CUNY Academic Commons

Figured we could brainstorm down here:

1. Take the tour - On the front page, select 'Take a Tour' and let us walk you through the Commons and the many...
2. Find colleagues - Click the member tab and search by name to find which of your colleagues are already making use...
3. Join a Group - There are hundreds of groups that cater to a variety of interests across the university. Search by...
4. Personalize your experience - Select the 'My Commons' tab and find 'My Settings.' This feature allows you to control how...
5. Get involved - Select 'Forums' and find out what conversations are happening around the community and how you can help...
6. Blog - Blogging allows you to share your voice with the entire CUNY community...
7. Contribute to the Wiki - The Wiki is an excellent resource for information and shared knowledge. Help build our...
8. Create your own Group - If you don't find a group that shares your interests, start your own! Creating groups is easy...
9. Invite others - From your profile, click 'Send Invites' and help grow the Commons...
10. Stay in touch - To your right you will notice a 'Feedback' tab. Click and share with us your experience and ways...

Here's ten just thinking out loud. I'm not sure if you wanted something more precise. I didn't mention anything about profiles because I assume they've taken care of that when they created their account. That being said, it might be worth it to mention that after you get settled you might want to go back and really beef up your profile since a lot of folks skim through that part to get started. Let me know what you guys think and feel free to edit, adjust the order, delete entirely...

Best,
Brian

That's a really wonderful list, Brian. The only thing I'd change is to reword a few of the headings -- "Blog" --> "Start a Blog"; "Stay in Touch" ---> to "Give us feedback"; Otherwise, this is great.

Does anyone else want to raise other possibilities?

Hi guys,

I created a writeboard for this on Cast Iron this morning, but if we want to collaborate here instead that's cool with me. I think the list Brian came up with is great to work off of. I'm simply cutting and pasting what I wrote in the writeboard here (very preliminary):

• Find friends
• Join groups
• Search for members from your campus, search for members with same academic interests
• Set notification preferences
• Learn about your privacy options across the commons
• Create a wiki sandbox

Looking forward to fleshing this all out!

Best,
Sarah

Sarah Morgano wrote:

Hi guys,

I created a writeboard for this on Cast Iron this morning, but if we want to collaborate here instead that's cool with me. I think the list Brian came up with is great to work off of. I'm simply cutting and pasting what I wrote in the writeboard here (very preliminary):

• Find friends
• Join groups
• Search for members from your campus, search for members with same academic interests
• Set notification preferences
• Learn about your privacy options across the commons
• Create a wiki sandbox

Looking forward to fleshing this all out!

Best,
Sarah

Sarah - I always forget about sandboxes! That's a feature I would definitely want to mention with wikis and is probably something I should go back and highlight in some of the other products we've written up.

Matt - It'd be easy to soften the language on blogs. I'm not sold on the copy either necessarily, just starting things off.

Sorry for coming in late on this. I think all these are great! The only one that I can think of (and maybe it should wait until new version of WP and we ave some templates in place) is "Promote yourself - Create a CV or ePortfolio. Enhance your profile page...List your publications... etc."

I like the idea of enhancing your profile page. You can't expect members with similar interests to connect if they don't list any! I'm not sure where (and if) this would fit in, but I'd like to invite others to subscribe to RSS feeds and follow the Commons on social networking sites outside of the Commons. What do yall think?

Best,

Sarah

Brian, can you put together a draft that brings together as many of these ideas as possible? If there is any way that you can do it in time for our meeting tomorrow, that would be great -- we could ask the committee for input, too.