Why the lack of posting?
Why the lack of posting? | Andrew Packett | March 19th, 2000
Steve's recent appeal to lurkers has prompted me to follow up a discussion we had at a recent meeting of the Iberian group in Madrid. We were talking about why the list does not get much use, and, if I can remember rightly, the following were given as possible reasons:
1 the peculiar nature of the medium itself. Email seems to ask for the spontaneity of casual talk, but records it all indelibly, warts and all, and so we're all too hung up on making fools of ourselves.
2 time - many people have work-place addresses, and simply don't have time to answer on a 20+ hour timetable.
3 intranet (?) use - suspicion that people may prefer communication within their own groups.
4 modular nature of the course - everyone at different points.
5 new people not aware of the function of the general list.
As one who has longed lurked on many different discussion lists, I'd be keen to know of any other reasons people may have. And yes, I am aware of the old joke about the public meeting that was called to discuss apathy in the community. No-one turned up.
Best wishes
Andrew Packett
Coimbra, Portugal
Re: lack of posting | John Bartrick | March 20th, 2000
Hi everyone,
I'd like to pick up on one of the points made by Andrew as to why people might be reticent to contribute to the discussion group, he mentions:
"the peculiar nature of the medium itself. Email seems to ask for the spontaneity of casual talk, but records it all indelibly, warts and all, and so we're all too hung up on making fools of ourselves."
I've been doing the Teacher Development module that draws heavily on Julian Edge's "Cooperative Development". It has really made me realize how important it is to have feedback from the listener/ the audience. This feedback is supportive and encourages the Speaker to continue or perhaps just feel ok about what he is saying. Feedback can, of course, take many forms including eye contact or body language. So for the emailer the need for feedback is more important as they are deprived all the visual clues as to what their audience thinks about what they are saying. Just talking into the void can be an intimidating experience.
I guess what I'm getting at is the need for us to make the effort to reply either personally or group-wise to participants' postings. Sometimes interaction needs some working at!
All the best,
John Bartrick
Ioannina, Greece
Re: lack of posting | Johanathan Clifton | March 26th, 2000
Why aren't we posting?
I think one of the main reasons is that with the modular course and the fact that each participant has a large choice of what they do for each module, this means that perhaps we feel that nobody else is working on the same stuff as we are. For example I sent something about a month ago on lexical phrases which got no reply. I suppose nobody else was working on this particular aspect of LEX at that particular time.
What is the solution???? Maybe we could let others know the outlines of the assignments we are working on and this might encourage us if we see that someone is working on similar lines???
Jonathan Clifton
Re: lack of posting | Rob Salter | April 12th, 2000
I would like to say that I am on a discussion list for a friend's band. One thing that often increases the amount of discussion is listing favourite songs of the band. Other hot topics: If a member of the discussion list has had some sort of trouble finding a CD or had problems getting into a show there is all sorts of chat.
I don't know what sort of thing would work here, but we could, at least, give our own ideas a try. I am going to be done soon so I would like to try to give as much to this idea of a discussion list as possible. For me it wasn't easy to understand the discussion list in the early stages as I was struggling to make sense of each module and each assignment. But during the TDA module I started to see just how valuable the discussion list can be.
Best,
Rob Salter
Re: lack of posting | Simon Cole | April 13th, 2000
Dear Fellow participants,
Over the past month or so, since introducing myself to this list, I've lurked. There have been many mailings/discussions in that time that were interesting and valuable - I've picked up a few points and references and noted them for future use. It's great too, to see our tutors, etc involved and giving advice based on their experience.
However, I would like to return to the issue of "Why we're not responding", not so much because there is a lack of email to read, but in the hopes that what we read can be more quickly and readily identified as relevant to our interest/s, and if not, safely deleted. Hopefully, this will lead to a wider variety of participants connecting with each other for more fruitful outcomes. The suggestions I have for bringing this about is:
Subject line - be sure to include the essential points of your message;
Headings - give different topics headings where possible, for easier reading;
Acronyms - explain them in full if you're not sure they are generally known to MSc participants;
Rambling - try to keep what you write on a professional level (I don't mean divorced of humanity, though!).
I want to thank Andrew Packett for the list of reasons he posted up which inspired me to send this out.
What d'y'all think?
Simon Cole
Re: lack of posting | Dominic Marini | April 13th, 2000
Dear All,
I too find many messages rambling and difficult to respond to.
