To register, click on the register link on the right sidebar

Check out the 3-minute instructional webcasts which will walk you through how to use the website.

To add a video, simply copy and paste the embed code into the body of the blog post.

To upload photos, go to the create content link in the website navigation section on the right sidebar and follow the instructions.

To sign up for an event, go to the course Calendar and click into the event. To learn more, watch the webcast, Creating Content on  LIBR 246-11 - Events

You can reserve either of the class chat rooms to brainstorm about your group projects, or just meet up and chat with others in the class.  You can either just pop into one of the chat rooms and see if they're free, or what you can do is create an event in advance to "book" the room, (just like you would a blog post, only select Event as the content type, and there is a webcast for this if you need to refresh your memory about how to create events). The event will show up on the course Calendar, and members or your group can sign up for it. If your group is thinking of scheduling a chat, take a look at the calendar and see what's scheduled and where there is a free slot - give the people before you at least an hour with the room so they aren't rushed. Right now I don't see people clamouring for these chat rooms so I think 2 is enough, but let me know if it's not working, I can always create another room!

This question comes up pretty often, it's about how to specify how much of your blog post can be seen in the trimmed version that is posted to the main page.  When you create a blog post and go to preview you get a set of instructions:

"The trimmed version of your post shows what your post looks like
when promoted to the main page or when exported for syndication. You
can insert the delimiter "<!--break-->" (without the quotes) to
fine-tune where your post gets split."

Now, that line of code that it's giving you during the preview can
be copied and pasted into your blog post where you want it to break,
but it can't be put into the WYSIWYG (rich-text) editor, because it
will just come out as printed text and that's not what you want. So
right underneath the Body section of the editor, you can click "disable
rich text" and then you will be able to see the code, and you can paste
it in there (without the quotes) wherever you want it to break.

- A lot of people offer commentary as well as favorites in their profiles, which is just fine, but if you were to put the commentary on a separate line from your favorites, you would then be able to click into the individual titles or bands or hobbies, to see who else in the class shared your interests. For example, if you put The Tudors by itself on one line, and then (is my all-time favorite!) on another, you would be able to click into just The Tudors and perhaps see that 2 other people in the class consider it a favorite, and your commentary would still appear next to it.

- Think about common usage of terms. What I mean by this is, how are most people going to phrase things in the social networking community you belong to, and do you want to use similar terminology to be able to connect with people to socialize with? For example, do most people spell out "America's Next Top Model", or do most people use the acronym ANTM? Will most people simply list Star Trek as a favorite TV show, or will they get specific about a series such as Star Trek:TNG? When you consider these variations, you have the option of phrasing your interests in ways which will lead you to others who share a common interest, or deciding to keep your interests as is. There is no "correct" way to list your interests on social networking websites such as this one, but it is important to realize that there may be more than one way.

Last semester when I taught this course, two people in class where happy to note that they both worked at the New York Public Library and they discovered this and made a connection through their user profiles. Two others made a similar connection when they discovered they both worked at the NYPL. Take a look around at other people's user profiles and see what ways they are using to phrase things.

- Include more than one or two interests or favorites in your profiles and you'll cast a wider net to make connections with other classmates based on shared interests. Don't forget that after you add an item, you can click into its link to see if others share this interest with you, and you may discover other shared interests this way.

- The About Me section in the My Info tab is your chance to share with the class anything that didn't get included in the pre-defined categories such as Favorite Films, what you fill in here will appear in the What Else? section.

It may not be obvious to those of you who haven't created a lot of online content how to create a hyperlink in your blog posts.  What you want to do is put in whatever text you want to use as your link, highlight it, and click the button on the toolbar that looks like a small chain link.  This will bring up a dialog box which will let you enter your url and info.  Note: the button will be greyed out until you highlight something.

You have a few different ways to find people and their content on the website.
- Click on a user's avatar or go to the User List to enter their user profile. Once there, you can scroll down to see their most recent posts. If you click into the "more" link, this will give you a list of every blog post, comment, image, poll, etc. that the user has ever posted.
- At the base of each blog post is a link to enter that person's blog to see all of their blog posts.
- There are lists of Recent Popular and All-Time Popular content and a link to more on the far-right sidebar.
- The list of Recent Comments on the far-right sidebar will show you what discussions are currently underway.
- Clicking through and reading the postings to the main page are another way to see what's current.
- We'll soon be learning how to subscribe to the website's RSS feeds in a newsreader to keep up-to-date.

There are many ways to navigate this website, please click around and check them all out!

Once you make a request to add someone to your buddylist, an invitation is sent to your potential friend and they receive a red announcement that appears at the top of the website letting them know that they have a pending buddylist request. They must then approve or
deny your request.

Everyone can access their pending buddylist requests by clicking the "My Buddylist" link on the near-right sidebar. Once in the buddylist section you will notice that you can toggle to a "Pending Requests" tab at the top portion of that page. It is here that all of your outstanding invites will sit until you make your decision about them.
So please keep an eye on this section to make sure you take care of your requests!