A hearty welcome to all my new students who have enrolled in PRCA 2330: Introduction to Public Relations, at Georgia Southern University.

Textbook(s)

Wilcox, D.L., & Cameron, G.T. (2009). Public relations: Strategies and tactics (9th Ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

• Purchasing the hardcover book is about $90 at Amazon.com, 
• You can rent the hardcover book for about $50 from Chegg. 
• Or you can rent an electronic version of the book  from  CourseSmart for about $60.

Recommended but not required: Li, C., & Bernoff, J. (2008). Groundswell: Winning in a world transformed by social technologies. Boston, MA: Forrester Research, Inc.

Social Media

Be prepared to immerse yourself in social media as part of Intro to PR. If you want to get a jumpstart before classes begin, you might want to do the following:

• Sign up for an account at Twitter. (What’s Twitter?) Use some variation of your real first and/or last name. (Do not include any numbers with your name, or you may risk appearing like a spammer.) Follow me at Twitter by going to http://twitter.com/barbaranixon .
• Join PR OpenMic, an online community for public relations students, practitioners and faculty.

Additional Items

• Pack of multi-color markers (you will need these on the first day)
• USB drive 
• Occasional use of a notebook computer in class

Syllabus

And last but not least, here’s a copy of your syllabus for the semester. By the end of the first week of class, you’ll also have our daily schedule of activities. You can view the syllabus online below or download it for easy printing atprca-2330-spring-2009.

1. » Blog Archive » A Cannibal is a “People Person,” Too Says:
   January 5th, 2009 at 1:09 pm

   [...] Spring semester is drawing near, I am preparing to teach Introduction to Public Relations for the first time in several years. One of the things we’ll do during the first week is [...]

2. James Kicklighter Says:
   January 8th, 2009 at 3:35 pm

   Rent the book cheaper ($50) at http://www.chegg.com

3. Barbara Nixon Says:
   January 8th, 2009 at 3:48 pm

   James

   Thanks for the link to Chegg. I’ve added that option into the blog post. (The last time I checked, they did not yet have the 9th edition like we need.) Have you had good experience with Chegg before?

   Barbara

4. James Kicklighter Says:
   January 8th, 2009 at 5:33 pm

   I haven’t directly had a good experience with them, but several people have recommended them to me. This year, they’ve added some interesting new features, including buying used or rented books with pre-quoted buyback (assuming, of course, that it returns in the condition as pre-deemed by the company).

5. » Blog Archive » Arrive, Survive & Thrive in Prof. Nixon’s Classes :: Spring 2009 Says:
   January 10th, 2009 at 6:31 pm

   [...] Introduction to Public Relations :: PRCA 2330 [...]

6. Attendance in Large Classes AKA “Bueller? Bueller?” « Becoming Learner Centered Says:
   January 13th, 2009 at 11:55 am

   [...] 13, 2009 · No Comments This spring, I am teaching a large (80-person) section of Introduction to Public Relations. For those faculty members who teach big sections of classes, what are some of the techniques you [...]