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 >