ITAIS Original Discussion List

When I started working with ITAs in 1998 (gasp!), I was thrilled to find our e-mail discussion list (currently ITA-L@LISTS.UFL.EDU) where I could network with other ITA trainers across the country. I immediately signed up and found it to be a lifeline, having just started working with this population of students, and being the only person on my campus who did this sort of work. I made connections on my campus with people who helped me understand more about my students, but the community of ITA folks on the discussion list was, and still is, invaluable.

ITAIS Discussion List Move—Website Creation

In about 2000, the e-list needed a new home. Gordon Tapper was able to host it at the University of Florida Gainesville, where John Bro maintained it and also created a website (http://www.ita-is.org). When John moved abroad, Jules Gleische took on management of the e-list and the website. A couple of years later, I took on maintenance of the website, hosting it at the University of Utah. Jules continued to manage the list at UFL, so we would not lose the archives.

TESOL Discussion List

A few years later, TESOL offered e-lists to the Interest Sections (currently ITAIS@community.tesol.org). We had been using our list for years, and we wanted to keep it for two main reasons: 1) our archives would be lost if we used the “on-TESOL” e-list, and 2) we had active participants in our discussions who were not, and never would be, members of TESOL. Because TESOL requires membership to participate in the online forums, these participants would not be able to contribute to our discussions.

TESOL insisted we use theirs, so we came to a compromise: I would forward any messages of import that came through the TESOL list to the original list, and alert people who joined the TESOL list of the existence of the original list.

At some point, TESOL allowed members to join an unlimited number of e-lists, and our TESOL list became overrun with members who joined a large number of the lists (whether it is pertinent to their work or not) and never unsubscribed because there was so little traffic. When one now writes to this list, somewhere around 600 TESOL members receive it and very few are active members of ITAIS.

TESOL Community

In 2010 or so, TESOL started the TESOL Community, a web space on the organization’s servers where each IS can house member profiles, information about their interest section, and a repository for materials of interest to their membership. Interest section leadership has had varying degrees of success in convincing members to use the Community for a number of reasons. In the meantime, we have hung onto our website to see which one better serves our purposes.

Next Steps

For now, we are using both e-lists, with the original one getting most of the traffic. This fall, I will be giving the website a much-needed overhaul, and TESOL is changing the provider of the TESOL Community. I will keep you all up to date (via both e-lists), and will send out a survey once one or both of the sites have been updated, in order to get your feedback on both aspects of our online presence. I encourage you to watch for the survey, so our leadership can make decisions informed by the members’ wishes. See you online!