ELECTRONIC PUGging At Amarillo College by Neil Sapper, Amariilo College (Amarillo, Texas) PUG (PUG), v.t., pugged, pug ging. 1. to knead (clay or the like) with water to make it plastic, as for brick-making. DESCRIPTION OF THE INNOVATION In 1990, several users of ParSYSTEM, the College- licensed software for test development, test scoring and analysis, and grades management joined together in founding the PUG (ParSYSTEM User's Group) at Amarillo College. Early in the fall of 1990, the software distributors issued an updated version of their programs. The new features and options provided the impetus to invite all users and potential users at the College to the first PUG meeting at Amarillo College in early November 1990. More than thirty people attended the meeting and shared basic information about themselves and their level of expertise in using the software. They agreed from the outset that the PUG should be unstructured and emphasize sharing over structure. The most important outcome of the meeting was the creation of a network and a campus-wide PUG DIRECTORY. The most enthusiastic participant in that first PUG meeting was Diana Cox, the College's Academic Computing Coordinator. She encouraged the PUG organizers to explore publishing a newsletter to better communicate and share information about software features. The group organizers contacted the software distributors and the idea received their support and cooperation. With the approach of budget-building deadlines for 1991-1992, the PUG organizers convened another round of meetings to provide information and identify needs for hardware as well as share more information about software features like on-line testing. The second round of PUG meetings solidified the sense that the group served a need and provided a valuable network. With that, the PUG NEWSLETTER appeared at the College. The initial issue, for local circulation, invited user contributions for future publication and provided a handy reprint of the PUG DIRECTORY for Amarillo College. A national version, sans DIRECTORY, was prepared for a mailing in March 1991. The national version prominently mentioned the three most effective users of the software programs at the College and provided their telephone numbers; the issue also solicited reader contributions of ideas or tips for future publication. With the assistance of the software distributors, nearly 1,000 issues of the first NEWSLETTER went by mail to licensees of the software in nearly every state in the United States, several Canadian provinces, and to Sweden and Germany. DISCUSSION OF PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS Since then, many telephone contacts and letters have reached the College from recipients of the PUG NEWSLETTER. The experience is akin to that of placing messages in bottles and casting them out to sea. In April '93, a letter arrived from a software user at the University of Alaska at Anchorage. A copy of the newsletter had made its way to the Great White North and the publication had prompted a request for more information ("How do I join?" "Are there any dues?" And like questions that come along from time to time.) What made this letter unique was an E-mail address on the AU-Anchorage letterhead. This combination of an E-mail address and the request for information about the test and grades management software created a new persona for the PUG NEWSLETTER. Amarillo College entered the Internet in July 1993. In short order, faculty and staff became aware of lists on this worldwide-area network. Not to be confused with bulletin boards, which are passive postings of electronic messages (the equivalent of graffiti), lists bring E-mail from other subscribers/members of the list to each E- mail address that has been sent to the listserver in a subscription message. A list is the electronic equivalent of a faculty/staff club or lounge; the electronic messages can be interesting, informative, and entertaining, or they can be boring, banal, and irrelevant. In a faculty/staff lounge (Amarillo College does not have a college-wide gathering place for employees.), people come and go, interact or just sit and listen, agree or disagree, or get angry and never come back. An Internet list is the virtual equivalent of a faculty/staff lounge for E-mail that asks for information, offers compliments, renders insults (infrequently), elicits honest responses, and everything else in a conversational spectrum. The creation of an Internet list as the electronic PUG NEWSLETTER. was complicated by the inability of the Amarillo College connection to the Internet to support a list . The Internet gurus at the College recommended securing an off-site host for this list. An E-mail message ("Can anyone help us in locating an off-site host for a list dealing with computerized test generation, test scoring, and electronic gradebook operation?") was sent to several list owners (moderators) throughout the country as well as in Texas. In mid-January 1994, an E-mail message arrived from a list called NEWJOUR that announces the appearance of electronic scholarly journals on the Internet. A n E-mail query about off-site hosts for lists went to the owner (moderator) of NEWJOUR. Within the hour, an E-mail reply asked for clarification of the intent of the proposed list. Following another E- mail exchange, a search for an off-site host began. Three days later, an E-mail message came from the Department of Classics at the University of Pennsylvania. The departmental computer system there possibly had room for the new list. An exchange of E-mail over the next two weeks clarified the role and intent of the list. Finally, on February 8, 1994, the list had a name: Par-L. (Par-LIST for the discussion of test preparation, test analysis. scoring, and test results reporting; preparation, analysis, and reporting create the acronym, PAR.) Since February 21, 1994, subscription messages can be sent to the listserver address at the University of Pennsylvania. Once a subscriber receives acknowledgment of that transaction, a new member can send E-mail messages to Par-L. What sort of messages? "Does anyone know how to . . . ?" Or, "where can I find . . . ?" Or anything else that relates to test preparation, test analysis/scoring, and test results reporting. PUG is a virtual user's group now. To subscribe, send E-mail to this Internet address: mjd#064;ccat.sas.upenn.edu and enter this message: subscribe par-l . Neil Sapper Editor, PUG NEWSLETTER and Professor of Social Sciences (History) and Moderator of Par-L For more information, contact the author at Amarillo College, P. O. Box 447, Amarillo, TX 79178-0001. E-mail: ngsapper#064;pcad-ml.actx.edu