The informal discussion was primarily responsible for generating a genuine dialogue amongst the students and to an extent between the students and the tutor. As a starting point in the discussion one person could comment on someone else's critique but not necessarily confine themselves to the given extracts in the Study Materials as they could draw upon their knowledge and experiences. The fact that these wider experiences were being tied back to the issues raised by the readings of the Study Materials meant that the students did not feel that they were wasting their time by merely keeping up the appearances of discussing or by generating discussion artificially. As a consequence all students engaged in teaching each other by constantly discussing the relevant issues. Both these factors make this project different from most other bulletin boards or listserve discussions.
Regular participation is ensured by the incentive of a participation mark.
It is probably the single most important factor in making this online group discussion a success. By comparison the discussion lists run in other units at the Law School attract very little regular participation. This is especially significant because these lists are for core units which have relatively large enrolments.