Email Discussion

Overview

While the value of discussion in person is widely recognized, the advantages of email discussions should not be missed. When student groups are assigned to, for example, conduct an analysis of a case, construct a response to a question, or design a policy for authorship, then the necessary discussion could occur either in class or through email (or any of a variety of other collaborative technologies such as wikis). Some of the advantages of this format are:

• Increased chance for everyone to participate.
• Increased chance for everyone to be heard.
• Increased time to reflect on answers and discussion.
• Increased opportunities to investigate relevant resources.
• Decreased chance for the views of individuals to be minimized because of gender or racial stereotypes.
• Decreased barriers to participation for people for whom discussions occur in a non-native language.

Resources

• Scientific Integrity, UC San Diego:
  This is an online course taught with assigned email discussion groups and moderation by a course instructor
  http://ethics.ucsd.edu/courses/integrity
• Internet Forums
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet
• Wiki
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki