Electronic Communication Requirement

SOCIOLOGY AND THE INTERNET
Electronic Communication Requirement:
The Class Listserv, Bulletin Board and Chat Rooms

Robert E. Wood
Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Criminal Justice
Spring Semester 2000

Introduction

The internet has made possible a number of new forms of two-way communication. The interactivity of these new forms of communication is an important aspect of the appeal of the internet for many people. Part of what we will do in this course is to explore what different groups of people "out there" on the internet are doing with these new tools. In addition, we will incorporate three of the most important forms into our class experience, both to acquire increased skill in using them and to enhance the educational process in this course. At various points in the course, students will be asked to participate in each of the following forms of electronic communication:

Class Listserve. All students in this course are required to subscribe to and participate in an "electronic discussion group." Such groups are often called "listserves," after one of the software programs that can be used to run them. My reasons for requiring this are laid out in the next section. A listserve discussion group is basically a computerized mailing list that automatically forwards to all its "subscribers" any email messages sent to it. Hence in this case, once everyone in the class has subscribed to it, any message anyone in the class sends to the address of the discussion group will be sent on to all other students (including the sender of the message) as well as to me, the instructor of the course. Listserves are one of the most popular and widely-used aspects of the internet, and as such constitute an important subject in the sociology of cyberspace.

WebCT Bulletin Board. In addition, we will make use of a class "bulletin board." Bulletin boards work differently from listserves in that you must access the bulletin board in much the same way as one accesses a web page, and both read and post your messages at that site. The sector of the internet that uses a bulletin board format is known as Usenet, and the different bulletin boards are generally known as newsgroups. A virtue of bulletin boards is that rather than having all messages dumped into a single place (for example your email, as in the case of listserves), the messages are "threaded" together around an original posting that raises a question or defines a new subject for discussion. The bulletin board system we will use in this course is a proprietary one, WebCT, set up specifically for this course. It may be accessed through the course's WebCT homepage or directly. In either case, you must sign on with your WebCT username and password.

Web CT Chat Room. Listserves and bulletin boards are asynchronous: you may post and receive messages anytime of the day and night. In other words, the senders and recipients do not have to be communicating at the same time. Chat rooms are different, in that they occur in "real time," with the participants being online at the same time. Originally chat rooms required special software, but increasingly they have been integrated into the world wide web and supported by regular browswer software. In some chat rooms, logs are maintained that may be accessed subsequently. At least one class discussion will be held in a WebCT chat room, and a log of the conversation will be kept and made available. Several chat rooms have been set up for this class. They are available for students to meet online (you may have friends meet you there by logging in as "guest"). I will also hold online office hours periodically in a chat room. As with the course bulletin board, the chat room may be accessed through the course's WebCT homepage or directly.

Goals of Electronic Discussion

In addition to acquiring skills and seeing how the internet supports interactive communication, I have several pedagogical goals in using listserves, bulletin boards, and chat rooms in this course:

To encourage students to learn the mechanics of these different forms of computer-mediated communication (CMC) and to gain experience using them;
To teach students about how electronic discussion groups work, how to subscribe and unsubscribe from them, and about the potential educational and work-related uses of these forms of computer-mediated communication;
To open up an additional channel of communication among students and between students and the instructor--a channel that some may find less intimidating than direct class participation or office visits;
To encourage speculative and tangential discussions of issues raised by class readings and discussions that might otherwise be limited by the time constraints of the classroom;
To provide an alternative mechanism to exams for students to show their engagement with and mastery of the course materials;
To encourage a sense of community among students, one that will continue beyond this course;
To ensure that the educational possibilities and skills connected with new computer technologies become the property of all sociology students, not just a privileged or self-selected few.

Requirements

1. All students should subscribe to the class listserve on either the first or second day of class and unsubscribe in the week after the end of classes.
2. All students should both check their email and the class bulletin board at least twice a week, preferably the night before, or the morning of, each class.
3. All students must post messages to both the class listserve and bulletin board periodically throughout the course; specific assignments will be made in class and on the Instructor's Notice Board during the course. Be sure to sign your name to each of your postings.

The first message should introduce yourself to the class. Tell who you are, what experience you have had with computers and/or the internet, and how you've felt about that experience. This message should be posted by the end of the first week of classes.
Your second required message should describe the research project you've chosen: specifically, you should explain what group you have chosen and why you think it constitutes an interesting virtual community to study. You should encourage your classmates to send you internet citations for any relevant material they happen to come across (give your email address). This message should be sent by the end of the day on Tuesday, Feb. 22nd, when your statement of your paper topic and preliminary census is due.
In addition to postings which are specifically required, I encourage you to post messages either to the class listserve or to the class bulletin board regarding any of the following (this gives you practice as well as keeping the electronic discussion lively):
- Sharing a thought or idea you had on the basis of the readings, lectures, or class discussion;
- Reporting on interesting discoveries you have made while exploring the internet;
- Relating things learned in this course to other courses you have taken;
- Raising a substantive or technical question or responding to such questions raised by other students (or the instructor) in the listserve discusssion group.

The Class Listserve: How to Subscribe, Post Messages, and Unsubscribe

The discussion group is run automatically by a program called "majordomo," which is located on the student computer host, clam. To subscribe, enter your email program and proceed as follows:

To: majordomo@clam
Subject: [leave blank]
[In the space for a message, simply type:] subscribe mlist-soc-int [hit return]
end [do not neglect to type this word]

Then send your message.

If you are subscribing from a non-Rutgers location (e.g. if you have a home computer that dials up AOL or Compuserve), you will have to use the full mailing address: majordomo@clam.rutgers.edu

To post messages to the discussion group, you must address your messages to the name of the list, not majordomo. Always send your message to:

mlist-soc-int@clam.rutgers.edu

At the end of the semester, unsubscribe by sending a message as follows:

To: majordomo@clam.rutgers.edu
Subject: [leave blank]
[In the space for a message, simply type:] unsubscribe mlist-soc-int
[hit return]
end
[Send your message]

The Class Bulletin Board: How to Participate

To participate in the class WebCT Bulletin Board, you must create a username and password by going to the Rutgers WebCT site and scrolling down to Sociology and the Internet. Click on the key to create your username and password. I recommend using the same username and password that you use for your clam account; this way you will be less likely to forget them. In an emergency, you can use "guest" both as username and password; just be sure to sign any posts you make that way. We will go over the specific instructions for using the class bulletin board in class.

The Class Chat Room: How to Participate

Once you have created your username and password for WebCT, you may access the chat rooms from the course portal. Specific instructions will be provided in class. I encourage you to make "dates" to meet your classmates online at agreed-upon times in the chat rooms to get used to them.

Return to Sociology and the Internet course home page

Updated: January 13, 2000