Does anyone use IRC for student classroom exercises - eg practicals of virtual participant observation? If so, I'd be interested in what kinds of exercises you set students. At MSc level, this is an example of a current exercise which I set, but I'm wondering whether to be more explicit about use of particular clients, sites etc. (1) Select a topic of sociological interest and investigate the UK online resources about this topic (You can refer back to Hine's study for an example). This might include web pages, email discussion lists, chat spaces, usenet newsgroups, etc. Outline how you might collect data and analyse this topic using ONE of the online sources which you have found (ie either a chat space OR a discussion list OR a set of web pages). Bear in mind the following potentially significant issues: a. The sources of the data (eg who hosts the site, or organises the mailing list) and the effect on the kind of data which can be collected b. Ethical problems in data collection or analysis c. How your study compares to the studies in the assigned reading list d. Any methodological issues which arise which are specific to your topic\ (The 'Hine' book is Christine Hine's excellent book 'Virtual Ethnography') In general, students seemed to enjoy the exercise, although some found it hard to limit themselves to UK resources on more marginal topics. Nina Wakeford INCITE, University of Surrey www.soc.surrey.ac.uk/incite --