ABSTRACT This article discusses the process of coding and analyzing data from 376 Programmatic Student Learning Outcomes (PSLOs) from 47 technical and professional communication (TPC) undergraduate degree programs. The resultant findings suggest that TPC program administrators adopt common PSLOs, eliminate embedded PSLOs, and consider the assets of PSLOs beyond assessment. Such practices will ensure that PSLOs support students as a primary audience and cohere with broader disciplinary understandings of education at the undergraduate level in TPC.

Since its inception in 2000, Reflections has functioned as a site of synthesis for community-based writing pedagogy, service-learning, public rhetoric, and community-engaged research. Such a diverse range of influences leads to the formation of a journal that is ever shifting in its identity, scope, and mission. This complexity is what ultimately defines Reflections: a publication that constantly pushes the boundaries of knowledge creation and strives to remain receptive to topics and voices that are often excluded from other academic sources. The following collaborative article offers a content analysis of all publications in Reflections’ twenty-year history (2000-2020). Though not exhaustive, this analysis highlights unique aspects of the journal’s history, methods, non-traditional genres, pedagogical and disciplinary impact, and evolving interactions with power and privilege that have made it the public conscience for Writing Studies.

Introduction: This tutorial article explicates some of the 2017 updates to the 1991 Common Rule. Implemented in January 2019, these changes impact the evolving landscape of research with human participants in the US. The introduction provides context for the article as well as framing research questions. Key concepts: These include a brief definition of research for the purposes of the article; a discussion of the foundational ethical principles of autonomy (respect for persons), beneficence, and justice; and a brief overview of the recent policy revision process and its impact on scholarship in the field. After establishing this context, readers are provided five key lessons from the policy revisions. Key lessons: The lessons for researchers working with human participants include discussion of the impact of policy changes in the Common Rule associated with broad consent, single Institutional Review Board (IRB) mandate/cooperative review, updated exemptions, modified definitions of vulnerability, and international research. These are all contextualized within a specific example for professional communication researchers. Implications for practice: Although educative efforts are underway at both the federal and institutional levels, it is important for disciplines and researchers to understand how policy changes will impact the IRB review process. Attendance to the infrastructures that guide our research design and development warrants attention.

This article offers both a theoretical underpinning and a case study of practice as exhibits of a more democratic community engagement praxis for rhetoric and composition educators. The case study featured in the article suggests re-positioning the importance of collaborative and democratic engagement as the cornerstone of successful community engagement work. While the case is situated in technical and professional communication, it affords an interdisciplinary representation of community engagement.