CUNY Academic Commons

It's not a huge technical lift to do something automatic. Adding users to a group is nice if you plan to communicate with them using the group in the future. If not, then we could probably forget about the group and simply send an email to a person who creates a group (perhaps keeping track of who has already received the email, so it doesn't get sent multiple times within a given timeframe). Either way, it's not a huge amount of work to set something up along these lines.

I agree, though, that any automated solution is prone to error. It might make sense to try a manual solution first, and consider a more automated solution after a term or two working out the kinks.

I think as long as it won't be too hard to manually ensure we're catching the new course admins without duplicating (at least too much), and too demanding sending all of the emails ourselves, we could start with that route. It seems like a good candidate for something automated fairly soon, though, if we can still make it feel personal enough.

As for the email content, I suppose there is a lot of documentation we could include, but we don't want to overwhelm. I think an important part of the initial setup is getting privacy settings right, along with the awareness that the site is going to show up on the Courses tab if it's public. We could even mention that if students are signing up as members themselves their accounts could appear in homepage activity streams, as we've been discussing making that more clear.

Thanks for this feedback Colin and Boone.

I think starting off doing this manually and then switching over to automated processes sounds good.

I also agree this might be a good time to mention the courses tab and privacy settings. But I know we also wanted to focus on onboarding students to the Commons (clarifying that the faculty member must manage this process).

Pulling all that together, here is an outline of what might be included in this email. It's already pretty long so we might want to talk through how to slim it down.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_mQ6tHm61SPS1Xcy7btL_mxh108NgrIsChsELUbFgQY/edit?usp=sharing

Thanks so much, Laurie! I've left a few overall comments and minor edits for you to consider

I also think this is shaping up well, and I've added a few suggested edits.

Me too.

Thanks for all the feedback everyone!

I took another look and I think we are very close. I think there are two more things to work out:

- clarifying the language we use to explain that all courses are listed in the directory (see in doc) and
- who we want the email to be signed/from - I am happy to say commons team (with my email in the body of the text for support Qs) or the email can be from me. I think signing the email from "the commons team" makes more sense in the long run but I am open to whatever we decide is best.

Looking good to me, Laurie! Regarding who signs the bottom of the email, do we have full control over the "From:" and reply-to email address when this is sent out? The two should probably match. Maybe it's easier to have that all be Laurie? I don't know if we have a good catchall Commons team email address or something, and then replies would have to be routed to Laurie anyway.

Thanks for this feedback!

I know we had talked about possible automation of this email. I am happy to field the first few manually but can we begin to discuss automation in this ticket?

It would be ideal to ave this process automated - where the email is sent to anyone who creates a site or group with "teaching" purpose - before the January rush of spring course creation and prep.

Boone- is there anything I can do to help begin to set up the automation process? Should we create a "teaching on the commons" group? Is there another way we might automate this process?

A "teaching on the Commons" group is a good idea if you foresee using other group features down the road. For example, if you want a way to push occasional announcements out to users who are teaching on the Commons; or if you want to provide them with a forum for discussing the use of the site.

If the only purpose is to send out this initial email, then a group is probably too much overhead. It will clutter up people's group lists and it may be a vector for unwanted correspondence. In that case, I would create a custom tool that sends the email. We'd need to discuss some details (whether the email content is customized for the user/course; whether users should receive it for each course, as opposed to one time, or once per term, or whatever).

Thanks for the feedback Boone. It sounds like a group is the way to go.

New group is here: https://commons.gc.cuny.edu/groups/teaching-courses-on-the-commons/

So, when a faculty member creates a group or site with the teaching purpose, they should be added to this group. And, the first time they create a "teaching" group/site after being added to the group, they should receive the email.

And since we intend for them to only get the email once, each new "teaching" group/site created should not trigger another email. Correct?

Question: do we want to auto-add any user who has already created a "teaching" group/site? Is there a way to do that silently, or a way to add them in ~December before they create their spring course?

