Navigate this Tutorial

Use the arrows at the bottom of each tutorial page to navigate forward and backward page by page. Clicking on the link pointing to the left navigates back one page. Clicking on the link pointing to the right advances one page. Selecting "up" takes you a step up within the table of contents. To the left of each page you will find an outline which you can use to jump to other sections of the tutorial.

Create an Account

Memberships in web sites are often required because the services that they provide are driven by information that the member needs to manage. Keeping track of passwords is a burden, but receiving the added services can be worth it. 

You will need a valid email address to become a member of the CPS-VO.

	Step 1: At the top of the page click on the "Click here to register" link.
	Step 2: You will be taken to the “Register” page. Fill out the requested fields and click the “Create new account” button at the bottom of the form.
	If registration is successful, you will receive a "Your password and further instructions have been sent to your email address" message.
	You will receive an email like the one below at the email address which you provided on registration. Click the one-time login link or copy and paste it into your browser address bar.
	Step 3: To finalize account initialization, click the "Log in" button.
	Step 4: After clicking the log-in button you will be taken to your “Account information” page where you will be required to provide a new password. In the account panel you will be able to: Upload a photo of yourself (Make sure it is sized at 85 pixels x 85 pixels) Edit your username, email and password.  Set a signature that will show at the bottom of your messages Set your email preferences Allow or disallow personal contact through the website
	Step 5: Click the “Create Your User Profile” link  to complete your profile.
	Step 6:  In the user profile panel, you can share your: First Name & Last Name Title and organization Biography, research abstract, and web site/Linked In/CPS-VO Projects URLs You may later log in to edit your account and profile information by clicking the "Edit" tab in the upper left corner of the panel. Click "account" or "user profile" tabs to edit each respectively.

User Roles

Global Roles

"Anonymous Users" are users who are not logged in (or have not yet joined the CPS-VO). They can browse the site, but are not able to contribute content to the portal.

"Authenticated Users" are entry level users with the most basic level of membership. Authenticated users can join groups but must request 'Trusted User' status before contributing content to the global repository, calendar, and forums.

"Trusted Users" are Established Community Members (indicated by the badge shown to the left) - a member who has been vetted and approved by site managers and site administrators. This trusted member will then be able to post information to the CPS-VO home page. CPS-VO members can apply for elevated "trusted user" status via the "Contact Support" link under the "Home" tab in the global menu at the top of every CPS-VO page.

A "Site Moderator" (indicated by the badge shown to the left) is a member who has permissions to modify and delete content and administer comments on the CPS-VO. 

A "Site Administrator" has global access to all VO content. This means that a Site Administrator has the privileges of a group manager and moderator in all groups. They can add/ remove members, broadcast messages, and create/remove group admins. Additionally, they can configure group services, add/ban group members, and also have full control over group content.

Group Roles

"Group Members" can contribute to the group repository by uploading files, posting videos, and creating events & news items. They can also contribute to the forums, conduct online meetings, and create projects and wiki pages. (join groups at cps-vo.org/og)

"Group Moderators" do not have general administrative capabilities, but do have full control over your group's content. Therefore, while a mod will not be expected to manage the groups members/services, they will perform an editorial function. Moderators are responsible for grooming the content of your group and ensuring that publicly viewable content is appropriate, correct, and complete to your group's own standards.

"Group Managers" have privileges and responsibility for activities such as:

• Group Menu Structure - creating and deleting panel pages, configuring panel page publishing settings, posting content to panel pages.
• Group Membership - adding and banning group members, moderating membership requests, configuring member roles
• Group Taxonomy Structure - creating and managing group vocabularies.
• Group Forum Structure - creating forums, administrering froum privacy settings
• Broadcast Messages - emailing all group members with a copy of your message. 

"Primary Manager" of the group. Has all privileges of Group Moderators and Managers.

Participate in Groups

The CPS-VO Portal provides extensive support for Special Interest Groups.

