How to Join and Use the cse1xx Bulletin Board
Overview
- The bulletin board is publicly viewable.
- It's used by several courses (cse110, ese112, cse120, and cse121) as the primary means of communication.
- It's used by by students for asking questions and giving feedback. It's used by staff for posting announcements and answering questions.
- Before reading or writing messages, make sure to first scroll to the right course section.
- Please honor the "spirit of the game" and be respectful to others in all bulletin board communications.
Quick Start
- Click on the Bulletin Board link on the course web site.
- Register (choose a user name that's the same as your pennkey)
- Log on
- If your course has a Test forum, try reading, posting, and replying to messages on it.
How to Register and Why
- Note: once you register you can log on and see at a glance which posts you haven't seen yet. This is a huge time-saver!
- At the top right of the bulletin board site, click Register.
- Click the appropriate "I Agree" link, and then fill out the required information.
- Choose a username that is the same as your pennkey.
- Choose your password carefully. If you tend to reuse passwords (a bad habit), try not to use
a very important password.
- You don't have to change any of the other settings. However,
- You may want to add your contact info (AIM, Email, etc.) to make it easier to network
with classmates.
- You may want to click yes for the setting "
Always notify me of replies", which arranges to have an email sent when someone replies to a topic you have posted.
- Note: To change your settings later, click on Profile.
- Once you're registered, you can log on and
- See at a glance which posts you haven't seen yet. The circle to the left of the forum will be blue/gray if you've read all the posts, or orange if it contains posts you haven't seen.
- Choose the clickable options in the upper right corner, e.g. "View your posts" to see responses to your posts.
Reading Messages
- Find the section that corresponds to your course (e.g. cse110, ese112, cse120, cse121)
- Click on a "forum", e.g. Annoucements, Homework 1, etc., to see messages that apply to that topic
Posting Messages
- Click on "new topic" to ask a question or to start a new topic of discussion.
- Click on "post reply" to respond to an existing topic.
- NOTE: A common mistake is for people to click on "post reply" and ask a new question, instead of clicking on "new topic".
- Posting Messages Anonymously (as "guest")
Some courses allow "anonymous" posts. An anonymous post is a message posted by someone who is not logged on to the bulletin board.
The name of the poster appears as "guest" (rather than a user name).
To do this, 1) Choose "Yes" where it asks "Submit post?" and 2) Type in the (case sensitive) letters displayed near the submit button. This is to ensure you're a human and not some bot.
- Benefits:
- It's a painless way of asking questions - nobody knows who is asking it :)
- Pitfalls:
- People can use it to vent/flame. If this starts to happen, anonymous posting will be disallowed
- Posting Messages While Logged On (as "your user name")
If someone logs on before posting a message, their username appears along with their posts. Benefits:
- It makes it easier for TAs to help you and others.
- It can help the TAs to better answer questions if they know who is asking them.
- If you are having trouble with the homework and you post about it as a registered user,
the TAs will be able to keep you in mind and help make sure you are making progress.
- It's an incentive to keep communications respectful.
