World Language Pages - Methodological considerations

★ wanayoo — archive 1999 http://www.livjm.ac.uk/language/methodol.htm

World Wide Web
Email
Bulletin boards and IRC
Newsgroups
Mail lists

World Wide Web

If you are reading this page over the Web, you are already familiar with how the information is structured and accessed.
To summarize browser features briefly:

point and click navigation
history list of sites visited during current session
bookmarks nested into editable menus and sub-menus. Bookmarks are portable from one copy of a browser to another through the export/import feature.
save document as .HTM (includes HTML tags)
save document as .TXT
save document straight to disk. With Netscape, hold down Shift and click on the relevant hyperlink.
view source - scan HTML tags of current document. Can be useful to see how an impressive page has been put together. Clipboard may be used to export a section.
multimedia data types. If an unsupported data format is accessed (i.e. the browser does not have an appropriate viewer already configured to handle it, the download is paused and the user is prompted to configure a viewer, save the data for later, or cancel.

Email

From a user point of view, basic email is now straight forward. It is the bread-and-butter Internet application, for obvious reasons. It is:

easy to use. The name@domain structure of the address is becoming standard, although a few systems, such as CompuServe, use an impersonal 9-digit numberin place of a name.

reliable. If a message does not get through, the sender usually receives an explanatory warning message.

fast. In theory, it is almost instantaneous; in practice, a little slower.

cheap. There are no materials costs - paper, envelope, etc. The actual cost of carriage - in terms of processing resources and electricity - is so trivial that it is virtually free at the point of use. (There are obviously hugely expensive infrastructures necessary, so the indirect cost is much higher).

convenient. Most systems enable messages to be composed off-line, carbon copies sent, one-stop mail-shot with distribution to all addresses on a list, a copy saved for reference. Received messages may be forwarded without amendment or with comments appended or embedded. Some systems can notify the sender when the recipient reads the message.

flexible. Adding attachments enables other documents to be included inside the "envelope". In a teaching environment, this means that a student can send an assignment written in Word, say, and which includes graphics and sound clips, to the course tutor as an attachment to a mail message.

relatively secure. Legally, no-one can read your email. In practice, the packets which make up the message could be intercepted and read at any of the network nodes across which they are routed. If security is paramount, the message may be encrypted. Sender and recipient must have access to the same encryption/decryption algorithms. For example, there is a strong encryption program in the public domain called PGP (Pretty Good Privacy), although governments - notably the US Government - are trying to challenge the legality of this.

Email can be used for ftp, newsgroup access and even WWW access, but it is a very poor relation. These services are technically more demanding, and using them has more in common with the 1960s style of mainframe batch processing (commands must be set up exactly, then sit back for hours if not days and wait for the results to be returned) than with the real-time interactivity which is the hallmark of today's interface.

A problem with email which may occur in an academic context arises out of email's strength: its usability. Use by students for trivial messaging ("trivial" being construed by the authorities as not relating to work) can mean that so much traffic is generated and so many of the available work-stations are in use that more legitimate users cannot gain access to the system.

Bulletin boards and IRC

Bulleting boards and IRC - Internet Relay Chat - provide opportunities for real-time conversing.

What's available

How to join

How to participate

comp - computing-related
rec - recreational
misc - miscellaneous
soc - social interest
sci - science
news - Usenet-related
alt - alternative, covering wide range. May not be in "the best possible taste"

Of particular interest for language learners are the soc.culture. hierarchy, such as soc.culture.bolivia , soc.culture.uk , soc.culture.netherlands , soc.culture.german . These groups sometimes use English as their communication medium, but usually the language of the country is used.

How to join

Access does not depend on subscription as for a Mail list. If your site carries the group you are interested in, you may read and write to it. News administrators decide which groups should be carried at their site: anything thought unsuitable or of no interest is not taken. Educational sites tend not to take alt.binaries.erotica, for example. Users may ask their local News administrator to take more groups if required.

How to participate

By far the easiest way to participate in Usenet is through a browser like Netscape. Under the Directory menu item, select the option Go to Newsgroups. Configuration of the Preferences item will be necessary on initial use - ask your network manager, news administrator or service provider what this should be set to. Once the configuration is set, the user has an easy interface to join news groups, read existing entries and post new ones. Netscape has excellent threading of messages, so it is clear which postings are in response to which messages.

What's available

There are several thousand mail lists on all subjects, of which nearly 100 are concerned with individual languages and language learning.
An invaluable index, frequently updated, is Comrie and Everson's List of language lists.
A general, searchable list of more than 11,000 listserv, majordomo and listprocessor mailing lists is maintained at Indiana University by the University Support Center for the UCS Knowledge Base.

How to join

Lists may be closed or open, moderated or unmoderated. To participate in a closed list, you require the permission of the list "owner" or administrator.
The majority of lists are open and unmoderated.
The usual way of joining a list is by sending the following message to the listserver:

	SUBSCRIBE <name of list> <your first name> <your last name>

When you subscribe, you will be receive instructions on how to contribute to the list, how to unsubscribe, how to turn off the list while away on holiday, etc. Save this message and/or print it out, and browse through it to see what the core commands are, and what additional commands allow you to do. The core commands enable you to unsubscribe, suspend the mail feed and get help. Additional commands enable you to search the list's archives for a specific topic and/or within specific dates, find out who else is a list member in your country, receive a single message a day consisting of all the postings to the list assembled into one message, etc.
The host servers running mailing lists use a number of different programs to handle the mail: LISTSERV, LISTPROCESSOR, MAILBASE. While the command sets are very similar, there are different terms used for some commands, so read the command list sent to you on joining.

There is an exhaustive explanation of mailing list functions and commands at http://www.earn.net/lug/notice.html

For practice purposes, there is a novice's list you can experiment on without annoying anyone. To join email the message

	SUBSCRIBE TEST-L <your first name> <your last name>

to listserv@vm.cnuce.cnr.it

How to participate

Get the right address
There are two important addresses for mail sessions. One is the address to subscribe/ unsubscribe, get help, switch off the mail feed temporarily, etc. The other is where you post your messages for distribution to other list members. For example, the "admin" address of LLTI (Language Learning and Technology International Forum list) is

	LISTSERV@dartcms1.dartmouth.edu

To send a message to all the people currently subscribed to the list, the address is

	LLTI@dartcms1

Public or personal?
When you read an interesting posting and wish to respond, you may either send a message to the list or to the individual who sent it. Decide on it relevance and interest to other list members before posting for general distribution.

Keep the message short and to the point
If you readers have to scan several screens to find the message, many will simply not bother.

Use the subject line
State clearly what the message is about.

Sign
Rather than using an elaborate signature, with elaborate graphics and profound or humourous quotations, stick to real name, job title, email address, postal address, telephone number - or less.

Focus
The best postings are those which deal with a specific point, such as "Does anyone have experience of using "Quick-fix" texts?" rather than "I'm thinking about doing some CALL sessions with my class. What do you reckon?"

Out with the old
Some lists generate over a hundred mail messages a week. An unattended list can easily lead to a log jam, especially if you subscribe to more than one list. If you've got a mail quota, this can send you over your limit in a short time. Remember to delete your old mail messages frequently - the interesting ones may be archived in a separate directory - and to turn off your mailing lists when you go on holiday.

William Haworth. July 1995

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