Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!mit-eddie!rutgers!bagate!cbmvax!atha!aupair.cs.athabascau.ca!kevinc
From: kevinc@cs.athabascau.ca (Kevin Crocker)
Newsgroups: comp.groupware
Subject: Re: Using news for internal communications
Keywords: news; Participate; organizational structures
Message-ID: <522@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca>
Date: 19 Dec 90 18:03:16 GMT
References: <20665@crg5.UUCP> <276561BC.419@intercon.com> <3602@jaytee.East.Sun.COM> <113@intrbas.UUCP>
Organization: Athabasca University
Lines: 37

I am ashamed to say that I haven't been following the thread of using
"news" for internal communications but I do have some interesting
points that may help.

We do use news for internal communications of all sorts.  For example,
we have a student grade tracking system (in-house development).  Since
we are a distance education institution with no on-campus students, all
of our "teaching" is done via a pre-designed course package and
"on-line" telephone/computer/etc tutorial support.  We have set up an
internal newsgroup called "au" with sub headings for a variety of
things including this student tracking system.  Most, if not all, of
our tutors are connected to this system as well as have access to our
full news feed.

We use the newsgroup "au.trix" for communications between the
development team, the tutors, the acadmeics, and the support staff
(secretaries et al).  It seems to be working very well as it is a very
quick and clean environment to ensure that all tutors are advised of
information about the TRIX system as well as providing for quick
turnaround time for the development staff to on-line users.

We also use a variety of other newsgroups for training purposes.  I.e.,
we just installed Word PErfect as the word processor of choice on all
our machines (can you say officially supported software) and we  use a
newsgroup to do training, another to do trouble shooting, etc.

I find that it is a really good way to communicate -- but then I've
been using news for 5 years or so.

I'd like to hear more about this.  It's a very interesting application
of groupware.

Kevin
-- 
Kevin "auric" Crocker Athabasca University 
UUCP: ...!{alberta,ncc}!atha!kevinc
Inet: kevinc@cs.AthabascaU.CA