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So the other night I was trying to do schoolwork and got stuck as usual. At that particular time there was no one I could get a hold of to ask questions. So then I got to thinking how useful it would be to have a board similar in design to this one, catering to the students in my department. The problem is I have no idea how to do that. Is it hard? Can anyone throw some good resources to me?
Vbulletin IMHO is the best software package for running forums. It's administration is great, the user experience is great, and it scales well. However it's not free. www.vbulletin.com for more info.
The biggest obstacle in setting up a forum isn't setting up the software, its getting people to use it and contribute. You may want to to a little bit of research and find out if people are interested before you spend the time to set it all up.
If you're a student, see if your school has blackboard (ask your school's IT people), if it does, then you have everything you need. All you'd need to do is talk to your dept. chair, see if they could set up a blackboard site for the dept. and then just open up the forum to all the majors, or those taking classes from the dept.
Or better yet see if a board already exists. If you are thinking it, someone on the web has probably done it. When I was in school 4 years ago, there were forums where I could go to get some serious help in Math and Physics.