This link should connect you to the newsgroup. It's been tested with Netscape, Internet Explorer and Opera. Following the link in Netscape required the creation of a "new account" in Netscape's mail and news client, but this required nothing more than answering a few simple questions in a series of four dialog boxes. Internet Explorer launched a separate application configured as the default newsreader on my computer. This separate application would have required configuration to use the specified news server (see the paragraph below). Opera pretty much just configured itself (based on information already entered in that web browsers preferences). If you elect to use a free-standing newsreader, there are several to choose from and each will have its own methods for being configured. Without getting into where the information should be entered for each possible program, the news server you're trying to connect to is news.umkc.edu, the port for that server is 119 and the newsgroup to which you are trying to suscribe is umkc.working.class If you require additional assistance, please contact the help desk for your Internet Service Provider.

If you're not familiar with newsgroups -- how to read them, how to post to them, how to respond to existing articles, how to refresh the list of articles in your news client, how to mark an article read/unread -- I recommend that you get familiar with them. They're not at all difficult to use, and you'll feel much more comfortable doing your class assignments if you take the time now to learn your way around newsgroups.

While this class uses one, teaching you how to use one is not part of the curriculum for this class. The news protocol (or system) is an established Internet protocol, just as email and the web are established Internet protocols. If you are not comfortable with all of these portocols (as a user, not as a developer) and don't believe that you can quickly get comfortable with them, this may not be a good class venue for you. But simply by reading this on-line, you've already demonstrated the capacity to use one of them.

I will, however, mention a couple of the most commonly made mistakes made by first-time newsgroup users.

• After posting their articles, they look in their news client's article list. They don't see their article. They post it again. It still doesn't show up. They post it again.

  The problem is, they're not refreshing the article list. Their article has been posted to the server, where the articles are stored. But they haven't downloaded a fresh list of articles to their news client (the program in which they're reading the newsgroup).

  When they do finally refresh that list -- like for instance the next time they "log in" -- they discover that they've posted the same article three or four times. I think the record so far for my classes is eight duplicate postings.

• The other common error is reading an article, "logging off," then "logging in" the next day and *poof*! "Where'd it go?"

  Actually, it didn't go anywhere. Any decent news reader will keep track of the articles you've read and -- depending on how you have configured its display -- may only list the unread articles each time you open it. All viable readers provide ways for you to mark articles "read" and "unread." Learn how to control this feature in yours.

If you feel like you'd like to practice posting to a newsgroup on the news.umkc.edu server, there's a newsgroup just for that:
   umkc.test

I don't grade down for making these mistakes, but I can't help noticing that students who make them aren't reading my material very closely.

Beyond that: Most major web browsers have newsreaders bundled in them. Netscape's bundled newsreader and associated help files seem to me to be quite accessible. Opera's is also pretty good. I don't know anything about Internet Explorer's support for news. There are also several excellent free-standing newsreaders available on the Internet at reasonable prices.

I suggest you begin by examining the help files in your browser of choice. You'll also find some information about the news protocol on Job Site's "Internet" page. Where you go from there is up to you.