Dominic Marini
Re: lack of posting | Julian Brasington | April 14th, 2000
Following on from Andrew Packett and Simon Cole:
Use of discussion groups has been an on-going debate within the MSc for quite some time, focusing, in particular on maximizing involvement and minimizing overload. When I joined the programme in Jan 99, each module ran its own group and participants were invited to sign up for it when working on that module. A general list was also maintained. The new system (for which the protocol - I think - runs as specifying module in the subject line, followed by topic, with any follow-ups utilizing the same topic phrase + 're:', e.g. 'MET: sources for reading', or 'GEN: re: using the list'), was set up because of a feeling amongst some list users that they would like to know what was going on lists they were not currently accessing. Whilst, at the time, I supported this broadening of access, I wonder if we need to reassess the current system.
It strikes me that lack of participation on the lists may be due, amongst the other reasons Andrew suggested, to (a) content, and (b) anxiety. This is only a guess, but I wouldn't be surprised if, since the inception of the new one-list-for-all system, the number of module-specific mails has not in fact declined, whilst the converse would be true for general mails. Suppose this to be true (I've just been reading Swales on imperatives!) and that committing oneself, on paper, to an audience of say 150 participants rather than to a group of 20, to be a more daunting experience, then we might have a plausible cause for the problem.
Lurking: a very group thing. Is lurkability measurable? Are there degrees of lurking? Why do we use such a phrase to describe something which may result from disinterest, may be caused by lack of confidence and the fear that I-know-less-than-anyone-else, may arise from a sense of not belonging to the core (e-mail posting) community. Isn't the very phrase aggressive by nature, suggesting shadows in the dark, voyeurs, the other, and ultimately, condemnation? Hinting at us and them, a community who do and a community who don't, isn't 'lurking' a manifestation, in whatever guise, of exclusion?
I would argue that the current system, within which each mail can, potentially, be read by 200 or so people-more-interested/knowledgeable-than-I, has threat-potential and acts a disincentive to participation. Furthermore, the larger the audience, the more wide-ranging it's nature, the more it can be perceived as a threat, the more safely general, the less genuinely questioning will be its use.
What I would like to propose is to make the list more particular by returning to the old system - with some adaptations. I don't know anything at all about setting up e-mail lists but am aware that it is possible to access stored mails on some lists. Should we return to module lists (whilst also maintaining a general list) and store mails then relevant material could be accessed by participants not currently working on that module, should they want to view it at a later date. This may, bearing in mind John Bartrick's comments on the necessity of feedback, and Andrew's on intranet, help to resolve what may or may not be a problem.
I leave this as a suggestion. My thoughts on 'lurking' are based on the fact that I belong to other lists in which I rarely, or in some cases, never participate as audible voice. Perhaps sharing thoughts on the phrase may help to further debate. Might also be plain...
Julian Brasington
Re: lack of posting | Nina Blair | April 14th, 2000
I thank Julian for his insights on the subject of both emailing and lurking. The sense of leaving yourself open when the audience is wider than those working on a specific module is surely a concern. Returning to individual lists and being able to access past messages for those lists would provide perspective and a starting point for participants beginning a module. Sort of like an FAQ for each module? It's often hard to know where to begin asking questions when you start on a module.
I'd also agree with Julian on the negative connotations of lurking. I associate lurking with focusing on the sender of the message and I think instead that most lurkers (for lack of a better term) are really focusing on the content of the message. Perhaps the fit between the message and the lurker's immediate concerns is not strong enough to generate a response. I find it's a lot of work to email anything more than a casual response. If it is desirable for the MSc list to revolve around serious penetrating issues and concerns I think participants are going to have to reserve some thinking time expressly for this purpose.
Another thought: has anyone noticed that discussion of the email list generates more input from more participants than most other issues? Does this say something about shared context and discourse communities? The issue may not be anxiety so much as feeling uncomfortable about the inadequate way an email message communicates (fails to communicate) our thoughts. Many of my comments about teaching issues are so context-dependent that it seems pointless to make them. I can't communicate much via email about the very different world I live in here so I'm reluctant to even try. But I can find a lot to say about an email list that we all participate in.
Nina Blair
Re: lack of posting | Steve Mann | April 14th, 2000
I think Nina's comments on context make a lot of sense for me.
Lurking:
Thanks to Julian and Nina for the comments on lurking. I feel kind of responsible for the introduction of this term. I must admit the connotations for me are slightly less dark. I find the terms 'lurking' and 'flaming' make me smile. Perhaps I am an aggressive person and therefore more likely to respond to aggressive language in a humorous way? (I'll just go and thump Keith). There was a smiley provocative element to my introduction of the term (mae culpa).
Face to Face or DL:
I find myself coming back to the same question. Is your interactional behaviour as DL participants substantially different from a group of students on a Tuesday morning here at Aston? Does a session need an catalyst - a prompt? We get more response if we say make 'strong' statements? Does e-mail, as a genre, has a status all of it's own? I am not convinced that e-mail is substantially different from any kind of interaction. For me making a spoken contribution in a large group of people is just as (if not more) daunting that pressing the 'send' key. Lack of physical presence works both ways.
