Assessment type: Individual written assessment.
Length: The assessment must be between 1000-1500 words in length. Two marks will be deducted for assessments that are over or under by 200 words.
Cover sheet: The assessment must include a cover page that contains your name, student number, resident campus, assessment title, and name of lecturer and/or tutor. Style: The assessment must be single-spaced, 12 Point; Times New Roman. References: The assessment must include 5 academic references. You must use the APA reference style.
Other: This assessment is aimed to assess your written communication skills. Students who do not perform well will be highly recommended to consider training with Academic Learning Centre (ALC). The assessment is aimed to ensure that you have an advanced level of writing skills before you proceed into other units in the postgraduate course. The assessment will also assess the integrity of your work. Given all students will do the same assessment, plagiarism will be monitored to ensure that your submitted work is original and not purchased or copied from other students. Where assessments are found to be similar, penalties may apply in accord with University policy.
Task description: In this task, you will write a memo in response to the case study provided below. The memo must be logically structured, free of grammatical errors, professionally styled; in addition, follow the writing conventions for memos as discussed in the lecture and supporting material.

Case study: You are the President of the Turkey Farmers Association of Australia, which consists of sole operators, small producers and four big producers who have their own marketing teams. The Turkey Farmers Association of Australia wants to launch an Australia-wide media campaign to encourage Australians to think of eating turkey every day and not just at Christmas, so that turkey producers can expand their sales. Turkey would be portrayed as a healthy alternative to red meat and chicken while being an inexpensive and versatile meal. Each member of the Turkey Farmers Association of Australia were asked for their opinions about the ideas for the campaign. Most smaller producers were happy to go along with the others, but the four major producers submitted marketing proposals.
“Company 1: There is so much advertising these days, if we really want people to put turkey on the table they need to see or hear our ads several times so that the message sinks in.
Company 2: Most people do shopping on Thursdays or Saturdays so we should use the budget to run radio ads on those two days so people will hear it on their way to the supermarket.
Company 3: The goal should be to get as many people as possible to see our ad at least once. We should compare the CPM (the advertising bought on the basis of impression) across TV, radio, newspapers and magazines, and pick options that gives us the biggest bang for our buck and then schedule ads evenly across all days of the week.
Company 4: A combination of direct marketing, in-store samples, and a Facebook group would help us develop an ongoing dialogue without customers. Also using those media would make it easier for us to track the success of the campaign” (Sharp, 2017, p. 547).

The solution you decide to implement as the President is entirely your decision, you may choose one of the suggested company strategies above or combine up a maximum of three different strategies due to budget constraints or make an executive decision which uses none of this information. It is the communication from you, as President, to your members that is the important consideration, not the actual marketing strategy itself. Issues you need to address in your memo to your members:
1. Members have previously complained that they were not being asked for their opinions and decisions made by the Turkey Farmers Association of Australia were not communicated to members, as the first members knew a decision had been made, was when members saw the decision being talked about or advertisements were shown in the media. Therefore, the Turkey Farmers Association of Australia has issues of internal communication.
2. Members of the Turkey Farmers Association of Australia are located throughout Australia which also makes communication difficult and holding a meeting of all members at the same time almost impossible. However, each member’s opinion was sought for the new campaign and each member had a month to comment and give feedback on this campaign to the Turkey Farmers Association of Australia.
3. Emails sent from the Turkey Farmers Association of Australia are also seen to be unprofessional. Due to budget restrictions, many staff are casually employed and student work placements, where students are not paid for their work, are very important to keep the office of the Turkey Farmers Association of Australia running.

With these problems in mind, you undertake research in order to understand these problems more specifically and come up with logical and practical recommendations to solve these problems. As you refine your knowledge of these problems you narrow each one down to one specific issue. So for example for problem one, the issue could be that the members do not understand why decisions are being made. For problem two, the issue could be that members do not feel comfortable asking about decisions made by the Turkey Farmers Association of Australia. As you develop your recommendations you make sure that you clearly link the problems to the solutions (as articulated within the recommendations). Having this information, you now write a memo to all of the members of the Turkey Farmers Association of Australia. You will write the memo based upon the following structure.
1) Opening
a) To:
b) From:
c) Date:
d) Subject:
2) Objectives and background
a) Describe the communication audit process
b) Specific purpose
c) General purpose
3) Problems
a) Problem one—quantitative and qualitative significance
b) Problem two—quantitative and qualitative significance
c) Problem three—quantitative and qualitative significance
4) Action steps to solve the problems
a) Problem one
b) Problem two
c) Problem three
5) Closing
a) Briefly outline a synopsis of the memo
b) Explain the benefit of compliance to the member/employee and/or organisation.
c) Offer assistance and provide contact details
6) References—APA style.
This is a structural guideline that helps you develop your assessment and does not need to be included in your final submission.
Reference: Sharp, B. (2017), Marketing: theory, evidence, practice, 2nd ed., Oxford University Press, Melbourne.

