If you know the group you want, you can simply type it. Otherwise, you can type part of a name, and the command will list all of the groups that match. There are several kinds of groups you will probably want to read. Several departments at Rutgers use newsgroups for announcements and discussions. There are too many to list here.
Many courses use newsgroups to distribute assignments and to conduct discussions.
We recommend that faculty place links on the class web page, to make it easy for students to subscribe. You can also create news messages yourself. Be aware that these messges will be visible to many people. The groups starting with ru are Rutgers, so they will be visible within Rutgers. Other groups are worldwide.