The LINCS Community thrives on your participation in discussions. You may read discussions in our public discussion Groups without being signed in, but must sign in as a member of a group in order to create or comment on a discussion. Please see https://community.lincs.ed.gov/help/how-do-i-create-new-account-or-register-community if you’re not sure how to create a login account.
Viewing All Available Groups
To view all of the Groups listed on the LINCS Portal, login to https://community.lincs.ed.gov/ and click on "Groups."
This button is located on the site's primary navigation bar:
Viewing Your Groups
To view a list of the Groups in which you're a member, go to the Groups page (as explained above) and then look for the Groups navigation bar on the left-hand side of the page.
There, you'll see a button for "My Groups." Click this button to view all of your Group memberships in one place.
Viewing Recent Group Activity and Commenting on Existing Discussions
It is generally a good rule of thumb to view recent group activity see if there is an existing discussion for a given topic to comment on before creating a new one. There are several ways you can go about seeing the latest from your groups and find discussions to participate in.
- When logged in, click My LINCS in the main menu. The default page displayed when you visit My LINCS is the My Groups' Activity page. This page shows a collapsible list of recent group activity (bulletins, discussions, polls, etc) for all the groups you've joined.
- If a discussion listed here interests you simply click its title. Alternatively you can click the Discussions button for a group to browse all discussions in that group.
- The following shows the discussions list page for a given group. Notice the Search Filters section. If you click Search Filters a list of fields will be displayed you can use to filter discussions for the current group. This can be helpful if you're looking for discussions on a given topic.
- Once you've located a discussion you'd like to comment on, click its title to open it. Once the discussion is open, scroll down and select Add new comment just below the post.
- You may want to provide an informative title for your comment in the Subject. If you don’t title your comment, the first section of your comment will automatically become the title. You can use a variety of formatting tools to create your Comment.
- When finished, select Preview to review your comment before it is posted to the group. If you do not want to make any changes, select Post at the bottom of the page.
Please note: Once another member replies to your comment, you will no longer be able to edit it. If you need help editing a post, please ask the LINCS Help Desk for assistance (you can contact us at https://community.lincs.ed.gov/contact-us or by email at support@lincs.ed.gov).
Creating a New Discussion
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If you’d like to discuss a topic which is not yet under discussion in your group, you can create a new discussion by following these steps:
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Log in to the Community Portal and select My Groups to view a list of all groups that you're a member of.
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You also have the choice of clicking My LINCS to view only your groups with recent activity. If this is the case, on the default My LINCS page (My Groups' Activity) click the Hide All Activity button (the displayed button text will change to Show All Activity)
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On both the My Groups and My LINCS pages, you can navigate to each Group's discussions page by clicking the turquoise blue "Discussions" button.
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On the resulting discussions list page select Add Discussion.
- Complete the Title and Body fields to create your discussion post. You can use a variety of formatting tools in the Body field to create your post.
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You may tag the discussion with multiple Tag keywords. Add a comma between tags.
- When finished, select Preview to see your new discussion before it is posted to the group. If you do not want to make any changes, select Post at the bottom of the page.
Please note: Once a member comments to your discussion thread, you will no longer be able to edit your post. If you need help editing a post, please ask the LINCS Help Desk for assistance (you can contact us at https://community.lincs.ed.gov/contact-us or by email at support@lincs.ed.gov).