How topics develop:
It is also interesting, how a string develops. It seems much easier to respond to a 'string' or topic than start a new one. I think it would be interesting if some MSc work looked at the e-mail interaction that we have (either TDA or IIC). In fact Steve McCabe wrote an interesting dissertation on this:
McCabe, S (1997), Online wizardry - E-mail and community, Unpublished dissertation, Aston University, LSU: Birmingham, UK.
There is a growing 'literature' looking at e-mail discourse:
Russell, A L & Cohen, L M (1997), The reflective colleague in e-mail cyberspace: A means for improving university instruction, Computers & Education 29(4) 137-145.
I have some other references, if anyone wants to follow up this idea in an assignment.
A professional or personal e-mail community?
In answer to Simon, I find it difficult to separate the professional from the personal. I am interested in being a tutor on an MSc course and also in our ongoing development in our contexts. I wonder whether stripping out the 'personal' elements is necessary.
Apologies for such a rambling e-mail!
Steve Mann
Re: lack of posting | Rob Salter | May 3rd, 2000
From what has been posted recently it seems that there might be a sort of feeling among participants that the discussion list needs to be defined in order to be used in some sort of proper manner. I'd like to say that the list, though quiet at times, has really helped me focus on things to do with being a student again. The sense that other participants are having ups and downs, finding those target dates tough to meet, and enjoying certain articles is reassuring. I'd say that my experience with the list has been very personal, but professionally motivating in that the interaction with people that I have never met has allowed me, despite no connection other than the list, to be privy to all sorts of insights about culture, organizations, classrooms, and lots of things I won't remember until a few years from now.
I now remember an email from Kevin just telling us what he had done and what he was doing next on the course. It is stuff like that for me that makes the DL experience like being a student. I guess in many ways the list allows me to feel like a student.
Rob Salter
Re: discussion list organization | Simon Cole | May 8th, 2000
I'm about to start the IIC, but, being the anally retentive type that I am, I'm want to respond to a few comments that were posted a while back, briefly:
Nina (B), I like the idea of being able to access past module-specific list discussions as a way into a new module, or as a FAQ for modules, but I'm not sure about returning to module specific lists, because we do so many concurrently and the issues cross over, too.
Simon Cole
"Nature of email conversation" resource | John Bartrick | July 6th, 2000
Dear all,
Further to the discussion on the nature of email communication and if people find it more difficult to communicate than in face-to-face interaction, I came across a very interesting MSc dissertation (I think), which seems relevant to a lot of what we were talking about.
Something that caught my eye concerned the communicative value of silence on an email mailing list, (5.1 Silence).
John Bartrick
No response | Pinkie | July 19th, 2000
Finally, a "meta" question. If someone posts to the list without explicitly inviting response (as in this very interesting message from John), should we respond? Is no response negative feedback?
Pinkie
Spain
Re: No response | John Bartrick | July 19th, 2000
Pinkie,
Just to pick up on one of the points you mentioned I think I would interpret a lack of response as a form of negative feedback. Another participant mentioned to me that when nobody followed up her message she assumed her comments had been irrelevant or she had missed the mark in some way. This can be both misleading and demotivating.
Again this raises the question of email discussion lists as a specific type of communication. This discussion group raised some of the issues back in April / May and suggested that what could be interpreted as apathy or "lurking" may in some cases in fact be self-consciousness resulting in a fear of "going public."
That's one angle certainly, but I think we need some sort of confirmation that what we have said has at least been heard if not agreed with. It has made me think how as participants in other types of interaction, face-to-face/ telephone/ some types of written correspondence, the receiver has a responsibility to respond. I hadn't really thought of this element of obligation before.
Another slightly misleading aspect of email discussion lists is the fact that they do not show the feedback that the sender has received to his/her personal address. Three participants have responded to my message so I'm not feeling ignored.
Thanks for your comments
Bye
John
Re: lack of posting | Francesca Michalski | July 22nd, 2000
I was going back over my last few diary entries when I found the following which might be helpful for the person doing research on email discussion lists (I must confess to have forgotten who it is):
Sunday June 25 th :
I sent my first email to the mailing list and got a
reply - now I'm starting a conversation. I'm trying to be controversial to
encourage responses.
I wonder if anyone else has been using such devious strategies to try and raise their chances of getting a response and avoid the disappointment of not getting one.
Monday 3 rd July:
This discussion group thing is interesting but it takes
up my study time. I'm glad I've started directing it towards my assignments
as that way I don't feel I'm wasting my time, of course, everything is learning
and interesting but one has to be practical too and I'd like to stick to
my schedule if possible.
Above is a reason for not participating and a possible strategy I seem to have developed to deal with the situation.
Francesca, Brazil
with 
and 