Exemplars of types of groups are:

1. R&D SIGs
   • Federal Agency
   • PI Projects
2. Websites for workshops and conferences
3. Planning meeting groups for workshops and conferences
4. Program committee groups for workshops and conferences
5. Working groups

Groups may be formed to meet different needs. Typical use cases include:

1. Planning R&D Workshops, Meetings, and Conferences
2. Birds of a Feather (e.g. technical or policy issues)
3. Archival of Proceedings
4. Managing Research Projects
5. Publicizing Research Results
6. Competitions / Challenge Problems
7. Open, Educational Resources

The services provided to Groups include:

• Customized Branding with a Configurable Dashboard/Homepage
• Configurable Security Policy
• Calendaring Services
  • iCal Support
  • Online, Desktop Sharing Meetings
  • Meeting Invites
• A Virtual Filesystem (incl. revision control)
• Electronic Discussion Forums
• Wikis
• Group-specific Vocabularies (or 'taxonomies; for labelling documents; incl. associated, domain-specific Search engines)
• Email Broadcasting to Group Membership
• Customized Forms (e.g. a tailored attendee registration page for upcoming conference)
• Inviting Other Potential Members
• Creating Subgroups (i.e. hierarchical families of Groups)

Request to form a group by clicking here

Look for Groups

Groups are either public or private. The listing of public groups will show some basic information about the group (like the group name which links to the group's home page, a short description about the group, the group manager and the number of posts and members, and options for joining the group (covered in the next segment of this tutorial).

	Step 1: Go to the group list by selecting the "Groups" link under the "Browse" tab in the global menu at the top of the CPS-VO home page.
	Step 2: You will be directed to a list of groups that have chosen to be listed in the public directory. You can search for a group by name by typing their name or a portion of their name in the text box.

A guided search is also available under the global menu at the top of the CPS-VO home page.

The following steps show how to use the search menu to find a group:

	Step 1: Search for a group by clicking the "Search for a Group" link under the "Search" tab in the global menu at the top of the CPS-VO home page.
	Step 2: "Keyword Search" for a group by name by typing their name or a portion of their name in the text box OR click terms in the "Guided search" area to lead you to the group you are seeking.

 

 

 

Join a Group

Much of the collaboration services that this portal provides are based on groups. Groups are compiled of associated members.

Each Portal user can browse the list of the public groups or see a list of the groups that they belong to in "My Groups". My Groups is listed as a tab on the "groups list" page and also as a dropdown menu at the top of the website.

The following steps show how to join groups.

Step 1: Go to the publicly listed groups by selecting "Groups" from the "Browse" tab in the global menu at the top of the CPS-VO home page.

Listed groups are either open, closed, invite only or by approval. If the group is open or by approval then you will be provided with actions to attain memberships. A "Join" link is displayed to the right of groups that are open for membership. Other groups require you to "Request Membership". Still other groups are "Invitation Only" or "Closed" indicating that membership is controlled by the group manager (either by inviting you to their group or adding you). Step 2: To join an available group, click on the link listed in the "Join Link" column to the right hand side of their description.

 

Leave a Group

Members of a group may leave the group at any time.

Leaving your group involves two steps.

	Step 1: Go to your group list by clicking on the "MyGroups" menu link at the top of any CPS-VO page then navigate to the group you want to leave and click on "Edit membership".
	Step 2: The resulting group page will have a link called "Leave this group". Click on this to end your membership of the group.

Note: Administrators must keep in mind that they can only leave their group if there is at least one other administrator designated in the group. If there is not then they will not see the above "Leave this group" link.

Explore 'My Account'

	Get to your account page by clicking the “My Account” tab at the top of the CPS-VO website. There is a drop-down list of features associated with your account.
	Clicking the “My Account” link will take you directly to your profile page which shows your profile information and recent activity from users you have added as contacts. From the left side menu, you can view your profile, your contributions, your "My Tools" menu and "My Groups".
	The “Contributions” page can be accessed from the left sidebar or by clicking on the icon next to your photo at the top of the CPS-VO home page.
	This page displays a table with your most recent contributions.
	The “My Tools” toggle menu in the left sidebar contains several links that allow you to navigate the features of your account. Edit your profile View groups activity (also available by clicking the “Group Activity” icon near your photo at the top of the CPS-VO home page). View Contacts Activity Stream See your Contacts View your Notifications View your Subscriptions Meeting Invites Bookmarks History Chats Files
	The "My Groups" Toggle menu allows you to visit different groups you/ve joined.

Edit Your Profile

Clicking the “Edit Profile” link in the “My Tools” toggle menu will take you to an area where you can edit your profile information.

	Edit your name Use the vocabularies section to select topics and enter keywords associated with your name. Type your Professional Title, Organization, Phone Number(s) and Research Abstract.
	Share your Biography by typing or pasting it into the rich text editor. Use the Address section to edit your address. Share a web page URL, LinkedIn Page or CPS-VO Projects URL. Click the “Save” button to submit your changes.

