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Mailing List When partnered with e-mail, mailing lists can complement commucation among peers. Mailing lists have been around since the early 1980s. It is an efficient way of distributing e-mail to a group of people. Distance learning classes on the Internet were among the first to adopt the mailing list concept in education. Like newsgroups, another type of group communication in the Internet, there are different lists according to the common interest of the group. But unlike newgroups, messages in the mailing list are posted and read thru e-mail. Messages in the mailing list can be in interactive form, that is, subscribers can respond and contribute their own views and ideas to the topic at hand. Other mailing lists are one-way in that it is used to distribute announcements, news, information, etc. Mailing lists can also be a combination of both. These are sometimes moderated by a human administrator who evaluates which messages are relevant enough to be posted before these are distributed to everyone in the list.  The cardinal rule in mailing lists is that a responsible mailing list owner will only send messages to those who subscribed to his service. This rule has been violated by spammers who sent unsolicited messages for advertising and marketing practices. For this reason other terms are used instead of mailing list, such as e-mail groups. Listserv is short for "list server," a mailing list manager software. LISTSERV is the brand name of a commercial mailing list manager marketed by L-Soft. There are two important e-mail addresses that a user has to remember. The first is the administrator address. This is the management address that you write to in order to subscribe and unsubscribe. E-mail sent to these addreesses often have specific instructions or format because these are often not handled by human administrators but rather by computer programs, like majordomo.  The second address is the post or list address itself. When you send an e-mail to this address your message will be delivered to all subscribers of the list. There are at least 500 mailing lists in education with LISTSERV alone. The number of subscribers range from a few -- 9 in a school faculty list -- to hundreds -- 417 in a computer graphics education newsletter. Subscribers often need to be reminded that if they only wish to send their reaction to the source of a message they should refrain from clicking the "Reply" button because their response will be sent to everyone on the list. Others are encouraged to send their questions and answers to the list address rather than just one or few persons if the topic is relevant to everyone. This is one way of addressing the most frequently asked questions. For example, in an online class on Web computing, one student may have difficulty adding graphics to his website. Although the instructor is the best person to send an e-mail for help, directing it to the list will benefit the others who are or may encounter similar difficulties. It also gives other students an opportunity to share what they know. Exercises If you want to experience subscribing to a mailing list the Edupage newsletter is a good way to start. This is a service of the  EDUCAUSE , "an international nonprofit association dedicated to transforming education through information technologies." The newsletter is sent by e-mail once weekly. There are no ads in this text-based newsletter which gives one paragraph summaries of news culled from different sources like Associated Press, Cnet.com, the Baltimore Sun, Washington Post, etc. Here are the headline stories of one typical issue: TOP STORIES for March 22, 2000    Mixed on Taxes, Not Privacy    Two Internet-Access Bills Are Rejected    Dorgan Fears Digital Divide for America's Rural Areas    Shoptalk: Universities Graduating to Dot-Com Profits    ALSO    Oxford English Dictionary on Web    IBM to Join in Linux Supercomputing Effort    Teachers Online But Disconnected    A Fast New Network Interested? Alright, here are the instructions: Send an e-mail to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Leave the Subject blank In the body of the message type: SUBSCRIBE Edupage YourFirstName YourLastName Try it for a few weeks and if you don't like it you can always unsubscribe anytime: Send an e-mail to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Leave the Subject blank In the body of the message type: SIGNOFF Edupage You might also want to try these other educational lists: For Your Information: Using Information Technology in K-12 Schools (812 subscribers) BlockList: K-12 Block Scheduling Discussion List (237 subscribers)  All Aspects of K-12 Development (273 subscribers)  Mailing List Directories Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists Official Catalog of LISTSERV Lists Teaching & Educational Related Listserv
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