Academic Webfolio Project

AFP Academic Webfolio Project

Website User Guide


1. Overview of new functional features

 
1. 1. User profile: (including research interests, teaching responsibilities and a user’s picture).

1.2. Editable Webfolios. Users can :

a)       add, edit, delete WF items,

b)       assign to them any tags,

c)       set up access permissions for any WF item,

d)       add newer versions of the same item (for example, a CV),

e)       assign time periods when items should be displayed in the Webfolio,

f)        insert pictures, charts or diagrams in item texts,

g)       attach up to three files to the same item.

1.3. My Peer Circle: It is an analogue of “Friends” on social networking websites. Users select members of this circle based on proximity of research interests, joint work on some task, etc. My Peer Circle can include individuals as well as entire Academic Communities and departments. This circle can be used in regulating access to separate WF items.

1.4. Internal Messaging System (IMS): an internal website’s email with basic functions. It is used for communication among users within the website and for collecting various automatic messages produced by website software (reminders, alerts, requests, updates etc.).

1.5. Watching Webfolios (or separate WF items) for updates: users “subscribe” to updates of some items/Webfolios they are interested in. As soon as these items/Webfolios get modified by their authors, the “subscriber” gets alerted about this fact via the IMS.

One can stop watching webfolios by clicking on the red icon next to the WF in the left column of the My Webfolio page.

1.6. Academic Communities (user-generated): users can set up new Academic Communities and invite/select to them other users. Communities can be organized around any topic or task and have their own Community Webfolio, a joint Calendar and a Wiki.

Communities have their own Administrator (manages membership) and Moderator (manages content of the Community Webfolio). By default these roles are assigned to the Community owner, but he/she can delegate them to other community members.

There is an icon for that in the Webfolio block on the page of the Departmental or Academic Community if he/she has the permission for this. One can add or remove the Moderators and Administrators by clicking on No/Yes link in the appropriate column in the line of the user.

Each member of the Academic Community can upload materials to the Academic Community Webfolio and contribute to the Community’s Wiki. Uploaded materials will be “published” in the communities’ Webfolio (i.e. become visible to registered users) only after the community Owner or the community Moderator has approved them. Until that moment the materials are accessible only by their author, the Community Moderator and the Community Owner.

Joining Academic Communities

If a user wants to join a community one has to click the join link in the Academic Communities webfolio list. The Community membership status turns into pending approval. After the user clicked join the owner of the community gets a membership request. If the owner of the community accepts the request, the user gains the membership and will be able to add items to the community webfolio.

1.7. WF item versioning and their “publishing” on the Webfolio: users can keep as many earlier versions of an often updated material (for example, a CV) in their Webfolios as they need. Only the latest versions approved by the Webfolio author will be “published” in her/his Webfolio (and accessible by others), whereas the author can track back and use all the previous and unpublished versions of the same WF item.

Approving WF items in the Departmental and Academic Communities’ webfolios

If  a member adds a new WF item to either the Departmental or Academic Communities’ webfolios in order for it to appear on the webfolio page it the moderator should approve it first. Until this happens a red icon is shown next to the WF item and it gets the pending approval status.

Item versioning and history

In each type of WFs the older versions of an item can be handled via History function by default. Each user can only handle one’s own items. In addition in case of the Departmental and Community WFs the moderator is also able to see and modify these earlier versions.

In the webfolio table of Departments and Communities one’s  latest items are shown (regardless if it’s approved or not), if the item doesn’t belong to the member only the approved version of those items will show up. The history and the approval icons are shown on the screenshot below.

1.8. Blogs: each user gets his/her own blog with basic features standard for specialized blog services. Blog entries can be commented by other users. The blog owner can edit his/her blog (including deleting comments of other users) and connect it to their blogs on outside services.

1.9. Flexible access levels to Webfolio items: users can set up different access permissions for each WF item separately, which could be made accessible by :

a)  All registered users (this is the option by default);

b) My peer circle only

c) A customized group of users

d) Me [the author] only.

1.10. Aggregators of recent updates in Webfolios as well as posts in Forums and blogs (placed on the main page of the website).

1.11. Wikis: each Community and Department has its own Wiki that can be used by all their members for tasks requiring collective input (for example, a meeting agenda.)

1.12. Forums: Forum threads are organized in categories. Users can assign tags to threads they post.

1.13. Online library subscription available to all registered users (we are starting with JSTOR and will add more online subscriptions later on).

1.14. OSI Open CourseWare – a collection of teaching materials produced by website users (mostly, AFP Returning Scholars) as part of their fellowships. These materials will be available for downloading for the entire Internet on a Creative Commons license.

2. Main page

The main page of the website contains the following blocks:

2.1. Personal navigation block

 

 

 

 

The personal navigation block provides quick access to the user's account, Individual Webfolio, IMS, and the blog. The two numbers after „My Messages” indicate the number of unread messages and the total number of messages in the user's Inbox, correspondingly (the exclamation mark indicates that there are some unread messages).

It provides quick access to various categories of Webfolios and Forums and allows implementing website search.

