Just as in ancient times, we always have need of a central meeting place for us to discuss the matters at hand. In our case, the topic at hand is Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Engineering. For the math department, we have shifted over to the use of EdDiscussions. While it does have a few pitfalls relative to other forums, it has a lot of plusses.

For one, it has a built in LaTex equation editor, which to be fair all the ones have that. I’ve found this one to be a bit superior in that you can click around or switch to pure LaTex, and you can copy paste in with word. Other forums have had some odd methods for describing mathematical expressions.

Secondly, if we are consistent with it’s usage, it puts it all in one place. I can answer questions for ALL my classes in one window, as opposed to other methods, I have to either go into Canvas for each individual class or use an external discussion forum that is not affiliated with ASU.

Those external discussion forums either cost money, or if they are free it is because they are data mining the discussions. Which I’m sure we can all agree, avoidance of company profiteering off of our discussions is something that we should try to avoid if possible. Since it is possible, we do it and tada! EdDiscussions is what we’re going to use.

For any civil discussions we have to lay down some ground rules so we can make sure this is a place for intellectual curiosity that aids in the learning process. With that in mind, here are some standard (and hopefully obvious) rules that we will be adhering to.

Firstly, this is not a place to air grievances. Posts that are complaining about the class, homework, instructor, etc… will be deleted. Bare in mind that this negativity can impact others who are struggling. It’s easy to find a scape goat when you feel your back is against the wall, however, it is not a productive use of your time. Instead be positive and try to build up one another within the forum.

We all want to help everyone in the class and to do that we need the most information possible. So if you have issue with a specific problem, please post a screen shot of that problem, perhaps a brief outline of where you have issue and preferably another screen shot of your work. With this, I can pinpoint issues and get answers back to you in a much more reasonable time.

EdDiscussions must be the point of contact for all content related questions. If I receive emails with questions about problems or content in general, I will instruct you to go to EdDiscussions. Bare in mind, I can help 10 people with the same problem in 10 emails, or I can help the entire class on a given problem with one post. We’re engineers so let’s be efficient and effective with our time!

Please be courteous and respectful to one another. I somewhat don’t like the concept of a “safe space” as it has been taken a bit towards a hyperbolic place in which it can e argued that free speech is behind hindered. However, this ASU, the SOMSS and thus this most definitely must be a safe space!

Do not use EdDiscussions for personal messages. Those need to be sent directly to my email.

Do not use EdDiscussions to promote 3rd party software / discussion forums. The go to example for this is that students tend to want to hang out in Discord now. It baffles me why students would avoid a forum that I monitor multiple times a day in favor of an external site in which they are only reliant upon the intelligence and time of the more knowledgeable people in the group who are also in the same class. Come here, help me help you!

Do not expect immediate answers. I will get to them when I can, however, depending on the time of day, day of week, or what week in the semester it is, I may get pulled away. I’ve had students expect instant responses with 4 follow up posts in 4 hours questioning why I was not answering. This is not reasonable. Let’s try to be reasonablists! (Hail Zorp!)