After logging in to the Commons, click on the image or icon in the top right-hand corner. This will take you to your profile page. Now, click Edit. From here you can update your academic interests, Web sites, and additional profile fields. To edit your name, title, or institutional affiliation, please log in to mla.org.
A more detailed guide on editing your profile can be found here.
After logging in to the Commons, go to the black toolbar at the top of the page and select the image at the upper-right-hand corner (next to My Commons). This will take you to your profile; click on the image on this page to upload and replace it with a new one. For more information about editing your profile, read this guide.
The @mention system links others to the hyperlinked profile of the individual mentioned while notifying the individual of the mention by e-mail. If you are in a group and want to reach out to specific members, simply put the @ symbol in front of their username to send a notification to their e-mail address, and the mention will show up in their @mention activity stream.
You can manage user roles for your site in the Admin Panel area of your site. Simply click Users in the left-hand column of your Admin area to add users and assign them different roles.
Administrators have access to all the administration features; editors can publish posts, manage their posts, and manage others’ posts; authors can publish and manage their posts; contributors can write and manage but not publish their posts; subscribers can read comments, make comments, and receive newsletters.
You must have at least one administrator, but the remaining roles are not required, and there is no limit on the number of people who can occupy each role.
If you choose to create a group site, you can assign these roles to different members as part of the group or site creation process. Roles are covered in more detail in this guide.
To reply to an e-mail notification, click on the link supplied in the notification, log in to the Commons (if you’re not already logged in), and reply.
Most of the material on MLA Commons is public and can be read by anyone. Only MLA members, however, can join private groups, participate in discussions, and publish on blogs.
To join the MLA, visit our Web site. Annual dues for regular members start at $28; graduate student dues are $23.
We hope you’ll take advantage of the site to share and discuss material with your colleagues. When you post content to the site, you are responsible for that content, as discussed in more detail in the Humanities Commons Terms of Service. Uploading material to which you don’t have the rights is a violation of our terms. If you are depositing an image, data set, or other item to our CORE repository, you must be the author or creator of that deposit. You can define the copyright restrictions on your CORE deposits by assigning a Creative Commons license to it in the upload form.
When logged in, you can post brief status updates or announcements from the My Commons page. Simply click on My Commons on the top right-hand corner of the page. Type your update in the text box next to your photo, then click Post Update when finished. The post will be publicly visible in the activity stream. Your most recent update also appears in your portfolio.
When you join a group, you can post content on the Commons by contributing to the discussion board, creating a new doc, or uploading a file. If you want to upload a file, go to Files in the left-hand menu of your group home page. You will see a list of files that have been shared by other colleagues. After clicking Upload a New Document, you can upload your file, give your document a display name, and offer a description. Click Save when you’re finished.
Please note that file size is limited to 2 megabytes, so you may want to use a compression tool (such as Small PDF) if your file exceeds the limit.
We encourage the executive committees of MLA forums to engage with their forum’s members on the Commons. Each forum has its own group and contains the following features:
● A discussion area that functions like a LISTSERV but has additional archival capacities. Members can choose to receive messages as they are posted or as a daily or weekly e-mail digest.
● A Docs area for collaboratively writing documents, such as calls for papers.
● The opportunity to share items deposited in CORE, the MLA repository, directly with their most likely readers: members of a given forum.
● A private file-storage area for items that members wish to restrict to the forum, such as syllabi and works in progress.
● The option to create a publicly accessible group Web site that showcases the forum’s area of focus as well as its convention sessions and that demonstrates the field’s public appeal. Members who have created these sites have benefited from increased interest in their work and a greater sense of connectedness to their colleagues.
Most MLA forums are made up of one hundred to two thousand members, and these discussion spaces have the potential to be rich sources of intellectual and pedagogical exchange. We ask that members of these forums, especially executive committee members, lead the way! If you have any questions about encouraging use of this community space, please write to us at commons@mla.org.