 

My Contacts

Clicking the "My Contacts" link in the "My Tools" toggle menu will take you to an area where you can view or remove your contacts.

	A link to your contact list can be found in the “My Tools” toggle menu.
	A request to add someone as your contact can be sent by:  1. clicking the plus sign next to their name on group member pages
	2. from “search for people” in the top navigation menu of the CPS-VO home page
	a. Enter name into keyword search navigation
	b. then click the plus next to the name of the person you would like to request to add as your contact.
	3. or by navigating to someone’s profile page and using the “Add Contact” link under the “My Tools” toggle menu on their page.
	The “Contacts Activity Stream” shows beneath your profile information and can be found on your main profile page or by clicking on the “Contacts Activity Stream” link in the “My Tools” toggle menu. The stream shows recent activity from people you have added to your contact network. When you click on the "thumbs-up" icon at the bottom of a post or the "going" icon at the bottom of an event (as shown left), your activity will populate the activity stream of the contacts in your network.

Groups Activity Stream

The "Groups Activity Stream" shows beneath your profile information and can be found on your main profile page or by clicking on the "Groups Activity Stream" link in the "My Tools" toggle menu. The stream shows recent activity in the groups to which you belong.

	View new posts, files, news items, events meetings and other activity in your groups by clicking “Groups Activity Stream” under the “My Tools” toggle menu, or by clicking the “Group Activity” icon to the left of your photo at the top of the CPS-VO home page).
	Select links to filter group posts by "Unread" or "Recent". Posts on the CPS-VO can be seen by clicking the last 2 links in the horizontal list: "CPS-VO: Recent" and "CPS-VO: By Date".
	The feed can also be narrowed to a certain group by selecting a group name in the “Group” drop down menu. The default view will show posts from all of your groups.

 

Notifications

Notifications are updates to content you've subscribed to.

Types of content are: Events, Files, Forum Topics, Projects, News Items, Meetings, Pages, Posts, Web Forms, Wiki Pages.

Change your default notification settings from the overview tab by clicking "Edit your notifications settings" in the "You can:" list. Scroll down to the section called "Messaging and Notification settings" where you can use the dropdown menus to change your settings. (You can alternatively change these settings by clicking on the "Edit" button at the top of your profile page.)

There are 3 choices in the drop down menu (The default method of receiving notifications from your subscriptions is via email twice daily): Plain Text Email - Messages will come through your email inbox in plain text format. HTML Mail - Messages will come through your email inbox in HTML format. VO Messaging System - Messages will not be sent to your email. You can get to your messages by clicking the "My Messages" menu item in the "My Tools" toggle menu in the left sidebar of your account page Changing your notification method will affect new subscriptions, but your previously existing subscription notifications will remain as initially set.

My Messages

You will receive notifications according to the method you chose in your account settings - HTML Mail, Plain Text Mail, or via the VO Message center. If you choose to view your notifications via the VO Message center, you can see your notifications on your "Messages Page".

There are two ways to get to your Messages page.

	1. By selecting “My Messages” in the “My Account” menu at the top of the CPS-VO home page.
	2. By selecting “My Messages” in the “My Tools” toggle menu on your account page. Messages from your subscriptions will be shown in a table.

My Subscriptions

Subscriptions are set in two different ways.

 

	You can subscribe to a post by using the “subscriptions icon” at the top of a page of interest. You can define your subscription by selecting from a list of options (demonstrated in picture).
	Add a subscription from  your “My Subscriptions” page by using the “add subscription” tab. Add a subscription by content type in a particular group or site-wide, by the node number on a particular thread, by an author's username, or by tags (taxonomy terms).
	The "Subscribe to" link takes you to the subscription confirmation page, where you can choose how often to check whether the item or its comments have been updated. If any change is noticed, an email will be sent to the email address you registered with.
	After subscribing you will see a confirmation in a green outline box. The "Subscribe to: This Post" link then changes to "Unsubscribe from: This Post" for canceling the subscription. (Note: You can also manage all your subscriptions via your "My Account" page by selecting the "My Subscriptions" link in the left sidebar toggle menu as described here.)

Update group subscriptions

	Go to your group subscriptions page by clicking the “My Subscriptions” menu item in the “My Tools” toggle menu. This is the page where you can bulk manage your subscriptions and notifications settings for the groups to which you belong.
	Configure multiple subscriptions by checkmarking selections and choosing an action from the dropdown menu.

