Abstract:

Business communication is the process of sharing information between employees, employees and management, as well as the company and the outside world. Effective business communication is the basis for reaching organizational goals and being more aligned with the company's core values. The main purpose of good business communication is to improve organizational practices, keep employees informed and reduce errors. Effective business communication is essential for success and growth of every organization, as well as the individual himself. It includes good verbal and nonverbal communication skills, business writing skills, job interview skills, skills in holding and/or participating in business meetings, public speaking and presentation skills, as well as skills in negotiation.

More and more people are spending their time online, conducting searches, checking social media or browsing the web looking for some products or services. This highlights the importance of digital marketing. If customers can’t find what they are looking for because companies don’t have an online presence, companies risk losing profit and advantage to their competitors. Companies nowadays have a great need to build their online presence, in order to build their brand and achieve success. Demands for specialists in the field of digital marketing are constantly growing and cannot be satisfied fast enough. Additional issues are the numerous and rapid changes in current technology and trends, as well as an increasing number of potential clients (customers).

All this creates additional pressure on universities for producing more highly capable workforce with the appropriate base of knowledge and current skills in these fields.

This paper presents experiences in teaching a graduate (master) level Business Communication and Marketing (BCM) course at the University of Rijeka, Department of Informatics. The course uses a comprehensive teaching methodology that combines traditional and interactive lectures, hands-on assignments, workshops and computer laboratory work, online discussions and practical projects of planning and developing a marketing campaign for a new product or a blog.

The course and its teaching methodology aim at students' in-depth learning and gaining theoretical and practical knowledge of the field, as well as skills needed to successfully communicate in real-life business situations and skills needed to successfully develop and implement a digital marketing strategy. The teaching methodology and course contents are presented in detail, as well as assessment results for the last two years. Also, some challenges and lessons learned are discussed.

The belief is that through this kind of course curriculum students will become adequately familiar with business communication and digital marketing topics and it will be easier for them to enter the labour market (e.g. write a CV, go through a job interview, participate in the business meetings, etc.) and to adapt to current trends in digital marketing (strategy, digital media, social media, digital user experience, SEO, ads, etc.).

The main contributions of this paper are:
a) detailed experience report,
b) comprehensive teaching methodology,
c) students’ assessment report, and
d) discussion of challenges and lessons learned.

Keywords:

Course experience, Curriculum, Methodology, Higher education, ICT education, Business communication, Digital marketing.