Discussion group

A discussion group is a group of individuals with similar interest who gather either formally or informally to bring up ideas, solve problems or give comments. The major approaches are in person, via conference call or website.^[1] People respond comments and post forum in established mailing list, news group or IRC.^[2] Other group members could choose to respond by posting text or image.

Brief History of discussion group

Discussion group was evolved from USENET which is traced back to early 80's.^[3] Two computer scientists Jim Ellis and Tom Truscott founded the idea of setting a system of rules to produce "articles", and then send back to their parallel news group.^[4] Fundamentally, the form of discussion group was generated on the concept of USENET, which emphasised ways of communication via email and web forums. Gradually, USENET had developed to be a system of channels which provide notifications and "articles" to meet general public's needs.^[5] Nowadays, World Wide Web gradually takes on the major role of supporting and extending platforms for discussion group on the Internet by setting up various web servers.

Overview of online discussion group

Google group

Google Group has been built to be one of the major online discussion groups with a wide range of worldwide frequent users. The following subsections contain information about three popular groups used by the public today:

• Simply search any theme based on personal interest by using the search box on the Google groups homepage, the results would appear after searching. Users could select themes more concisely by refining "date range, language, group or author".^[6] Users could join any groups they are interested in or establish their own.
• Three ascending levels are available for "public, announcements-only and restricted".^[7] For considering member's accessibility to information, General public commands more flexibility compares to limited users with regulations. In addition, it is a privilege to subscribe a gmail account which enables users to upload documents, send invites, and create webpage.

Facebook group

Facebook group simplifies processes and protects privacy of users when they interact with people.^[8] The following guidelines are some general instructions about how to operate groups on Facebook:

• By following instructions on homepage, users could create ideal groups that satisfy their personal needs. After the group is established, the admins are able to make a range of adjustments to the groups pages by upload display pictures and posting note and comments on the group wall. He or she could assist the whole group with events, news updates and members management. Therefore, Facebook groups, generally, diversifies internal communication by sending invitations to friends, colleagues or certain people who share similar demographics. A single user is capable of joining up a maximum "6000 groups".^[9]

Whatsapp group

Whatsapp group: Whatsapp, is a mobile SMS and messaging app, it features the function of group discussion as well. Users set group chats to boost the convenience of a proper group discussion. With shared characteristics to Facebook group, the instructions are comparatively similar. Common actions for administrators include: creating group, renaming title, blocking members, deleting irrelevant information through the management.^[10]

Advantages

• Advantages: the implementation of Google Groups comes with its own advantages. For diverse users, it provides the service of interpreting languages widely, which helps present a better way to communicate effectively with people in different countries. Considering of storage, one group member enjoys "100 megabytes (MB)" while there are no restrictions for the whole group. It delivers convenience for group members work on projects that need considerably more storage than normal files, for example, presentations.^[11] Studies conducted by Kushin and Kitchener indicates Facebook provide users in discussion groups with more opportunities to post content that has correlation with "social, political, or sporting issues".^[12] For Whatsapp users, the communication service brings enjoyment to share ideas with comparatively low cost. Ideally, it enhanced the quality of communication regarding of its records saving, security and trustability.^[13]
• Information in Discussion groups are usually archived. For example, Google's Groups (formerly DejaNews) is an archive of Usenet articles trace back to 1981.^[14] Discussion group archives are sometimes an effective way to find an answer to very ambiguous questions.

Academic discussion group

• Small group of professionals or students formally or informally negotiate about an academic topic within certain fields. This implementation could be seen as an investigation or research based on various academic levels. For instance, "one hundred eighty college-level psychology students" breakdown into different groups to participate in giving an orderly arrangement of preferred events.^[15] Nevertheless, discussion groups could support professional services and hold events to a range of demographics; another distinguished example is from "The London Biological Mass Spectrometry Discussion Group", which sustainably operates by gathering "technicians, clinicians, academics, industrialists and students" to exchange ideas on an academic level.^[16] It attributes to the development of participants' cognitive, critical thinking, and analytical skills.

See also

• Chat room
• User group
• Social Network
• Internet Forum
• Bulletin Board System
• E learning

Further reading

• Bliuc, A., Ellis, R., Goodyear, P. and Piggott, L. (2011). A blended learning Approach to teaching foreign policy: Student experiences of learning through face-to-face and online discussion and their relationship to academic performance. Computers \& Education, 56(3), pp. 856–864.
• Hanna, B. and De Nooy, J. (2009). Learning language and culture via public internet discussion forums. Palgrave Macmillan.
• Lee, H.; Kim, J.; Hackney, R. (2011). "Knowledge hoarding and user acceptance of online discussion board systems in eLearning: A case study". Computers in Human Behavior. 27 (4): 1431–1437. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2010.07.047. 
• Omar, H., Embi, M. and Yunus, M. (2012). Learners’ use of communication strategies in an online discussion via Facebook. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 64, pp. 535–544.
• Vicente, M., Fern\'andez, C., \~Neco, R. and Puerto, R. (2010). GOOGLE GROUPS FOR COMMUNICATION ENHANCEMENT IN COOPERATIVE LEARNING STRATEGIES. EDULEARN10 Proceedings, pp. 1031–1036.

References

17.Join WhatsApp Groups