Online Discussions with HyperNews

All class discussion, outside of lecture meetings, should be carried out with the HyperNews system. HyperNews allows you to attach messages to ``forums'' created by the instructor, and also to other people's messages. It presents the forums and messages as HTML documents, which you may view through your favorite World Wide Web browser. I have provided four forums as starting points:

• Class Work
• Course Evaluation
• Social Chit-Chat
• Test

Please use the Class Work article for all discussion of course content outside of class. All questions about lectures, the textbooks, homework assignments, programming projects, and the contents of the final exam, answers to those questions, and other discussion of the ideas in the course, belong in the public discussion under Class Work. Only items that are truly of no interest to the class at large, or that are confidential, should be taken up by electronic mail.

References

• HyperNews
• HTML

General Instructions

HyperNews is a new system from NCSA for carrying out discussions on the World Wide Web. The presentation and documentation are still a bit confusing, but the functionality is essentially right, so it is best for us to get on the bandwagon, and increase the incentive for NCSA to improve things.

The best way to get the hang of HyperNews is to use it. Practice in the Test area. Refer to the instructionsprovided by NCSA for detailed information, but keep in mind that the instructions describe a configurable system which is still under development. In particular, they do not cover local choices made in the installation that we are using.

Confusing Points

1. You can't use the Admin button---it's only available to system administrators.
2. The Email button leads to a page that allows you to subscribe or unsubscribe to a particular article or response. The only point of subscribing is to be notified by Email of additional responses. I strongly recommend that you subscribe to the Class Work article.
3. The Members button lets you enter, and later modify, information about yourself, including your name, URL if you have one, and the form in which you wish to be notified of new responses. Everyone in the class should enroll as a member of the local HyperNews discussion group.
4. The Add Message button is the only obvious one: it creates a response. This is the only button that you are likely to use repeatedly. The other ones probably should not have been included on every page. Perhaps a later release of HyperNews, or some local reconfiguration, will improve this.

Special Netiquette Rules for Com Sci 221

1. Give your correct name on every response, except in the Course Evaluation section, where you may respond anonymously (or in the Test section to test annonymous posting). If you enroll correctly with HyperNews, you need only type in your HyperNews ID (usually your whole email address, including uchicago.edu), and the rest of your identification will be filled in automatically.
2. Avoid the ``Plain Text'' form of response, because it is very annoying to readers. Learn enough HTML to accomplish whatever structure your document needs (<p> for paragraph, etc.). Use the <pre>...</pre> marking within HTML to lay out pieces of code, but let the remainder of your comments be formatted by the reader's browser. There are excellent online instructions to get you started writing HTML. It's very easy.
3. Have fun with the ``Kind of Message'' icons, but use them informatively, not misleadingly.

Copyright Michael J. O'Donnell <michael_odonnell@acm.org>. Licensed for free use.
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