Listserv DOs

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Listserv DOs DONTs

• Mert Nickerson
• Director
• University Computing Technologies
• Mert_at_usm.maine.edu
• Fall 1998

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What will be covered today?

• Do I really want to do this?
• What are my responsibilities as list owner?
• How do I get a list set up?
• What can UCT do to help prepare?
• Errors?
• What Can (and WILL) go wrong?
• Other electronic resources at USM?

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Do I really want to do this?

• Do I have clear objectives?
• Am I ready to handle the workload?
• There will be an increase!
• Will participation be mandatory?
• If not, how do the non-participants get the
  information?
• Do all my students have (convenient) access?

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What are My Responsibilities?

• You are responsible for answering students
  questions.
• You must provide Listserv instruction to your
  class prior to using your list.
• Keep discussion going.
• Handle bounced mail.
• Assist your students with errors.

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How do I get a List Set Up?

• Plan ahead
• Allow at least 2 weeks to get the list set up and
  for you to test.
• Send email to mert_at_usm.maine.edu
• Include the following information
• List owner email and full name
• Course, Section, and CRN number
• Course Title
• A WWW form for Course Listserv request
• http//www.usm.maine.edu/uct/listserv/

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Form to request a class listserv list
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What Will UCT Provide?

• A Welcome Message providing basic directions
  and command syntax. You will receive a copy as
  the list is created.
• You may add any information specific to your
  class and return.
• Keep a copy and distribute to your students
• Backup support To get help on problems you can
  not resolve, Send mail to
• help-L_at_usm.maine.edu

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What can you do to prepare?

• Sign up now for a list in your area of interest.
• Three good locations to find listserv lists in
  your area of interest are
• http//tile.net/listserv/
• http//www.liszt.com/
• http//www.lsoft.com/lists/listref.html
• Your colleagues are good sources of information.
  Ask them what has been successful for them.

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What can you do to prepare? (cont.)

• Obtain email addresses for your class ahead of
  time.
• With your listserv request (or separate), send
  email to mert_at_usm.maine.edu with the CRN ask
  for student email accounts.
• Ask short questions to keep the discussion going
  and that require short responses (especially in
  the beginning).

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Errors You Said Earlier?

• User From addresses will be incorrect.
• To addresses will be incorrect.
• There will be mail to the Listserv which should
  have gone to the List.
• There will be mail to the List which should have
  gone to the Listserv.
• All manner of typos!

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Listserv_at_ usm.maine.edu

• List Commands should be addressed to
• Listserv_at_usm.maine.edu
• List Commands are such things as
• subscribe unsubscribe
• help
• review
• set digest
• bounce
• Messages to the list get distributed to all
  subscribers!

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What Can ( Will) go Wrong?

• Subscribe requests must be sent to
• Listserv_at_usm.maine.edu
• Not the list name
• There must be a space between the word subscribe
  and the list name.
• There is NEVER a space in the list name

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What Can ( Will) go Wrong? (cont.)

• New users have difficulty following directions.
• Have user verify their email address by
• Send a message to themselves prior to posting to
  a list make sure the message comes back.
• Send email to
• listserv_at_usm.maine.edu
• with the single line message of
• bounce

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What Can ( Will) go Wrong? (cont.)

• All manner of typos.
• Numeric 1 in place of L
• Course space Number
• edu 360 rather than edu360 or edu36002
• Make sure alias/nicknames are being expanded and
  addresses pasted in email
• Nickerson gets expanded to mert_at_usm.maine.edu

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What Can ( Will) go Wrong? (cont.)

• Be careful with replies!
• Look at the To field after clicking Reply
• Be brief and to the point
• Include enough of the original message to remind
  readers of the original statement or question

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Be aware of Cross Platform and Attachment issues

• Request plain text (ASCII) mail ONLY!!!
• No WordPerfect, MS Word, Graphic files!
• The recipients mail client may not be able to
  extract attachments
• The recipient may not have the software to import
  and extracted attachment.

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Dont Let the Preceding Discourage You!

• There are pitfalls
• There are rewards
• Remember the Boy Scout Motto
• Be prepared

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Options Other Than or Supplements to Listserv?

• WebBoard
• A Web based conferencing system
• Like a BBS
• May limit access to conferences based on WebBoard
  Userid and password.
• To see a demo, connect to http//bbs.usm.maine.edu

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Options Other Than or Supplements to Listserv?
(cont.)

• Instructor/Course Web Browser based Drop Boxes
• Instructor must have a personal web page on
  http//www.usm.maine.edu
• Talk to Steve Houser (houser_at_usm.maine.edu or
  780-4588) to get your web space set up.

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Options Other Than or Supplements to Listserv?
(cont.)

• Suppose Joe Webhead wants web based student drop
  boxes for his abc321 section 01 course.
• He would get a personal page at
• http//www.usm.maine.edu/jwebhead
• He creates his web course material in a
  subdirectory (folder) abc32101 in his web space.

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Options Other Than or Supplements to Listserv?
(cont.)

• He lets Steve Houser know what the URL is which
  contains the course material.
• Http//www.usm.maine.edu/jwebhead/abc32101
• Steve will create another folder in that space
  and populate it with the necessary control files
  so that only students registered in the class
  will have access.

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Options Other Than or Supplements to Listserv?
(cont.)

• In order for students to gain access to the
  dropbox area, students enter the username part of
  their University email address (only the part to
  the left of the _at_ symbol) and their email
  password.
• Each student then has separate individual folders
  which they have complete control over to add and
  delete files.

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Options Other Than or Supplements to Listserv?
(cont.)

• Joe Webhead also has complete access to all
  student folders.
• We intend to more fully automate the creation
  process to lessen the interaction between Steve
  Houser and the faculty member.

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Happy Listserving

• This presentation can be viewed online at
• http//www.usm.maine.edu/uct/listserv/listcourse