 

2.3. Search block (in the main navigation bar).

Users can search in all or some categories of information on the website (by ticking some boxes from the list).

 

2.4. OSI Open Courseware (OCW) block


 
This is an Academic Community Webfolio, members of which are all registered website users. They can upload their completed teaching materials to OCW under one of the Creative Commons licenses .

Upon approving by the OCW Moderator, the uploaded items will be available for downloading for the entire Internet (the author of the materials will be able to modify them at any time afterwards).

 

The main page also contains the following (self-explanatory) blocks:

- News and Announcements,
- Recently updated webfolios,
- Recent forum threads,
- Recent blog posts, and
- How-to-get-started block (with a possibility to contact the website administrator and read the Short manual).

3. My Account page

User profile settings

 

Apart from usual user information, this page allows to upload/change the user’s picture,

 

4. My Webfolio Page

My Webfolio page is the main page for handling the user's individual Webfolio, Academic Communities that the user is a member or the owner of, the lists of user's peers, Webfolios watched and the user's calendar. From this page, the user can also get access to the online libraries.




My Webfolio page has the following blocks:

1) User’s information block

2) User’s Webfolio table

3) Online libraries block
4) My Academic Communities
5) My Peers
6) Webfolios I am watching for updates
7) My calendar

 

4.1. Managing My Webfolio table

4.1.1. Viewing user’s Webfolio

The user’s Individual Webfolio table can be viewed in the following ways (by clicking corresponding radio-buttons (i.e. the small round circles :)) 

-          a) by item category
or
b) by item tag (these are alternative views);

-          c) items from current academic year only
or

d) items from all academic years (these are also two alternative views).

a) by item’s category (the default option for the first pair of radio-buttons)

Webfolio items in the table are grouped in categories in accordance with the general list of Webfolio items’ categories that is standard for all Individual Webfolios. This list includes broad sections Teaching, Research, and Service [to academic community, university and OSI], each of the sections includes categories like Syllabus, Research in progress, etc.)

Note: If there are several Webfolio items in one category, they are arranged in the reverse chronological order (recently created on top).

b) by item’s tag

Items in the Webfolio are re-grouped according to the text tags associated with them (items with no tags are shown in the bottom part of the webfolio).

c) items from current academic year only (the default option for the second pair of the radio-buttons)

This option will show only items created after the beginning of the current academic year, which we have set at August 15, 2009 (this date will be changing each academic year, of course.)

d) items from all academic years

This option will show all items created by the author since the date of her registration on the new (or old) webfolio website.

4.1.2. Sorting items in My Webfolio table

Clicking each column title of My Webfolio table re-sors items in the table in the direct and reverse alphabetical (or chronological) order.

Note: by default items are sorted by Last modified field (i.e. recently created items are on top in each category)

4.1.3. Item’s Action icons

Users can manage their Webfolio items by clicking one of the Action icons at the end of the table line against each Webfolio item.
 

a) History icon 

It provides access to all previous versions of the same WF item (to the item’s author only). Other users can see only the last version approved by its author, which is „published” in his/her Webfolio.

b) Edit icon 

It allows the user to edit the Webfolio item, change its access level, associate with the item additional tags, etc. Upon publishing the new version of the item, its old version is saved in database (and can be accessed via History icon)

c) Delete icon

Clicking it deletes the item from the database (this operation cannot be reversed)..

d) Approve icon

This icon appears next to items that have been saved but not approved by the author (both the item and this icon are seen only by the Webfolio author, not other users). Clicking this icon results in publishing the item in the Webfolio.

4.2. Creating a new Webfolio item

By clicking the „Add Webfolio Item” button

 

allowing him/her to fill out the following information and set up parameters relating to the new item:

a) title
b) lead (brief introduction)
c) main text
d) item’s language

e) upload attachments (up to three attachments per each item)

f) set up access level (by default – it is open by all registered users).
Note:the access levelcan be changed only after the first Save of the information inserted by the user on this page in other fields.
g) item's category (select one of the predefined categories
(Note: this field is mandatory)

h) tags that the user would like to associate with the item (either select one of the existing tags or create a new one).
Note: tags can consist of more than one word (for example, users can mark a group of WF items with the tag „Fellowship Project 2009-2010”)

i) period during which the item will be displayed in the Webfolio (by default it is „from now on, never auto-expire”)

Field „Version” is updated automatically by the website software after saving every new version of the same item. All previous versions of the item are accessible (by the author only) via History icon at the end of the WF item line.

Both the lead and the main text of the item can contain pictures, tables, links to Internet pages, etc. They can also be created in other applications (for example, MS Word) and copy-pasted to the lead's and main text's windows.


4.2.1. Different Save options

There are three Save buttons on the page: Save, Save and Continue, Save and Approve.


