Computer Details

Resources On-Line

A number of resources will be available on-line via the Internet. Some of these will be supplementary, but others will be required reading. Since you are reading this document you already know how to get to the resources -- use some sort of WWW browser (Lynx, Mosaic, Cello). You can access the browser on campus from any of several labs. You can access from home by dialing into BSUINFO.

Class Discussions

All class discussion will be handled through a Bitnet list. To participate, you must have an e-mail account (available from the Data Center in B-116). Once you have the account, send a message to 
listserv@idbsu.idbsu.edu
. Leave the subject line blank. The text of the message must be

sub eren-l first last
where first is your first name and last is your last name.

You should get a message back within a few minutes telling you that you've been added to the list. That message will contain further instructions on how to use the list most effectively. Once you've joined the list you are welcome to post messages, even if the semester has not yet started.

Working from Home

You can get to mail and to the Web from home. You must have a computer with at least a 9600 baud modem (14.4 much preferred), and you must get the Trumpet software -- regular communication software won't do the job. If you have your own SLIP software it may work, but BSU cannot support it. Get Trumpet.

Start by going to the Data Center in B-116. There you can get your e-mail account and the booklet with the orange cover about student computing at BSU. Around page 15 is instructions on how to get Trumpet, install and configure it, and how to dial in.

Trumpet is actually two programs. One, TCPMAN, does the dialling but nothing more. The other part (Trumpet) lets you read mail. You will, in addition, need a Web browser. You can use either Netscape or Mosaic. These can be found at the same site as you found Trumpet. They are in the Internet directory.

If you have questions about this, or need help, call me or come by the Faculty Computer Lab in SMITC-209.

Conducting Discussions Electronically

To send a message to the class, send a message to eren-l@idbsu.idbsu.edu.

Discussing electronically is in many ways no different from live discussions: be polite, refrain from ad hominem attacks, and be ready with evidence to back up your opinions. The differences, however, will be more immediately apparent than the similarities.

Quoting

The first and most obvious is the asynchronous nature of the dialog. That is, in a live discussion when I respond to what you have just said, the context for my reply is known to all. In a list discussion, my reply might come two days after you post your comment, and twelve other comments on other topics may have intervened. For this reason, Trumpet mail automatically quotes the original message; that is, it puts the entire text of the message to which you are replying into your reply. That way, when others read it, they know the context of your comments.

Subject lines

Similar considerations are behind having a Subject line for every message. As much as possible, make your Subject line clear and to the point. You'll appreciate this better as we go along.

For our course, I encourage everyone to identify if your message is related to one of our themes. Thus, if your message is something about Brunelleschi, your Subject line would say something like
Subject: Culture - Brunelleschi in Rome

or, if about the Medici bank
Subject: Economy - Medici bank

Private vs. Public

In a live class, you can whisper an aside to the person next to you. On a list, all messages are public. Any message you send to EREN-L@idbsu.idbsu.edu will be "heard" by everyone. If you want to send a private message, that will be heard only by the recipient, then send the message to that person's e-mail address. Personal address for private, the list for public.

That's straightforward enough, but it's not at all uncommon to read someone's message on the list and want to say something in reply privately. If you simply choose reply, your message by default will go back to the list. Be sure to change the TO: line before you actually send the message, or your private reply will go to the list instead.

Saving a Message

You may want to save some or all of the message traffic from this class. The list software itself (not your Trumpet mail reader) automatically saves all messages sent to the list, and there is a way to get these archives. Private messages are not saved, because the list never even sees these.

To save a message, open the message and choose Article, Save to File. If you already have a message saved to a file, then choosing Append to File will append the current message to the end of that file. This way you can collect a whole series of messages in a single file. If you are working in a lab, you'll have to save your messages to a diskette.

The messages are saved as plain text. WordPerfect or any other word processor can read these. You can also print out your messages from Trumpet, but I encourage you to save the message and print it from your word processor.

Netiquette

Another aspect of asynchronous, electronic discussion is that there is not body language to accompany our communications. One advantage of this is that we do not judge (or mis-judge) one another based on gender or body type or race or looks. One disadvantage, though, is that we lose a great deal of subtlety.

In live conversation, one can make a verbal jab and then defuse it with a quick smile to indicate that the words weren't meant seriously. When on-line it is all too easy to assume the other party knows that you are being playful. Even if the person to whose message you are replying understands this, the others listening in may not.

For this reason, people have developed some shorthand for conveying emotion in an essentially cool medium. One is to write the word "grin" at the end of a sentence. For example:
This syllabus is about five pages too long! <grin>
The use of angle brackets helps distinguish the "grin" from a parenthetical remark. Often, <grin> is shortened to <g>.

Even more common are emoticons. These are little symbols made up of keyboard characters to convey emotion. The most common are :-) to show a smile (turn your head sideways to see it), and :-( for sadness, and ;-) to show a wink, and :-O to show surprise. There are tons of others, some pretty silly. There's lots of jargon associated with electronic discussion (naturally enough--jargon surrounds every aspect of computers). If I or someone else in class use an unfamiliar term, don't assume you are the only one in class who doesn't get it. Speak up and I'll try to explain.