Category Archives: Groups

Can I share an event with a group?

Posted on by

Yes! To create and share an event, simply hover over your name and avatar at the top right of the screen and choose New Events from the Events menu.

feb10

After entering the date and details of your event, you’ll see a Groups section toward the bottom of the page. From there you can select the groups that you’d like to share the event with. You can only share the event with groups you belong to.

Alternatively, you can go directly to a group’s page and click Events in the menu that runs across the top of each group’s page. Click the New Event button to add your event. The settings determined by an admin or group creator may affect your ability to connect events to a given group. For more on this, read our guide to Managing Group Roles and Memberships.

What is the difference between a group and a site?

Posted on by

Whether it is best for you to use a group or a site to share information on MLA Commons depends on your communication goals. If you would like to communicate with colleagues who are interested in a certain field or professional issue, you may want to start or join a group. Groups facilitate interaction between group members, since members can participate in discussions, collaborate on docs, and share files. Participation in groups is limited to MLA members. You can read more about groups in our ‘Creating a Group’ guide.

While groups offer a great way to connect with members on topics of interest, sites are by default open to the public and allow you to engage with a community beyond MLA members. Sites can be a helpful platform for crafting a professional presence online, circulating information, reaching a broader audience for your scholarship, and posting longer reflections to both members and nonmembers. Sites are covered in more detail in this guide.

How can I join a group?

Posted on by

There are three types of groups on the Commons: public groups, private groups, and hidden groups.

Public groups will appear in the directory of groups, and anyone can join by clicking Join Group on the group’s page. All content in public groups is visible, even to people who aren’t logged in to the site.

Private groups will also appear in the directory of groups, but membership may be restricted in different ways. To request to join a private group, click Request Membership on the group’s page. If the request is approved, you’ll be able to view the group’s content.

Hidden groups won’t appear in the directory of groups, and their content is viewable only by their members. New members must be invited to join by existing group members.

How do I create a group?

Posted on by

After you’ve logged in to the Commons, click on the Groups tab; then, select the Create a Group button next to the group directory. Enter a group name and group description. Then, click Create Group and Continue. This will lead you to steps where you can choose whether to enable discussion boards; select whether your group will be public, private, or hidden; determine the member roles in your group; create a group avatar; and invite members to join your group.

Creating a group is covered in more detail in this guide.

How can I change my group e-mail notifications?

Posted on by

When you join a group, you automatically receive e-mail notifications for all group activity. If you’d like to change your notification settings for one of your groups, please go to the home page of that group and look for E-mail Options in the left navigation panel. On the next page, select your preferred option:  No E-mail, Weekly Summary E-mail, Daily Digest E-mail, New Topics E-mail, All E-mail. Then, select Save Settings.

These are covered in more detail in this guide.

Why do unwanted characters appear in my post, comment, or page?

Posted on by

If you copy text from Microsoft Word or from an e-mail and paste it into MLA Commons, you may sometimes see unwanted characters. There are a few things you can do to ensure that only your text (and none of the strange characters) appears in your post:

If you are posting to a space that gives you the choice between composing in Visual or Text modes, select the Text editor. After pasting in the content you would like to add, you can switch back to Visual mode to modify the formatting.

faq1

If you do not see the Visual and Text tabs, you will need to convert the document to plain text before pasting it into the Commons. To do this, first save your original document. Then click File > Save As. Choose a new name for your file to differentiate it from the original. This step is very important. It prevents you from losing your original, formatted work. Once you have selected a new file name, change the selected file type from Word Document to Plain Text (.txt) using the Format field. Open the new text file and copy and paste your work from there.

Can I edit my comments?

Posted on by

Once posted, comments cannot be changed. Comments provide a useful record of ongoing conversation on a blog post, forum topic, or other element of MLA Commons. We understand that you might wish to revisit a comment to fix a typo or make other revisions, but the platform aims to encourage transparency and to emphasize that online discussions and publications are always evolving. We suggest that instead of revising comments you add a new comment noting the change you wish to make.

How do I upload files to a group?

Posted on by

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.

What can MLA Commons do for my forum?

Posted on by

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.