MSPnet Announces New Working Group Functionalities
Description
MSPnet serves the MSP
community by providing both resources and collaborative tools. We are
pleased to
announce that we have added new tools to your
project's Working
Groups to better
enable you to work
with other project members.
Highlights:
1. WORKING GROUP OVERVIEW
Working Groups provide
teams
of project members with their own space to share ideas and work.
Project-wide Working Group
Your project has a project-wide working group which is inclusive of all
project colleagues who are members of MSPnet. When you add colleagues
as members to MSPnet, they will automatically be
incorporated into the " href="http://www.mspnet.org/primary_space.cfm/index.cfm/prj_forum">Project
Working Group."
Creating other working groups within your project
Each project can form additional
working groups, small or large, that enable partners to communicate and
collaborate online. By default, all members can suggest new groups, but
only administrators can create them. Administrators of each project can
change this to permit all members within their project to create
working groups. (more
info on this...)
Several tools are available to each working group:
- Discussion Board
- these are moderated threaded discussions.
- Calendar - keep
group members informed of upcoming events.
- Surveys - this tool is described in detail below.
- File Manager -
files can be shared and archived.
- Email Group -
email whole group or subset of members.
- Digest Email -
nightly digest informs members of new acticvity within working group.
When you create
working groups you can choose from three href="http://hub.mspnet.org/help/?shortcut=admin_0033">privacy
settings:
- Private - Only
working group members can see the working group in the listing and no
one may apply. - Project - Only
your project members can see the group in the listing and may apply to
join if they wish. - Site - All
MSPnet members will see the group listed in your project's working
groups and all may apply.
Many projects have chosen to
create smaller working groups for leadership teams, vertical teams,
teacher workshop groups, etc. Projects use the working groups for the
following collaborative efforts:
- Discuss a relevant
article or event. - Conduct a brainstorming
session. - Plan a workshop or
seminar. - Extend or supplement
face-to-face interactions that may be restricted due to geography or
time constraints. - Archive and share
documents without filling up email inboxes. - Start a collaborative
community of people with common goals within or across projects.
Visit your project's
Working Groups now:
http://www.mspnet.org/primary_space.cfm/index.cfm/forums
2. INTRODUCING SURVEY TOOL
We have added a href="http://www.mspnet.org/primary_space.cfm/index.cfm/prj_forum">survey
tool for you to use to collect data from members within a working
group. The survey tool might be useful for something as simple as
getting consensus on a meeting date to something as complex as creating
a questionnaire to assess what participants have gained from a
workshop.
When you create a survey you can make it anonymous or you can allow the
respondents to be identified. The respondents will be notified as to
which type of survey it is before they take the survey. You will also
be able to see aggregate results immediately online, and you can choose
whether or not respondents can also view the aggregate results.
When you create a survey you can elect to send it to your entire
working group, or any subset of members of the working group. We
suggest that you try out this new tool by creating a survey for
yourself and one or two colleagues. We are eager to hear href="http://hub.mspnet.org/contact/">your feedback as to how it
works for you!
Visit your Project
Working Group to create a survey:
href="http://www.mspnet.org/primary_space.cfm/index.cfm/prj_forum">http://www.mspnet.org/primary_space.cfm/index.cfm/prj_forum
3. EMAIL DIGESTS NOW
CUSTOMIZED FOR YOU
We're doing our part to reduce your mailbox clutter!
All MSPnet Working Group Digests are now being combined into one
email. Each night MSPnet will send you one email containing the
day's activity for ALL of your working groups (including groups in the
Hub). In the past, you would receive a separate email for each group to
which you belong, now you will receive just one email. Note that if
there is no activity in your groups, you will not receive an email.
4. UPDATES FOR ADMINISTRATORS
We have made the creation process for new working groups far simpler
and more intuitive. Some of the specifics are listed below. For more
information, please href="http://hub.mspnet.org/help/?shortcut=admin_0022">visit
our extensive online help.
- When inviting people to
a group, you now have the option to choose individuals by name or to
choose groups of people by role (i.e. all evaluators, teachers,
Co-PI's, etc.) - New project members
will automatically be added to the Project Working Group. - Moderators can now edit
the working group's name, description, and moderator list. - New survey tool allows
you to create surveys with customizable anonymity and privacy settings.
You can also specify who can create new surveys (default allows project
members to create new surveys, but you can change this.) - Members now receive a
combined working group digest email instead of receiving one digest for
each group.
Please send us your feedback on this new functionality.