In retrospect, the results are not very surprising. See Table two. In addition to the world wide web, another widely used medium on the Internet is the newsgroup. At this writing, there are over 7,000 active newsgroups on the Internet. Participants post messages, questions, or comments to a newsgroup to which others respond.
Posts remain on servers for at least thirty days and allow anyone to respond to the posts.
The newsgroup is especially useful in large lecture courses. In a course with over 160 students, comprehensive discussion is not feasible. Because the course did not offer small discussion sections and I want to encourage discussion in my classes, the newsgroup was the only alternative available to me. All students were required to participate in the newsgroup throughout the semester. All newsgroup posts are non-anonymous, which facilitated grading.