What can MLA Commons do for my forum?
We encourage the executive committees of MLA forums to engage with their forum’s members on the Commons. Each forum has its own group, with the following features:
- A discussion area, which functions like a LISTSERV but with additional archival capacities. Members can choose to receive messages as they are posted or as a daily or weekly e-mail digest.
- An area for collaboratively authoring documents, such as calls for papers.
- The opportunity to share items deposited with CORE, the MLA repository, directly with their most likely readers: members of a given forum.
- A private file-storage area for items that members wish to restrict to the forum, such as syllabi and works in progress.
- The option to create a publicly accessible group Web site that showcases the forum’s area of focus as well as its convention sessions and demonstrates the field’s public appeal. Members who have created these sites have benefited from increased interest in their work and a greater sense of connectedness to their colleagues.
Most MLA forums comprise 100 to 2,000 members, and these discussion spaces have the potential to be rich sources of intellectual and pedagogical exchange. We ask you, as executive committee members, to lead the way! Should you have any questions about encouraging use of this community space, please contact Nicky Agate, managing editor of the Commons.