An Analysis of a Course-Oriented Electronic Mailing List
Title:
An Analysis of a Course-Oriented Electronic Mailing List
Author:
Edwards, Stephen H. Shaffer, Clifford A.
Appeared in:
Computer science education
Paging:
Volume 9 (1999) nr. 1 pages 8-22
Year:
1999-04
Contents:
To understand how course-oriented e-mail lists contribute to the learning experience and, more importantly, to understand how to improve the value of listservs in courses, it is important to critically examine their behavior under actual classroom conditions. We present an empirical study of listserv usage in a sophomore-level computer science data structures class. This study provides experimental evidence that: the list was an important information source for students, students were major contributors in answering the questions of others, students generally provided correct answers instead of incorrect help, and traffic on the list was driven by concrete tasks the students had to perform. As a result, the listserv was an effective tool for peer-to-peer learning, not just a mechanism for faculty to broadcast announcements. After presenting the study and results, we conclude by describing the lessons we learned on how to make a class-oriented listserv a successful environm ent for peer-to-peer learning, as well as the concomitant pitfalls.
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