Google Group vs. Slack

[Frank Harrell]

I've been trying to figure out what makes students feel free to use a discussion board between classes.  Some people think the display method makes a difference, and have reported some good results in using slack.com for their classes.  The Google Group has a history so I don't want to change unless there will be a real improvement in usage.  Does anyone have thoughts?

[Lucy D'Agostino]

A few pros for slack:

 - the app is very friendly on many devices

 - the interface makes sharing documents & code chunks very easy (which I find helpful for debugging, etc)

 - the shortcut keys are lovely

 - the notifications are nice (you can ping individuals or the whole group depending on the magnitude of the question. for example, if you wanted to make an announcement about the homework, you could ping the whole group, but if there was an individual question only people in the discussion could choose to ping each other

 - it is possible to create multiple channels to better facilitate discussions (for example, we could have an #announcements channel for general announcements, a #homework channel for homework questions, etc.) I find this very useful for de-cluttering a message board

 - this is somewhat a personal opinion, but I think the fact that it is fun builds a sense of community

[Frank Harrell]

Thanks for the input Lucy.  One issue about multiple channels for the same course: I would want the slack site to be for multiple courses (most logically: MSCI Biostatistics I and MSCI Biostatistics II but also other courses I teach such as RMS).  There is no hierarchy of channels in slack so this may get confusing.

[Lucy D'Agostino]

Ohhh interesting. What would be the reasoning to have them all be in the same slack site? The apps make switching between pretty seamless (but there may be something I am missing there).

[Frank Harrell]

It is easier to change channels than it is to change sites in slack (in my limited experience).  More importantly we may want a bit of `cross-talk' between students in a 2-course sequence, e.g., to have one channel for MSCI Biostatistics I and another channel for MSCI Biostatistics II.  Students who finish Biostat II may want to have post-course question for the RMS channel.

[Nicholas Strayer]

I am all for Slack. The graduate student slack channel gets used a pretty decent amount. I certainly would be more active on a slack channel than google as I already have slack open all the time for other groups. 

[Frank Harrell]

Thanks for the input, and any other thoughts you or anyone has about multiple channels (to better connect certain courses) vs. multiple slack accounts.