TIMSS Forum User's Guide

Welcome to the TIMSS Forum, an electronic forum for educators, policymakers, researchers, and community members interested in information and issues pertaining to the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). The TIMSS-Forum is a service of Research for Better Schools (RBS).

What is the TIMSS Forum?

The goal of the Forum is to provide educators with a fast, convenient, and topical electronic forum focusing on information and issues related to TIMSS. We hope the TIMSS Forum will facilitate communication and collaboration within the mid-Atlantic math/science education community, and provide a place to share and obtain TIMSS-related news, resources, and ideas.

Who Runs the TIMSS Forum?

The TIMSS-Forum is administered by RBS.

Sending Messages to the TIMSS Forum

Only members of TIMSS Forum can post messages to the list. When you want to "post" a message to all other TIMSS-Forum participants--whether as a response to something you have read in the Forum or to introduce some information or topic for discussion, send your message as you would any e-mail. Address your e-mail to: TIMSS-Forum@lists.rbs.org .

Please note that the TIMSS Forum is configured in such a way that if you use the "REPLY" option on your system's mailer, your message will go only to the sender of the message, not to the entire list. To send a response to the entire list, use your mailer's "reply to all" function, or include the TIMSS-Forum@lists.rbs.org address in the "To:" or "cc:" lines of your reply.

Unsubscribing from the TIMSS Forum

To unsubscribe from the list, send an e-mail to listserv@lists.rbs.org ; in the body of the message, type: unsubscribe timss-forum

TIMSS Forum Netiquette

The TIMSS Forum is as effective as its members make it, so we encourage and appreciate everyone's free participation. Participation by writing to the group is very helpful to all our members. If you have a TIMSS-related question, there are likely other Forum members who have the same question and who would like to read the answers you receive. So, if you have a question, an answer, or a view on aspects of TIMSS, by all means, post it on the list publicly to the benefit of everyone.

Every posting should begin with a clear introduction to the topic or offer some kind of reference to the topic or a previous posting. Since the message traffic on TIMSS Forum can become varied, readers have no way of knowing what you are posting about if you don't include a reference. Sometimes there may be lapses of several days between postings and the replies they generate; also, there are often several "threads" of discussion going on simultaneously, which can make unreferenced postings very confusing.

A popular way of providing context is to quote verbatim from the original message. However, it is important to keep the quotations short and relevant. Quoting whole messages, signatures and all, is inconsiderate.

When re-posting messages, or when posting forwarded messages, as a courtesy to fellow TIMSS Forum readers, please edit out the original header; headers clutter people's mail, add bytes and confusion, and are not relevant.

The TIMSS-Forum is an "unmoderated" list. This means that what subscribers post goes directly to the membership. It is therefore important that members respect in their postings the attitudes and sensibilities of all other members. Just as it is important to try and share public information with the whole group, private correspondence should remain just that: private. Personal messages should not be posted to the public forum.

In overseeing this public mailing list, the Consortium reserves the right to archive messages, use the archives for research purposes, make the archives publicly accessible, delete memberships, and take other actions it deems responsible, desirable, or necessary to take to preserve the quality and enhance the impact of the Forum.

Conferences

TIMSS-related conference announcements or information on upcoming seminars and presentations are welcome in the TIMSS Forum. However, do not send registration forms, housing information, or schedules. Instead, please just include a description and some contact information for those interested in finding out more.

Resources

Members are encouraged to post information about TIMSS-related or relevant resources (e.g., materials, organizations, references, etc.). Please include as much information as possible about the resource (e.g., title, publisher, address, phone and fax numbers, URL, etc.) and a brief description and/or opinion of the resource.

Advertising

Feel free to list and discuss resources available from your organization if they are available and relevant to a current discussion in the TIMSS Forum. Advertisements for professional services--particularly those unrelated to TIMSS Forum topics--are inappropriate.

Disclaimer

The TIMSS-Forum is a public resource, and information appearing there should be considered in the public domain and available for re-posting or disseminating through other means. Messages in TIMSS-Forum are strictly personal opinion and do not represent the positions of the organization the writer works for, nor the positions of the Mid-Atlantic Eisenhower Consortium. Neither the members of TIMSS-Forum nor any of the organizations providing access to the TIMSS Forum are responsible for the interpretation or application of the information contained within the discussions.