🚀 go-pugleaf

You've decided to learn about computer theory on your own, by reading
books.  You are going to an exam to get credits for the topic, and
your university has a list of the issues required for the exam and a
list of possible books to use.  You want to use the Usenet University
to help you.  Here are some ideas on how to do this.

1. Forming a study group

Announce your plan on the UU newsgroups (for example alt.uu.future and
alt.uu.comp.misc) and ask if other people share some of your goals and
are willing and able to use UU.  Gather a group of people willing to
learn the same subject - it won't be necessary for all to plan an exam
to have, but sharing goals will help.  Others should have access to
books or other material on the topics - not necessarily the exact same
books you have access to.

2. Negotiating how to study

Compare requirements of the exams and goals, decide amongst the group
what to cover in the group.  This can be done on one of the UU groups
- new participants might come in at this time, some might decide to
not go with the group.  Plan how to use the group - if keywords are
used on subject lines, etc.  Plan what each will do.  Plan how you
will divide work, what exactly are the goals of the project (ie.
whether material for "later generations" will be produced or whether
it'll be mostly throw-away discussions and summaries).  Decide what
tools to use, etc.

3. Proceeding with the group work

Let's say you divide the topic to parts on which each people will at
first write a short outline of the topic, have it commented by others
and then proceed to write a longer summary of her part, possibly with
exercises for others.  Different people will have different books and
approaches, so it is reasonable to have many persons on each fields.
Discuss difficult topics, comment on other people's work.

4. Make a summary of the work done

If you decided to go for writing lasting material for also others to
use, edit the material produced together to fit in one document
covering all of the topic area, archive it in one of the UU archives
for later generations.

5. Make a report on the effort

Write a summary on how the project went.  Descibe weaknesses, what
went wrong, what went well, what ideas came too late to implement,
what pitfalls to avoid.