Rubric is based on the following:

1. Heading
2. Objectives and Backgrounds
3. Problems
4. Action plan
5. Closing
6. Presentation and Quality of Writing

Task Description

The second assessment requires that you work in a group. You will be working with two other people from your tutorial, and the Unit Coordinator/lecturer/tutor will sign you up to a group. This means that you probably will not be working with people that you know. Therefore, you will need to introduce yourself to members of your group and you can use the Introduction forum in the Assessments folder. The groups will be posted in week three. During the fourth tutorial, the group will work on and submit a group charter on Moodle. This charter specifies who will do what and what will happen if a member of the group is not equitably contributing to the overall group output. There is a template in the Assessments folder you can use and you must submit the charter in Week 5 through the link in Moodle.

Task description: In this assessment, you will both write a report based on the following case study and then present an oral presentation either during the lecture or tutorial. Each member of your group will focus upon and write on one of the issues and present this part in the presentation. Do not simply cut and paste each persons’ contribution. The group needs to make sure that all of the parts fit cohesively together and read as one document. The presentation must be 15 minutes in length (each student speaks for 5 minutes). All group members must present during the presentation. You will present the information that you developed and wrote in the report. The flex students will present using Zoom.

Case study: Backpack Bed for Homeless (https://www.swags.org.au/homeless-backpack-bed) is a fully accredited Australian national charity that distributes emergency beds for street sleeping homeless without shelter which improves Dignity, Health, Sleep, Warmth, Comfort, and Safety. After the recent earthquake and tsunami in Sulawesi, you have been appointed as the distributor of the product on the ground in Sulawesi. The 10,000 swags and their transport to Sulawesi have been paid for. However, you will need to work with the Indonesian Government and many humanitarian agencies already working in the area to fulfil your job in Sulawesi. Others in the region after the initial tsunami include, but are not limited to, the Indonesian government and national disaster management board, and regional disaster management agency (BPBD) and Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Australian Defence Force, Indonesian Red Cross (PMI), Republic of Singapore Air Force, ASEAN Emergency Response and Assessment Team, ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on disaster management, Australian medical team, Royal Malaysian Air Force, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), UN humanitarian coordinating office (OCHA), French rescue team (Pompiers de l'urgence), Save the Children, the World Food Programme, UNICEF, UN migration agency (IOM), and World Health Organization (WHO). You can focus your report on any of these agencies or other agencies that enter Sulawesi in the following weeks.

With the Head Office of Backpack Bed for Homeless in Melbourne and a lack of communication within Sulawesi and to the outside world from Sulawesi, you believe that the organisation will be facing several intercultural communication challenges upon arrival in Sulawesi.

Your task is to prepare a report to the CEO of Backpack Bed for Homeless estimating where you may face difficulty upon your arrival which may hinder you doing your job effectively and recommendation that could be implemented to make it easier for you to perform your job quickly and efficiently. You will also need to write a covering email briefly explaining why you have written the report and what purpose it serves for Backpack Bed for Homeless.

The three intercultural challenges are based upon:

1. Different cultural values and etiquette

2. Direct versus indirect styles of communication

3. Different cultural norms of decision making

In conjunction with two other Backpack Bed for Homeless Australian staff members assisting in Sulawesi, you conduct academic research in order to understand these problems and come up with logical and practical recommendations. You and your team are tasked with writing a report to the CEO which discusses these problems and provides recommendations to solve these problems. You write the report using the following format.

Report format:

1) Covering email to which your report would be attached.

2) Title page with student names and numbers, resident campus, lecturer/tutor name/s

3) Table of contents

4) Introduction

a) Significance of effective intercultural communication

b) Identify the purpose of the report

c) Preview the structure of the report

5) Analysis of the current situation (literature review of the three presenting issues)

a) Intercultural challenge one

b) Intercultural challenge two

c) Intercultural challenge three

6) Conclusion—no new information should be presented here—just summarize what you have already discussed.

