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The IS is in partnership with the IDeA to provide an integrated set of online collaboration tools (listed below) that can help groups work more effectively together, transcending departmental, organisational, spatial and temporal barriers. There are already hundreds of groups using this technology to share best practice, exchange information and help and support each other to provide increased efficiencies and more effective networking. If you can't find one that suits you, find out how to set one up for your group. The communities platform offers a secure, password-protected system which ensures that only verified members get access to the communities. The system is easy to use and includes a range of integrated tools which group members can pick and choose from. These are: ForumFor many people, discussion forums are an accepted and familiar way of asking for feedback, advice and comments. "Conversations" thus created can form a useful reference point for topics in times to come. For instructions on using the Forum functionality on the communities platform, please see the Forum FAQs. LibraryDocuments, pictures, process maps, spreadsheets, presentations, in fact, just about any file can be simply added to the shared document library for all group members to benefit from and comment on. For instructions on using the Document Library functionality on the communities platform, please see the Library FAQs MembershipMembership can be easily controlled by the group, accepting or denying membership rights as appropriate to that group's own governance decisions. Facilitators for each group have the responsibility to grant or deny access, according to how the group has decided. Group members can easily see who the other members are, can see which other IS/IDeA groups they are members of, and can securely message people from within the system by using the Members tab. For instructions on using the Members functionality on the communities platform, please see the Members FAQs. WikiA simple wiki is just a page of text that any member can update, without any awkward checking in or out of documents. It's very simple - no fancy formatting or anything - but it has built-in version control and for each version of the document, you can see who edited it. You can attach documents for reference, and can roll back to a previous version if you need to. For instructions on using the wiki functionality on the communities platform, please see the Wiki FAQs. Watch a jargon-free, short 2 minute video introduction to wikis... BlogsBlogs can be used for any number of things, for example they can be used by you as a project officer or manager to keep a record of your project's progress, to tell other group members about interesting or useful things you've come across that you'd like to share with them, and for other people to post responses to what you put there. All members can write their own blog entries and choose which of the communities they are involved in to publish it to. You can see all of someone's blog entries by viewing their profile. For instructions on using the blog functionality on the communities platform, please see the Blogs FAQs. Watch a jargon-free, short 2 minute video introduction to blogs... News feedsRSS news feeds mean that you can get interesting items delivered to your group's space, like a newspaper to your desk. RSS news feeds enable relevant up to date content from useful internet sites to be collated in one place for members to refer to. Group facilitators can add news feeds whenever group members suggest them and there are no limits as to how many you can have. For instructions on using the news feeds functionality on the communities platform, please see the RSS news feeds FAQs. Watch a jargon-free, short 2 minute video introduction to RSS news feeds... TagsAll content can be categorised, so that you don't have to try and remember folder structures when you save things to the community. You can categorise documents, forum postings, blog or wiki entries with as many or as few subjects (tags) as you want - you should always tag your contributions with at least one tag, but often a document or posting may be about more than one thing, so you can categorise it with lots. You can choose to use tags that other people have already used, or you can create your own. All content that has been tagged in the same category shows when you click on that tag in the "tagging cloud", and the more times a tag has been used (i.e. topics that are most popular), the bigger it is, so you can see at a glance what sort of issues are important. For instructions on using the tags functionality on the communities platform, please see the Tags FAQs. See a jargon-free, short 2 minute introduction to tags and social bookmarking... AlertsIn order to always know what's going on and to be able to be in a position to respond quickly, you can set up email notification (alerts) to all relevant areas of the collaboration space, i.e. the forum, document library, wiki, blog, event calendar and messages. Setting alerts will mean you get an email when someone has added something to this area, with a link so you can make a response. For instructions on setting up alerts on the communities platform, please see the Alerts FAQs. EventsIf there are events or meetings that you think other members may be interested in (monthly project meetings, externally run seminars, interest groups, social or networking events, etc) you can add details of these to the events calendar, which all members of your group can see. For instructions on using the events calendar on the communities platform, please see the Events FAQs.
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