Newsgroups: bit.listserv.psycgrad
Date:         Wed, 15 Apr 1992 15:19:04 EDT
              <PSYCGRAD@UOTTAWA.BITNET>
From:         "Matthew Simpson" <054340@UOTTAWA.BITNET>
Subject:      Membership Drive

Because our numbers are rapidly increasing at this time of year,
this is a follow-up request that you post this information to your
peers who are graduate students in psychology.  Thank you.
==============================================================================
If you are a professor at a university in which psychology graduate students
study, please post this announcement to the graduate students, (eg. post to a
departmental bulletin, bulletin board, electronic mail, etc.).  It is the
first and only list of its kind!!  Please distribute this among your peers!!
==============================================================================


                     =====ANNOUNCEMENT=====


                        PSYCGRAD@UOTTAWA
      (Psychology Graduate Students Discussion Group List)

Now graduate students of psychology can communicate among each other
efficiently and free of charge because, there is a new list on the Listserv
called PSYCGRAD (Psychology Graduate Students Discussion Group List).  Its
main purpose is to provide a medium through which graduate students in the
field of psychology can communicate.

The list can be reached through listserv@uottawa.bitnet or
listserv@acadvm1.uottawa.ca as PSYCGRAD.
The list is also shadowed in NETNEWS as bit.listserv.psycgrad

If you are a STUDENT studying in a GRADUATE-LEVEL PSYCHOLOGY PROGRAM, you are
invited to join this list.  It is asked that conversation topics be relevant
to being a graduate student in psychology.  As you probably can see, this is a
very open category and not too rigorously defined.  Virtually, anything goes
except junk-mail advertisements.  The list will not be moderated and
subscriptions are open.  (Junk mail has been a terrible problem for many users
in the past).  Corporations, businesses, agencies, publishers, etc. are not
invited to the list.

INSTRUCTIONS
There are a few ways to subscribe to this list.

1. If your system is part of Bitnet and a VM system, you may do this by using
the interactive command by typing at the R; (prompt)-
TELL LISTSERV AT UOTTAWA SUB PSYCGRAD Yourfirstname Yourlastname
(Don't forget to capitalize and lower case Yourfirstname and Yourlastname).

2. If your system is part of Bitnet and a VAX system, you may do this by using
the interactive command by typing this command.
SEND LISTSERV@ACADVM1.UOTTAWA.CA SUB PSYCGRAD Yourfirstname Yourlastname
(Don't forget to capitalize and lower case Yourfirstname and Yourlastname).

3. Or, you may mail one single solitary command to Listserv by mailing to
LISTSERV AT UOTTAWA, and then make your only line read as follows...
SUB PSYCGRAD Yourfirstname Yourlastname.

4. If your system is part of Internet you may mail the same command, as
outlined in #3, to LISTSERV@ACADVM1.UOTTAWA.CA

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The following information is intended for students who have not yet learned
about e-mail or Listserv operation.  Topics are:

A.   What is PSYCGRAD?  What is Listserv?
B.   What happens when I subscribe?
C.   How do I use it?
D.   What are my commitments once I subscribe? (none)
E.   What can it do for me?
F.   Is my privacy ensured? (yes)

WHAT IS PSYCGRAD?  WHAT IS LISTSERV?
     Most universities in North America have one large computer for students
to use called a mainframe.  Psychology students tend to use this to run
statistical programs and perform analyses of data.  Mainframe computers are
also highly used to send electronic mail to other people on either the same
mainframe or people on mainframes at other universities.  The nice thing about
this is that the cost of using the mainframe is included in your tuition.
Free access is the standard.
     PSYCGRAD is a list on a system called Listserv.  Listserv is a special
program and network system which will automatically distribute one item of
mail from one member of a given list to all of the other members.  Apart from
being one of the major standards for electronic mail (e-mail) distribution,
Listserv maintains hundreds of lists in the form of digests, discussion
groups, electronic journals, forums,etc.  Targeted to primarily serve graduate
students who are affiliate members of the APA and CPA (or involved in any
other psychology-oriented association or graduate school), PSYCGRAD is the
first and only list which has been designated only for graduate students in
the field of psychology.  Imagine being able to write a letter and have it
distributed to all of the graduate-level psychology students in North America
(primarily) and the rest of the world.  Imagine reading about what are the
current interests and activities of all of these students.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I SUBSCRIBE?
     When you subscribe to PSYCGRAD, the first thing that the Listserv
management will do is enter your name and electronic mailing address (e-mail
address) into the membership registrar (list of networkers or `users').  Then
a standard welcome letter is automatically mailed to you describing a little
about how Listserv operates.
     From the time you subscribe to PSYCGRAD to the time you remove yourself
from the list, you will receive all of the items of mail (postings) that are
sent to it.  Likewise, every item you post to the list will be sent to all of
the other members of that list.  Thus you may become follow or become part of
a discussion forum.
     One of the first things you may notice, as you follow the postings is
that several different topics may be in the process at any given time.  If you
are not interested in a certain topic, it is simple and takes only a second to
discard these items from your account's mailbox.  On the other hand, you may
become thoroughly immersed in a discussion and wish to respond to the list or
even document the discussion by saving or printing specific postings as a
means of following the progress of a given discourse.  The degree of your
personal involvement is up to you.

