Quickstart 2

SciSpace quick start

Once you have registered, there are some things that you need to know to get you going in the most effective way. Here are some steps to follow:

1. Quick familiarisation with the SciSpace.net layout

There is a lot to discover about SciSpace.net, but not everything is needed on your first trip. Navigation aids to note are:

1. The toolbar along the top, with buttons such as 'Activity' and 'Network' on the left, and other links on the right.
2. Under the toolbar will be a page title and context-specific links (such as the ability to edit some content).
3. Under the page title will be the main page content.
4. The right hand side has a number of links that will change depending on context. This may include links to resources and tags, wiki, blog and file resources, other users and communities, and other context-specific links.
5. At the foot of the page are some links to policies, and a link to NIEeS as the organisation than manages SciSpace.net.

2. Create your SciSpace.net profile

To create and edit your profile, use the 'Profile' button on the topbar. This takes you to your profile page, and you have the options of editing it and adding a photograph.

Your profile is what enables other people to learn something about you, to 'discover' you. For example, if I want to find an expert in a particular experimental technique who I could collaborate with, and you happen to be such an expert, by listing this in your profile I could find you quite easily. Items you specify in the various boxes in your profile are converted to tags, and tags are very important for searching.

Thus the profile is very important. You do not need to fill in all the sections (eg where you went to school, and your dislikes, may not be very useful), but some sections (like basic information about you, and your scientific interests and skills) are very useful.

Your photograph is also quite a good thing to have in place. It sends out a good image of yourself, both to those who know you and those who might want to initiate a collaboration with you.

3. Modify your account settings

There are not many settings here, so this stage should not take you more than a minute or two. The link to 'Account Settings' is in the right-hand side of the toolbar. One interesting setting is whether you want email notifications of change in content you want to monitor. From 'Account Settings' you have another route to adding a photograph.

4. Add some friends

Adding friends doesn't tie you to any commitments, and certainly doesn't commit your intended friend to reciprocate. Creating friends is useful in the automated organisation of your personal SciSpace.net pages.

You can find who else is on SciSpace.net in two ways. Firstly you can type their name into the search button. Secondly you can use the browse button to list everyone who has an account on SciSpace.net (although as SciSpace.net begins to get busy this will become increasingly hard to use).

5. Join some communities

The strength of SciSpace.net is in the ability to create and join communities. For collaborative work, small groups need to be able to post information as a community and to control who has access. Communities can be large if they concern a wide subject area, or they can be as small as 2-3 people who want space in which to share data and ideas. The nice thing about SciSpace.net is that it accommodates the full range of community size.

Some communities will be open for you to join, but others will be set up so that requests to join will need approval by the community owner.

Once you are settled into SciSpace.net (which hopefully will be quick), to make good use of it you can map your own scientific interests onto SciSpace.net. Thus you may want to create your own communities with people you collaborate with, and if your collaborators are not yet members of SciSpace.net you can bring them on board by using the 'Network' button on the toolbar and pressing the 'Invite a friend' link.

6. Getting help and making suggestions

We have created some help pages, which you can read from this link. In fact the help pages are presented in the format of a community, with the information being provided through the community wiki.

We are always interested in discussion as to how to make SciSpace.net better. We have a SciSpace Discussion community, where you can post discussion points to the community blog and engage with others.

Beyond this Quickstart

SciSpace has a lot of functionality, and it may be possible to extend what is available. Use the help function to provide a lot of additional information, or the SciSpace discussion to ask questions or make suggestions.

iframe, 15-Oct-2007 13:50 (GMT)