Case discussions can be conducted in the asynchronous formatsdescribed earlier. Students can be divided into small groups or participatein whole-class discussions. Newsgroups and other “threaded” discussionforums, like the bulletin board feature in WebCT online course devel-opment software (Goldberg & Salari, 1997), can be particularly effective inpromoting rich and connected discussions because participants have timeto read and reflect on their peers’ ideas before posting their own messages(Harrington & Hathaway, 1994).