What do we do about students who accidentally select "teaching" purpose on a site for a course? We might consider implementing the "course project" purpose soon too? Outlined in ticket #14786 https://redmine.gc.cuny.edu/issues/14786#change-63963

Another thing - the email should probably be updated to include info about the group and instructions for posting there for help/questions. I will do that today.

Thanks for this feedback Boone.

Luke had some reservations about auto-adding folks into a teaching group that they did not opt into and this is understandable.

I think maybe this requires reverting to the original plan - where the faculty member receives an email upon creation of a teaching group/site. In this email, we can provide info about the "teaching on the commons" group and they can self select to join.

To clarify, should they be added to the group, or should they receive a group invitation? If the latter, should they get the welcome email at the time of invitation, or when they've accepted it?

With the change of plan above, I think they get the welcome email and group invite at the same time.

Perhaps a more salient question is this: if a user creates a Teaching group, then rejects or ignores the group invitation (or: if they are auto-added to the group but then decide to leave it), should they receive another invitation/auto-add the next time they create a Teaching group? IMHO we should send the invitation/auto-add only once, but we can do whatever the group thinks is best.

I think email and group invite only once is fine. The original goal of this process was to provide faculty with some brief info about adding students to the commons so one email sent once should be sufficient.

It should be possible for us to roll out 'Course Project' at the same time, which should in theory reduce the frequency of this already infrequent problem. I'd suggest that no further safeguards are necessary.

That sounds great.

So to recap:
1 Faculty member creates a teaching group/site
2 Outreach email sends - includes info about adding students, privacy settings, and info about support available in teaching group
3 Group invite sends - faculty can opt in to teaching group (with "all email" setting active)

Thanks, Laurie. This all sounds good.

Hi Laurie - I'm starting to build this out and I have a couple questions.

1. Invitations on the Commons must come from someone - ie there must be an "inviter". Who should it be? We have a commonsadmin account that we use for default content attribution on site templates. This is a possibility, but it's kind of an empty user at the moment, so we'd probably want to build the profile out first. https://commons.gc.cuny.edu/members/commonsadmin. Or perhaps it could come from whoever happens to be the admin of the Teaching Courses group at the time, which at the moment would be you, but could be someone else down the road? The latter seems better since it's a real person.

2. Do you have draft text for this email? Ideally, I would make the text editable by the CAC team, but this becomes difficult if there's lots of customization to the email - things like user name, etc that need to be swapped out on a per-user basis.

Hi Boone,

Yes, it is fine if the email comes from me. I think it makes sense to come from a person, as you said, and it also indicates that I am someone they might follow up with.

The copy for the email is in this google doc and pasted below.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_mQ6tHm61SPS1Xcy7btL_mxh108NgrIsChsELUbFgQY/edit

Dear [User],

Welcome to Teaching on the Commons!

You are receiving this email because you listed the “teaching” purpose for your site or group. This email will provide an overview and links to documentation that might be helpful as you begin teaching on the Commons.

Your course site or group will now be listed in the Commons Courses directory here, and students will be able to find it by searching for the course title or your name. Don't worry though: being listed in the Course directory does not mean your course site or group is accessible to everyone. If you have set your group or site to be private, it will be listed in the directory but it will only be accessible to the members you have invited to join.

Your site and group privacy settings are determined by the settings on your site or group.

Inviting Students to Join the Commons & your Course

If your course site is completely public it will be view-only for students, and they do not need to join the Commons. Private sites are only visible to students who join via your invitation. When you invite students, they will be prompted to register for the Commons, and then they will be added to your course group or site.

See here for directions on inviting your students your site or group: https://help.commons.gc.cuny.edu/inviting-students-to-the-commons/

Learn more about user roles in sites and groups here:
https://help.commons.gc.cuny.edu/user-roles-for-students/

If students register for the Commons on their own, they can search for your course site or group and request to join. You may want to share the links below with your students.