HOW DO I USE PSYCGRAD?
     Described above are the command that you may use to subscribe to the
list.  In the introductory letter, The Listserv Management explains how you
may unsubscribe to the list and how you may conceal your name and address from
all of the other members on that list (few people actually conceal because
almost no other people are interested in abusing concealed information).
     If you do not already have a computer account, you may be in a situation
in which following these steps might help.

     Step 1. Get a computer account on your universities mainframe.  Students
     and faculty typically receive access to an account as part of tuition
     fees or employment benefits.  (Account is just a buzz word used to mean
     mainframe privilege.  In the university or college, seldom, if ever, is
     a computer account used to tally monetary charges).

     Step 2. Subscribe to the list using the instructions above.

     Step 3. Read your mail.  Different machines have different commands to
     do this.  Inquire as to what are the commands to use the e-mail at your
     university.  E-mail is the heart and sole of PSYCGRAD.  Without being
     able to send and read your e-mail, you can't go too far here.

     Step 4. If you are so inclined, you may post a letter to PSYCGRAD by
     mailing a letter to PSYCGRAD@UOTTAWA (for Bitnet users) or
     PSYCGRAD@ACADVM1.UOTTAWA.CA (for Internet users).

     Step 5. Eventually you will graduate and probably leave the university
     at which you currently are.  Or, perhaps you will merely be changing
     your account.  If this happens, please unsubscribe to PSYCGRAD by
     following the instructions in the introductory letter.

WHAT CAN PSYCGRAD DO FOR ME?
     Graduate students studying in the field of psychology have concerns in
common.  Together, we form a population of individuals who might benefit from
being able to communicate among one another.  PSYCGRAD allows you to
electronically distribute anything you want and receive anything posted to
this population without cost.  This distribution takes only minutes, if not
seconds, to complete.

IS MY PRIVACY ENSURED?
     Your privacy is absolutely ensured.  If you MUST, you may conceal your
name and computer address from all of the other networkers on the list via the
CONCEAL command.  However, a review of most list statistics will show that
about 1% of the people do this.
     It is important to emphasize the fact that even though other people have
access or even know your computer e-mail address, which is usually identical
to your logon number, it is impossible for them to gain access to your
account.  This is because you are the only person who knows your access
password, unless you have deliberately revealed that to others.
     Yes, the potential is there for other members of a list to flood your
mailbox with annoying letters.  However, this almost never happens.  You will
know every e-mail and identification code of the sender of all of the mail you
receive.  If someone were to abuse the system in such a way, his or her
privileges would not be maintained for long.  Also, I have never heard of such
a case.


     So there you have it.  It is the intent of this list to facilitate and
establish a standard of communication among the population of psychology
graduate students.  All of the student affiliates of the APA and CPA alone
would make an excellent forum.  An added bonus is that other students from
around the world will be joining this list.  Have fun!!


Best regards,

Matthew Simpson

  __    ||   __
  -\\   ||  //-      O=====================================O
    \\__||_//         |Matthew Simpson (origin: St. Louis)|
     \__||_/          |Clinical Psychology; U. of Ottawa  |
        ||            |BITNET:   054340@UOTTAWA           |
        ||            |INTERNET: 054340@ACADVM1.UOTTAWA.CA|
        ||           O=====================================O
        ||            "There is no life I know like the world
      ======           of pure imagination" Willie Wonka
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