Several months ago members of a library school class subscribed to
AUTOCAT, the list for library catalogers, as a class exercise.  It
was done under clear guidelines and as a one-time test situation,
and worked out quite well.    As I remember it, the instructor
helped the students subscribe and carefully explained to them the
differences between the LISTSERV and the listname addresses.
Students were limited to posting one question each, and that
after discussing it with the instructor and following the list
for a week or so.  All class postings had to start with the
class name, e.g. LIS571 (or whatever it was) so that subscribers
who wished to could delete those postings without reading them.
Subscribers who wished to respond were asked to do so directly
to the student poster, not to the list.

The questions varied in quality, of course, but all related in
some way or other to the scope of the list.  Many subscribers
sent thoughtful answers, usually as private messages to the poster
though some did respond via the list.  At the end of the semester
the students were asked (this was an optional part of the project but one
that many students did) to write an evaluation of the experience to be
posted to the list.

Key to the success of the project were the guidelines which were made
very clear both to the class members AND the list subscribers.
Equally important was the fact that the class was studying the
discipline that the subscribers discussed daily, library cataloging
in all its aspects.   That latter seems to me to be the weak point
in Mark Haas' proposal; his students are not studying list management
but English composition and their questions would probably not be
very knowledge-based.

Several of the other LSTOWN-L responses to this request have suggested
that Mr. Haas set up his own class list to which the students would
subscribe.  I would suggest that each student be made the listowner of
that list for at least one week and that the class discuss the setting
up of the header and the implications of the choices they make.  Perhaps
each listowner could change the header and the class could observe the
differences, if any, that these changes made.   Of course it would help
if the list were active and if the subscribers came from several
different ISPs.  A list with all subscribers from the same host with
only a few messages a week is not going to be very realistic in terms
of the problems a listowner faces.

Judith Hopkins, Listowner of Autocat
     [log in to unmask]
     http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~ulcjh

On Sun, 7 Sep 1997, Mark Haas wrote:

> Greetings,
>
> As a first time poster, I'll introduce myself as Mark Haas, Assistant Professor
> of English at Dakota State University.
>
> I am writing to ask you all if you would be willing to have a group of students subscribe
> to this list and ask you about the pleasure and pain of maintaining a listserv.
>
> I am teaching a class in Advanced Composition that intends to introduce the variety
> of electronic writing available.  The students would have to subscribe and look over
> what you folks are discussing, then 'enter the conversation' by asking questions or
> whatnot.
>
> May I have your approval for this venture?  I don't wish for you to be spammed with
> mail that you would prefer to avoid.  Please let me know your wishes.
>
> Thank you,
>
> Mark Haas
> Dakota State University
> http://www.homepages.dsu.edu/haasm/301/301.htm
>