Student FAQ: How can I find my course on the Commons?
https://help.commons.gc.cuny.edu/my/

Student Directions for Joining a Group or Site on the Commons
https://help.commons.gc.cuny.edu/wp-content/blogs.dir/2935/files/2020/02/QG_-Joining-a-Group-or-Site2.pdf

If you are using a connected Group+Site for your course (https://help.commons.gc.cuny.edu/teaching-linked-group-site/), make sure to “sync roles” on the Group and Site, so when a student joins your group they are also added to your site.

Finally, students may need help learning how to use a group or site. You may want to walk through how to post in the group forum (https://help.commons.gc.cuny.edu/discussion-forum/) and/or provide directions for creating a post on your course site (https://help.commons.gc.cuny.edu/wp-content/blogs.dir/2935/files/2020/02/QG_-Creating-a-Post-4.pdf).

If you have additional questions or need more support to get your course up and running on the Commons, please feel free to join and post to the Teaching Courses on the Commons group (https://commons.gc.cuny.edu/groups/teaching-courses-on-the-commons/) or use the “HELP” button at the top of any page on the Commons to get in touch with the Community Team Support desk. You can also contact the Commons’ Open Educational Technologist Laurie Hurson (lhurson@gc.cuny.edu).

Thanks and welcome to teaching on the Commons!

The Commons Team

Thanks, Laurie. I've made a change https://github.com/cuny-academic-commons/cac/commit/6ddb5b8dfa52d1e5ef1782a63f6352871e40495a that should allow you to edit.

Ah yes- works now, thanks. It looks good!

I got this email when I updated a site on cdev to the teaching purpose, so it works as intended.

I wanted to make a few edits to the email copy but when I tried to access the copy in the dashboard via this link (below) i can no longer access. Last week i could see it but now it seems to have reverted to error and/or restricted access.

https://commons.gc.cuny.edu/wp-admin/post.php?post=52719&action=edit&classic-editor

Laurie, please try again now that I've reinstated your Editor role.

Thanks Boone! Works now -- I was able to access and edit the emial copy.

I've been having some trouble getting the email to show up in my inbox consistently, but I'm not sure what's intended behavior. Should I get it if I create a Group and its purpose is teaching, or is this only for Sites?

I definitely received the email once when I created a fresh teaching Site, but never for a group. I've tried a couple of times. I also just tried with a fresh site, and no email yet, though I think the last time it came with a bit of a delay. I should receive it each time a new teaching purpose creation of mine happens, right?

I believe the intended behavoir is that you will only receive the email one time - the first time you create a group/site with teaching purpose. It will not be sent for the first "teaching" group and also the first "teaching" site. This is to cut down on number of times a person receives this information. I think this is ok but perhaps we want to re-think frequency?

Laurie is correct. The email shows up one single time for each user. Once you've received it, you'll never receive it again.

We could consider increasing frequency, but this would mean rethinking the feature somewhat. The email is linked to the group invitation, and it definitely does not make sense to send a group invitation multiple times. If we're going to make adjustments to frequency, let's do it in a future release.

Colin, I've deleted the flag on your cdev account. This resets your status - you can now create another Teaching item, and you should get the email. But only once.

Thanks for the clarification here. I didn't realize that single-send behavior was intended, but it makes sense to me. I just created another teaching item this morning and got the email again. All seems well here.

Laurie has made some changes to the body of this email-- the most current version is here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_mQ6tHm61SPS1Xcy7btL_mxh108NgrIsChsELUbFgQY/edit.

Thank you, Laurie!

Thanks Matt and Luke.

Boone, I think I remember editing this message myself in the Commons dashboard. can you remind me where I can do that?

Thanks!

Hi Laurie - This should be it https://commons.gc.cuny.edu/wp-admin/post.php?post=123247&action=edit (Dashboard > Emails)

Great-- Thank you!