Communication

Except for one time per year, all communiqués to IDL SIG members are electronic. To facilitate electronic communication, we use this Web site, our newsletter, and two email lists, also known as listservs. These are the Discussion List (primary method) and the Announcement List.

Discussion List
The IDL Discussion List is our main way of communicating SIG activities and sharing Instructional Design and Learning information. Topics of discussion have included various tools, job openings, course development time estimates, online resources, and much more.

Here are just a few of the benefits of the IDL Discussion List:

• Meeting peers online. Our members are from many countries. It’s great to meet an Instructional Design person from another country and compare experiences.

• Getting answers to questions. When you have a question, you can post it to the IDL discussion group and draw from many, many years of combined experience—often getting several replies the same day you post your question. Answers at your fingertips!

• Drawing from a high level of expertise. Many members of our discussion list are certified and/or degreed in Instructional Design. Some teach at local universities, both online and in person! So you might get a reply from someone with 15 to 25 years of experience who also has a degree and teaches Instructional Design! Expertise at your fingertips!

• Sharing your experience and expertise. When you share from your own experiences in Instructional Design, you have the satisfaction of knowing that you may have helped a fellow IDL member do a better job, get better feedback, maybe even stay out of court! That’s a good feeling!

Many members feel that the Discussion List is the primary benefit of belonging to the IDL SIG.

How to Join the Discussion List
Due to recent problems with SPAM, we’re limiting membership in the Discussion List to SIG members, and we cannot provide the join instructions on this site. Instructions on joining were in your Welcome letter. If you’ve lost these instructions, contact our Membership Manager, Sylvia Miller. Membership in the Discussion List is approved once your name appears in the spreadsheet she receives near the first of each month, so please be patient. Once you have subscribed, you can use either the Web interface or email to send messages to the Discussion List.

Please see Discussion List Policies and Etiquette on this page for important information about using Plain Text.

Options for Joining
When you join the Discussion List, you can set your own unique options. For example:

• If you do not want to receive all replies to a message as individual emails (or your company frowns on listserv involvement), you can sign up for the Digest mode. This will cause you to receive one email per day with all discussion threads rolled into one email.

• You can also put your email on hold, much like you have your local post office hold your mail while you’re on vacation. This way, you will not come back after an absence and find many discussion list emails to catch up on. You can still read the emails by going to the Web interface and clicking on Read Messages.

• If your company does not allow you to subscribe to a listserv, consider opening a free non-work email account and use that for subscribing to the IDL Discussion List.

Discussion List Policies and Etiquette
The IDL SIG Council, with the assistance of the Discussion List Manager, will enforce the following policies:

• Please ensure that you have adequate virus protection software that incurs frequent automatic updates.

• Use proper Discussion List etiquette when answering postings.

• Take special care not to reply in an inflammatory manner. Flaming will not be tolerated.

• Do not attempt to add attachments to an email. Arrange for such things off-line with the intended recipient.

• Use Plain Text for posting all messages to the Discussion List. If you post in HTML, our members who’ve opted for Digest mode (see Options for Joining earlier on this page) will encounter a “sea” of HTML code when they open their Digest email. It takes undue effort and is unfair to ask Digest mode folks to wade through HTML code. Check your email application’s online help if you need help in specifying that ALL messages you post to the Discussion List will be in Plain Text. Many email applications permit you to specify the format for a specific address.

• Any postings to the IDL SIG discussion list, such as announcements or job postings for positions in the Instructional Design field, can be posted to the Discussion List as long as the following appears at the beginning of the SUBJECT line of the message:

[ANN:] for announcements

[JOB:] for job postings

[EVENT:] for informing of an event.

• Any SIG member who is self-employed can announce an IDL/training-related event on the Discussion List with the [ANN] email lead-in.

• The IDL SIG does, however, encourage national corporations to purchase advertising space on either our Web site or in our quarterly newsletter, IDeaLs. See the Web Advertising section of this Web page for details.

• Please do not post résumés to the Discussion List if you are seeking employment. Your privileges on the List might be suspended for doing so.

• Entities wanting to advertise their company or services through our Discussion List can contact the newsletter editor, Jackie Damrau.

Discussion list Abusers

The IDL SIG Leadership Team has set forth the following process for handling Discussion List abusers. A Discussion List abuser is defined as any person who flames another member or misuses the discussion list for other than STC- and SIG-related discussion or violates any of the policies stated above.

The Leadership Team will follow a three-step process before suspending discussion list privileges:

1. The IDL SIG Manager or designated Team member will counsel the member via email and/or telephone on the policies and purpose of the IDL SIG discussion list.

2. If the member does not adhere to the counseling advice, then the IDL SIG Manager will inform the member that they are being placed on probation (length of probation to be set by the IDL SIG Manager or the Leadership Team), where all postings from this member will be monitored before being released to the IDL SIG Discussion List.

3. If the member completes the designated probationary period and again abuses the Discussion List, the IDL SIG Manager will then inform the member that they are being removed from the List. Notification will also be sent to the STC office with a letter from the IDL SIG Manager stating why the SIG is removing this member from access to the SIG’s Discussion List.

Discussion Summaries
When you post a question to the Discussion List, we ask that you take a few minutes to organize the responses you receive into one document, preferably in PDF, but other formats are accepted. After you send the document to our Listserv Manager, Rosalind Rogoff, your document will be posted in PDF to our Web site to allow quick access to the information by other members, perhaps a few months later when the information applies directly to their circumstances.

Announcement List
The IDL SIG has another listserv that we use only to announce events, calls for proposals, conference activities, and other important information. You are automatically added to the Announcement List when you join the SIG. All messages you receive include information on how to unsubscribe, if you so desire. You cannot reply to any message posted to this list, and special permission is required to post any announcement. Contact Rosalind Rogoff if you wish to post any message to the Announcement List.