Community Guidelines for Participation

LINCS expects LINCS Community members to follow the more common rules associated with online interactions:

General:

  • We have found that learning is promoted by dialogue in a spirit of inquiry, curiosity, and mutual respect.  Please conduct your discussions in that spirit within the LINCS Community.
  • Messages typed in all capitals are considered shouting and in discussion forums are considered rude, so please be considerate. For emphasis use bold, italics, or underline instead of all capitals.
  • Comments made in jest may not always appear that way to other readers. Sarcasm rarely works on the internet and is often misunderstood. Please be careful using humor in the LINCS Community.

Posts:

  • You might introduce yourself to other group members when posting to the group for the first time.
  • Do not duplicate postings or discussions. Before starting a new discussion (e.g. about Open versus Managed Enrollment), use the search function to see if a discussion on that topic already exists and contribute to that discussion if applicable. 
  • Give each post a clear and specific title with words people can find through search. “Adult education” is too broad a title as every post using the term “education” will pull up in a search. “Math lesson plans” is more specific and your message will return on searches made by those seeking lesson plans.
  • Tag your post with 2-3 key terms so that your post will return when other participants search tags using one or more of the terms you selected.
  • Link to articles you reference whenever possible. This makes for more efficient use by those who read your ideas and enhances the knowledge base of the field.
  • Your username is displayed when you post a message and your username links to your profile. Having an updated professional profile will better enable others to understand who you are as they consider a response to your message.
  • Be concise. Messages more than two screens in length are difficult for some participants to read. Shorter, to the point messages move the discussion along at a lively pace.

Replies to Posts:

  • Before you reply to a post, consider whether it should go to everyone in the group, or just to the person posting the message. If you think your reply will be of general interest, post it to the group; if not, then send a private message to the originator of the post through their member profile.
  • It helps participants if you quote the part of the message (usually not the whole message) to which you are replying. Participants will then respond to your message in the proper context.
  • If you are responding to a post but want to change the topic of a discussion thread, remember to change the subject line of your reply in order to give participants information about the new direction in the conversation, or simply start a new discussion thread.

Efficiency:

  • Track content under My LINCS where you can find the most recent activity and unread posts from groups to which you belong. Bookmark posts for easy reference.