There are three types of asynchronous discussions:

• Email - the digital form of letter writing. Email has becomes so ubiquitous that most people are very familiar with how to use it and have email available to them through different channels; work, school, home, organization, etc.
  
  
• Listservs - an expanded, more organized form of email. Listservs allow a participant to post a message once and have it distributed via email to everyone on a 'list'.
  
  
• Bulletin boards, newsgroups, discussion boards - bulletin boards and newsgroups have been around as long as the Internet has been in existence. With the coming of the Web and its graphical capabilities, new software has been developed that makes participating in discussions much easier and graphically pleasing.

The purpose of this web site is to discuss the effective uses of asynchronous discussion boards (ADB), but will include uses of email to enhance ADB.

There are three different types of software used by the professors I interviewed.

O'Reilly's WebBoard - threaded discussions are divided by topics. Participants can reply to a topic or post their own. Allows attachment of graphics, documents, audio clips, etc. Messages are displays by post heading in nested fashion. You must click on the heading to be able to read the message. - www.webboard.oreilly.com

Discus - linear discussions are divided by topics. Participants can reply to a topic or post their own. All messages posted under a topic are displayed and can be read or scanned by manipulating the scroll bar. Allows attachments if software is configured to do so. - www.discusware.com

MSN Community - threaded discussions. Participants can reply to a topic or post their own - http://communities.msn.com/home