: Microcultures who are forced to express themselves (e.g., speak, write) within the dominant mode of expression.

Mutual-face: The concern for both parties’ images or the image of the relationship

Neglect: The use of a passive–aggressive approach where one might ignore the conflict but attempt to elicit a response from the other via aggressive acts.

Nonmembership Group: A group to which a person does not belong.

Nonverbal Expectancy Violations Theory: Theory that posits that people hold expectations about the nonverbal behavior of others. When these expectations are violated, people evaluate the violation positively or negatively depending on the source of the violation.

Obliging communication style: The degree to which a person puts the other-face need ahead of self-face need.

Olfactics: The perception and use of smell, scent, and odor.

Organizational Culture: An organized pattern of values, beliefs, behaviors and communication channels held by the members of an organization

Other-face: The concern for another’s image.

Outgroup Homogeneity Effect: The tendency to see members of an outgroup as highly similar while seeing the members of the ingroup as unique and individual.

Outgroup: A group whose attributes are dissimilar from an ingroup's and who opposes the realization of ingroup goals.

Paralanguage: Characteristics of the voice such as pitch, rhythm, intensity, volume, and rate.

Perception: The mental interpretation of external stimuli via sensation.

Perceptual Context: The attitudes, emotions, and motivations of the persons engaged in communication and how they affect information-processing.

Perceptual Context: The cognitive process by which persons gather, store, and retrieve information.

Perceptual Filters: Physical, social, and psychological processes that screen and bias incoming stimuli.

Personal Report of Communication Apprehension (PRCA): Self-report instrument designed to measure communication apprehension.

Polyandry: The practice of having multiple husbands.

Polychronic Time Orientation: Cultural temporal orientation that stresses the involvement of people and the completion of tasks as opposed to strict adherence to schedules. Time is not seen as measurable.

Polygamy: The practice of having multiple spouses.

Polygyny: The practice of having multiple wives.

Power Distance: The extent to which less powerful members of a particular culture accept and expect that power within the culture will be distributed unequally.

Power Distance: The extent to which members of a culture expect and accept that power is unequally distributed.

Privacy: The degree to which an individual can control the visual, auditory, and olfactic interaction with others.

Process: Anything ongoing, ever-changing, and continuous.

Proxemics: The perception and use of space, including territoriality and personal space.

Psychomotor Features: The extent to which one can translate cultural knowledge into appropriate verbal and nonverbal performance and role enactment.

Race: A social construct based primarily on skin color. A more scientific term is ethnicity, which refers to places of ancestral origin.

Recall/Retrieval: To call to mind a recollection of stored information.

Re-Entry Shock: The effects associated with the tension and anxiety of returning to one's native culture after an extended stay in a foreign culture.

Reference Group: A group to which a person may or may not belong, but identifies in some way with the values and goals of the group.

Regulators: Nonverbal acts that manage and govern communication between people, such as stance, distance, eye contact, etc.

Relational Empathy: Shared meaning and harmonization that is the outcome or result of interaction of two people.

Responsiveness: An individual's ability to be sensitive to the communication of others, including providing feedback, comforting communication, and listening.

Rhetorical sensitivity: Selecting language and nonverbal communication with thought and care so that one adapts communication effectively to the other person and the context.

Role: One's relative hierarchical position or rank in a group. A role is a prescribed set of behaviors that are expected in order to fulfill the role. Roles prescribed with whom, about what, and how to interact with others.

Self-face: The concern for one’s own image.

Semantic Memory: A part of long-term memory where general information, such as how to read and write, and the meanings of words are stored.

Semi-fixed Featured Space: Space bounded by movable objects such as furniture.

Sensation: Gathering of visual, auditory, olfactic, haptic and taste stimuli/information.

Sensory Receptors: Eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and skin.

Sensory Register: Storage center for raw sense data.

Sex Role: A prescribed set of behaviors assigned to different sexes.

Sex: A designation of people based on biological genital differences.

Situational Features: The extent to which the environmental context, previous contact, status differential and third-party intervention affect one's competence during intercultural communication.

Social Identity: The total combination of one's group roles. A part of the individual's self-concept that is derived from the person's membership in groups.

Social Stratification: A culture's organization of roles into a hierarchical vertical status structure.

SocioCommunicative Style: Degree of assertiveness and responsiveness during communication.

Sociorelational Context: The role relationship between the interactants (i.e., brother/sister)

Socio-Relational Context: The roles that one assumes within a culture that are defined by verbal and nonverbal messages.

Spanglish: Hybrid language combining the phonological features (i.e., sounds) and syntactic structures (grammar) of English and Spanish.

Stereotypes: A subset of categorizing involving the attribution of characteristics of a group to an individual based on individual's membership in that group. Stereotypes are categories with an attitude.

Symbol: An arbitrarily selected and learned stimulus representing something else.

Terrestrial Environment: The physical geography of the earth.

Third Culture: That which is created when a dyad consisting of persons from different cultures come together and establish relational empathy.

Third-party help: The extent to which a person would engage an outsider to act as a go-between in the conflict.

Transactional: The simultaneous encoding and decoding process during communication.

Uncertainty Avoidance: The degree to which members of a particular culture feel threatened by unpredictable, uncertain, or unknown situations.

Uncertainty Reduction Theory: The major premise of this theory is that when strangers first meet, their primary goal is to reduce uncertainty.

Uncertainty: The amount of predictability in a communication situation.

Uncertainty: The amount of unpredictability during communication.

Values: Criteria for selecting and justifying behavior. Values have a cognitive, affective, and behavioral component.

Vertical Collectivism: Cultural orientation where the individual sees the self as an integral part of the ingroup but whose members are different than each other (e.g., status).

Vertical Individualism: Cultural orientation where an autonomous self is valued but the self is seen as different and perhaps unequal with others.

Voluntary Membership Group: A membership group to which a person belongs out of choice, like a political party or service organization.