The difference among these  Save buttons is as follows.

a) Save 

- information inserted on this screen is saved in the website's database,
- the user is taken to the previous page (My Webfolio);
- the newly created item can be seen in the user's Webfolio only by its owner (not other users). It is shown with the red sign „pending approval”(by the author). In order to approve the item, the user has to click the Edit icon at the end of the item's line, review information in all the fields, and click Save and Approve button on the item editing page. 

b) Save and Continue:

- information is saved in the website's database,
- the user stays on the page „Creating a new Webfolio item” and keeps editing the item;
- the newly created item can be seen in the user's Webfolio only by its owner (not other users). It is shown with the red sign „pending approval”(by the author). In order to approve the item, the user has to click the Edit icon at the end of the item's line, review information in all the fields, and click Save and Approve button on the item editing page. 

c) Save and Approve

- information inserted is saved in the website's database,
- the created item is „published” in the user's webfolio and becomes visible to all users, who have permission to see this item (according to the Access level set up by the webfolio author).

4.2.2. Access levels to Webfolio items

Users can set up the following access permissions for each WF item separately: Items can be made availalbe to:

a)  All registered users (this is the option by default) (marked with in the table);

b) My Peer circle (marked with
(Note: My Peer circle can include individual users as well as entire departments and academic communities)

d) Me [the author] only (it is a temporary option for some sensitive materials).

4.2. My Academic Communities block


All operations with the user’s Academic Communities are grouped in one block:

 

 

 

4.2.1. Creating communities 

Click „Create community” button.
- Fill out all the fields in the form on the next screen.
(Later on you will be able to assign members to your community from My Academic Communities block in the right column of your Webfolio.)

 

 

 

 

 

4.2.2. Managing your communities

- Click „Manage my communities” button.

- From the next screen, you will be able to perform the following operations with your communities:

- Add Members to your communities,
            - Delete communities

- Assign Moderators and Administrators of to your communities

(Note: by default their functions are assigned to the community Owner (i.e. the user, who has created this community. Assigning other members to Community Moderator and Adminstrator roles still allows the community Owner to perform their functions (i.e. manage Community’s Webfolio items and membership).)

Click on the View members icon next to the community which you would like to manage in the My Academic Communities block. This function is reachable via Manage my communities function as well (there is a View member link in each row of the table) and there is an icon in the Webfolio block on the page of the Academic Community if you have the permission for this. One can add or remove the Moderators and Administrators by clicking on No/Yes link in the appropriate column in the line of the user.

4.2.3. Joining a community

- click Join community button in My Academic Communities block of your Webfolio

- click Join icon next to the community you are interested in from the list of all Academic Communities
(Note: you will be able to delete yourself from any community by clicking Leave icon in My Academic Communities block of your Webfolio).

4.3. Managing My Peers Circle

You can add new members to your Peer Circle by clicking button Add peer

and selecting users from the list (by clicking their names, the second click will unselect the previously selected user).
 (Note: some column titles in the table are „clickable” and can be used for sorting the user table in the direct or reverse alphabetical order)

You can delete users from your Peer Circle by clicking the Trash Bin icon in My Peers block of your Webfolio.

4.4. Watching Webfolios (or separate Webfolio items) for updates 

You can start watching either an entire Webfolio or a particular Webfolio item for updates in their content

4.5. User’s Calendar

It is a simple user’s calendar that allows sending reminders about events scheduled by the user either to his/her IMS or to the user’s external email.

Apart from scheduling events, users can follow up on the previously scheduled ones

(Note: all Academic Communities and Departments also have their Calendars. In the current version of the website they are not connected to Individual Calendars (will be implemented in the next modification of the website)


5. Individual Webfolios Page

5.1. Arranging Webfolios in the table

The order of webfolios in the table can be changed by clicking any of the column titles. The first click will rearrange webfolios in the ascending alphabetical order, the second click – in the descending one alphabetical order (clicking on the Last updated column re-sorts Webfolios in the direct/reverse chronological order).

Note: By default all Webfolio tables are arranged in the reverse chronological order (last updated Webfolios on top of the table).

5.2. Searching Webfolios / separate Webfolio items

The Webfolio Search block has two tabs – one for searching Webfolios (shown by default) and one for searching Webfolio items. Both tabs can be used for Basic/Advanced search. All the search fields are self-explanatory. 

6. Departmental and Communities Webfolios pages

They are similar in the layout and functions to the Individual Webfolios page with a few exceptions.

a)       different categories of their items.

b)       a possibility (for community or department members) to edit the community’s (department’s) Wiki (the little shield icon at the end of each line)

c)       there is a possibility to Join any community (not department!) by clicking Join icon in the community line

7. Webfolio item page



This page has information about the category of the item, the dates of its creation, last modification and the last comment. It also has links to the item’s attachments and allows (the author) to request a Peer Review of this particular item from a registered user. All users can place their comments to this item in the Comment text field.

It is an internal website’s email with basic functions.

It is used for communication among users within the website and for collecting various automatic messages produced by website software (reminders, alerts, requests, updates etc.).

Aggregated messages from the IMS are sent to the user's external email address in predefined by the user periods (for example, daily or weekly).

9. Forums

The Forums block has standard features with a possibility for users to post new threads, participate in discussions initiated by other users, subscribe/unsubscribe to different threads, etc.