at UNH
E-mail Overview.
E-mail.
This is the most common means for communicating with a class. CIS sets up, on request by the instructor, centrally supported mailing lists for courses. These are sometimes colloquially refered to as "LISTSERVEs", after a common software package, but we are using a package called ListProc. The e-mail link steps through the choices in configuring a list, e.g., for discussion, for posting announcements). Related topics include privacy and junk e-mail or spam.There are several common ways to use a mailing list in support of a course:
- For discussion among everyone in the class and for announcements from the instructor. This can be done in an unmoderated forum in which everything posted gets distributed, or it can be a moderated forum in which the moderator controls what is forwarded (this also allows for grouping items by topic into digests, but requires editing work by the moderator).
- For announcements from the instructor, but without discussion.
- For students to submit work, but without discussion or announcements (not a common combination).
Newsgroups.
These are similar to e-mail but with some important differences. Newsgroup postings look like e-mail, but instead of everyone getting their own posting, one posting is sent to the local UNH News server and people read from that. That means you have to take the initiative to look for postings (not as "in your face" as e-mail) and the postings are open to anyone to read, not just the class. Reading and posting to newsgroups requires software that is readily available, but different from e-mail software. The Newsgroups link explains how to initiate a UNH course newsgroup.We operate a News server for UNH and you can request creation of a local (unh.*) newsgroup in support of a class, organization, etc., by sending e-mail to newsmaster@unh.edu. For general reading of News, however, we recommend the Internet service called Deja.com. That allows a normal Web interface (unlike our local UNH server) and carries more groups than our local server (though it does not have our unh.* groups).
Chat groups.
(or IRC Chat, for Internet Relay Chat) These are real-time forums where multiple people can read and post short messages at the same time. They provide a level of real-time interaction that is not present in e-mail or newsgroups, which has both advantages and disadvantages. These require special server software and desktop software and at the present time CIS does not offer this as a central service. CIS does not offer this as a general central service, but it is included in the Blackboard CourseInfo product.
Videoconferencing.
This is similar to Chat, but uses audio and video instead of typed text messages. In addition there is often an option for a shared "white board" for drawing. Due to the overhead of hardware, software, and network capacity, CIS does not offer this as a central service. The CEPS FarView Project is a pilot test of some of these technologies.