| Semester 2, 2023 Toowoomba On-campus | |
| Units : | 1 |
| School or Department : | School of Humanities & Communication |
| Grading basis : | Graded |
| Course fee schedule : | /current-students/administration/fees/fee-schedules |
Staffing
Course Coordinator: Alison Feldman
Overview
Crisis and issues management is one of the most important tasks of a communication manager. This course equips the communication manager with skills and knowledge that enable them to diffuse an issue and help the organisation emerge from a crisis with reputation intact.
This course assumes the management perspective that when organizations are faced with an issue either accidental or intentional that significantly disrupts normal operations, effective communication is essential. Students will be made aware of potential issues affecting the public and private sectors and required to develop their individual skills in planning and implementing communication management strategies which reflect their ability to adapt to specific workplace needs. In their efforts to minimise risks and to deal with them students will examine risk identification, advance preparation, environmental surveillance, crisis management planning, and evaluation. At all times students will be encouraged to develop a commitment to ethical and responsible practices as part of the on-going development of effective issues management strategies and to develop appropriate communication policies used to facilitate issues management plans.
Course learning outcomes
On completion of this course students will be able to:
- implement an ongoing approach to crisis management
- understand and apply the core elements of crisis sensing
- demonstrate problem-solving skills by diagnosing a crisis and suggesting ways to prevent or deal with a crisis
- demonstrate an ability to differentiate between different crisis types
- construct and implement issues management and crisis management plans
- demonstrate academic and professional literacy skills by critically analysing and evaluating existing crisis management approaches
- understand the importance of be able to develop stakeholder relationships as a foundation to effective crisis and issues management
- demonstrate written communication skills appropriate to the discipline by preparing and submitting a crisis management plan and scenario.
Topics
| Description | Weighting(%) | |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Crises and issues: what are they and how do they work? | 15.00 |
| 2. | Crisis management theory | 10.00 |
| 3. | Effective and ethical crisis communication | 20.00 |
| 4. | Issues analysis and planning | 20.00 |
| 5. | Crisis analysis and planning | 30.00 |
| 6. | Crisis recovery | 5.00 |
Text and materials required to be purchased or accessed
Student workload expectations
To do well in this subject, students are expected to commit approximately 10 hours per week including class contact hours, independent study, and all assessment tasks. If you are undertaking additional activities, which may include placements and residential schools, the weekly workload hours may vary.
Assessment details
| Description | Group Assessment |
Weighting (%) | Course learning outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Case 精东传媒app | No | 20 | 2,3,4,6,8 |
| Practical 1 | No | 20 | 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 |
| Practical 2 | No | 50 | 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 |
| Practical 3 | No | 10 | 1,2,3,4,6,8 |