This offers students an opportunity to engage one another in discussion about class material outside of class, and many may find it less intimidating to respond online than in class. You can use participation in a discussion list as one of your class requirements. You may wish to require a certain amount of participation, and frequently you'll find that students who don't speak in class are more willing to speak on a listserv. As with private e-mail, you should make it clear to students how quickly you can be expected to reply to questions posed to you on the list. As the person responsible for a class list you should set up guidelines for list use.
E-mail the guidelines to the class.
At Syracuse University you can use the Listserv software to set up a class discussion list. You will be notified via e-mail when your list is ready. Once you have your new list, you should review your list's configuration and then simply subscribe your students to the list. To find out more about running a listserv, review the listserv documentation . If you would like more information on this topic, we'd love to hear from you.