I am confident you will benefit by your participation. I will post a discussion topic. It is your responsibility to check the Discussion Board Index Page to ascertain what the current topic may be. After accessing the topic on the page, you may post a response to the topic in the form of a statement or request for clarification about assumptions etc. In addition to responding to the topic, you may direct your response to the response of other individuals participating in the disucssion.
All responses appear in a hierarchical arrangement.
Students may initiate topics as well. I suggest that there be no more than two or three active topics on the desktop at any given time. I will monitor the Discussion Board and restrict the topics if too many are open. The only limitation on topics is that they be related to some aspect of environmental microbiology. The strength of the Discussion Board lies in the diversity of the participants and their active participation in the discussion.