Sunday, January 14, 2007

"A Primer on Electronic Education" by Eszter Hargittai

Author Eszter Hargittai begins by explaining the usefulness and efficiency of using the Internet as a means of communication, and goes on to lay out a digital communication format containing a sort of ethical code. He places emphasis professional etiquette, as well as content needing to be clear and concise. He concentrates on email, but his thesis, and the need for it is echoed throughout all forms of electronic communication. I think this article is great, especially for college students, who like he mentions, must make professional digital inquires with little or no experience at all. However, I wouldn't dub his precise format standard. As a college student I understand the development of professor/student relationships; by the end of a semester, while email to/from professors are still worthy of this etiquette, all of what he mentions including into a message maybe bulk, even according to his code. My Professional Ethics professor, John Corvino, actually sent out emails near the beginning of the semester containing a similar, but somewhat more condensed message. I'm sure, being a professor and an active publisher and member of papers and respectively organizations, he experienced the same problem a Hargittai, masses of email and no easy way to sort for importance.
"The upside of the Internet is we can quickly contact folks without much effort. The downside of the Internet is people can contact us without much effort." (First paragraph)
I think this summarizes the need for an article like his, guidelines for effectively using an effective tool.

Hargittai, Eszter. "Workplace." Inside Higher Ed. 28 Nov. 2006. 14 Jan. 2007. -http://www.insidehighered.com/2006/11/28/hargittai-

3 comments:

Caroline Maun said...

Can you say more about the email you received from your Ethics professor? I'm a little unclear if it was an email etiquette note.

Abbey said...

Thats exactly what it was, a memo on email etiqutte. He talked about what should and should not be included, how to address your emails, and things more specific to his role as our professor, like other channels to exhaust before turning to him. Basically it was a more role-specific version of Hargittai's article.

Caroline Maun said...

Thanks for the clarification. :)