7) Recommendations—the recommendations should answer what should be done, who should do it, and how will the success or failure of the recommendations be measured?

a) Recommendation one

b) Recommendation two

c) Recommendation three

8) References—Minimum of 25 (APA format)

This is a structural guideline that helps your assessment and does not need to be included in your final submission.

The oral presentation should be of a maximum of 15 minutes so only the most important points can be included and very briefly spoken about. The following structure should be used as the basis for your oral presentation:

1) Introduction (First speaker)

a) Attention-getting statement

b) Exigency of the topic

c) Preview of the structure

d) Thesis

e) Transition to the next section and speaker

2) Analysis:

a) Intercultural challenge one (First speaker)

i) Main point one

(1) Evidence/example/explanation

ii) Main point two

(1) Evidence/example/explanation

iii) Main point three

(1) Evidence/example/explanation

(2) Transition to challenge two and next speaker

b) Intercultural challenge two (Second speaker)

i) Main point one

(1) Evidence/example/explanation

ii) Main point two

(1) Evidence/example/explanation

iii) Main point three

3) Transition to the challenge three and last speaker

c) Intercultural challenge three (Third speaker)

i) Main point one

(1) Evidence/example/explanation

ii) Main point two

(1) Evidence/example/explanation

iii) Main point three

d) Transition to the conclusion

3) Conclusion (Third speaker)

a) Recap main points

b) Recap thesis

c) Transition to the recommendations

4) Recommendations

a) Issue one (First speaker)

i) What should be done,

ii) Who should do it, and

iii) How will the success or failure of the recommendations be measured?

b) Issue two (Second speaker)

i) What should be done,

ii) Who should do it, and

iii) How will the success or failure of the recommendations be measured?

c) Issue three (Third speaker)

i) What should be done,

ii) Who should do it, and

iii) How will the success or failure of the recommendations be measured?

5) Ask the audience if they have any questions that you can answer (Second speaker)

This is a structural guideline that helps your assessment and does not need to be included in your final submission.

The full rubric is in Moodle, however for your Report:

Introduction

Analysis

Conclusion

Recommendations

Written Communication

References

Oral presentation:

Introduction

Analysis

Conclusion

Recommendations

Written Communication

References

Task Description
Weighting: This assessment accounts for 40% of your final grade. Essays that are submitted late will receive a late penalty of 2 marks per day late.
Length: The assignment must be between 1500-2000 words in length. Two points will be deducted for the essays that are +/- 200 words.
Cover sheet: The assessment must include a cover page that contains your name, student number, resident campus, assessment title, and lecturer and/or tutor.
Style: The assessment must double-spaced; 12 Point; Times New Roman
References: The assessment must include 10 academic references. You must use the APA reference style.
Other: This is an essay and should not include headings.

Task Description: The objective of this reflective essay is to summarize what you learned from the unit and how you believe your learnings could be applied by you in your future career goals.
Section one: For weeks one to ten you should identify one important or significant concept that you have learned about.
You should define the concept and then explain why it is important to you in your current or future line of work. It is not enough to simply say that the concept is important, you will need to explain why.
Section two: Based on your discussion of the ten significant concepts you should provide a literature review of one of the concepts. So for example, if you found that listening was an important communication concept then you should provide a literature review on the current academic understanding of the importance of listening within the work environment.
Section three: Lastly, you will need to discuss how two of the ten concepts could be important to your future career aspirations. Here you will need to identify where you wish to be in 5 years’ time, and then discuss how you think these concepts/skills will help you meet your career goal. It is important that you are specific as possible. Your essay should follow the following structure:
1) Introduction
a) Opening statement that introduces the topic
b) Background information that introduces the context, significance and the purpose of the essay
c) Preview of the structure of the essay
d) Thesis
e) Transition to section one
2) Section one—identify and explain the importance of one weekly concept in terms of your work activities.
a) Week one
b) Week two
c) Week three
d) Week four
e) Week five
f) Week six
g) Week seven
h) Week eight
i) Week nine
j) Week ten
3) Section two—Literature review of one of the concepts identified in section one
4) Section three—Application of two of the concepts for future career aspirations.
5) Conclusion
a) Synopsis of the areas discussed in the essay
b) Restatement of the thesis statement
c) Capstone statement that signals that the essay has ended.
6) References (APA reference style)

This is a structural guideline that helps your assessment and does not need to be included in your final submission.

The full rubric is available in Moodlebut includes:

Introduction

Weekly concept - defined and applied

Literature Review

Application for future career aspirations

References

Quality of writing