Follow the instructions below for more granular control of your subscription notifications.

	Go to your subscriptions overview page by clicking the “Subscriptions” tab. This is the page where you can manage all of your subscriptions and notifications settings on a granular level. Select options from the "You can:" list to configure your subscriptions. Select options from the "or create a new subscription:" list to create new subscriptions.
	Click on "Administer your subscriptions" (outlined in red) to configure your subscriptions.
	Filter your subscriptions by status, type, method or interval. Edit settings or delete a subscription with the "edit" or "drop" links to the far right of each subscription in the operations column of the table.
	You can configure multiple subscriptions by checkmarking selections and choosing an action from the dropdown menu. NOTE: "Delete" in the bulk operations dropdown menu is equivalent to the "drop" link in the table rows.
	Change your default notification settings by clicking "Edit your notifications settings" in the "You can:" list.    Scroll down to the "Messaging and Notifications settings" . Use the dropdown menus to change your settings (as described in the notifications page).

Read more about notifications

My Invitations

You can view your meeting and event invitations two different ways.

	1. By selecting "My Invitations" in the "My Account" tab on the global menu at the top of the CPS-VO home page.
	2. By clicking “My Invitations” in the “My Tools” toggle bar (located in the left sidebar of your Account page). In this page you will be able to view the invitations for events you have been invited to and also view and manage invitations you have created.

 

See “Creating an Event” and “Creating an Event Invitation” for further instructions on creating an event and inviting guests.

 

My Bookmarks

You can view your bookmarks two different ways.

	1. By selecting "My Bookmarks" in the "My Account" tab on the global menu at the top of the CPS-VO home page.
	2. By clicking “My Bookmarks” in the “My Tools” toggle bar (located in the left sidebar of your Account page). In this page you will be able to view and remove the bookmarks you have created. You may also remove a bookmark by clicking on the red bookmark icon  beneath the post which you originally bookmarked.

 

When you click on a bookmark icon (shown left) at the bottom of a post, it saves that page for later reference in the bookmarks section of your account.

 

My History

You can view history of the pages you have visted on the CPS-VO in two different ways.

	1. By selecting "My History" in the "My Account" tab on the global menu at the top of the CPS-VO home page.
	2. By clicking “My History” in the “My Tools” toggle bar (located in the left sidebar of your Account page).

 

My Chats

You can view history of your chat conversations in two different ways.

	1. By selecting "My Chats" in the "My Account" tab on the global menu at the top of the CPS-VO home page.
	2. By clicking “My Chats” in the “My Tools” toggle bar (located in the left sidebar of your Account page).

 

My Files

You can upload and edit media files to use in posts and pages that you create.

(e.g. logos, photographs, videos and compressed files)

Limitations:

• Maximum file size per upload: 10 MB
• Permitted file extensions: gif, png, jpg, jpeg, mp4, tgz
• Maximum image resolution: 800x600
• Maximum number of files per operation: 1

There are 3 ways to get to the file browser.

	1. By selecting "My Files" in the "My Account" tab on the global menu at the top of the CPS-VO home page.
	2. By clicking “My Files” in the “My Tools” toggle bar (located in the left sidebar of your Account page).
	3. By clicking the image icon from within the rich text editor which you use to create or edit a page or a post.
	Click the "Browse Server" button.

Once you are in the file browser, Upload a file via the "Upload" button.

	Browse and choose a file from your computer and click the bottom upload button
	Resize or delete a file by clicking it's name in the file list then clicking the corresponding icon in the light blue bar above the file list.

 

Find Posts and Publications

Structures and discovery mechanisms for the items in the CPS-VO are provided to help find them. These are based on vocabulary tagging and term labeling. There are file browsers and search functions that aid in finding those items that you are looking for. An important distinction between the file browsers in the CPS-VO and one on your computer is that the same item maybe found under different folders. This increases the chances for you to find items that have been placed in more than one category. There are two main search engines that also help you to find material. One looks for some text in descriptions and the other looks for labels.

Browse Documents

The portal organizes files in a repository according labeling terms. The labeling terms form a taxonomy that arranges the terms as a tree structure, similar (but not the same) as a folder hierarchy. When a file has one or more labeling terms, the file will be shown in the tree at those nodes that have the same labeling terms. In other words, a file may be found using more than one path in the tree. For example, a report on cybersecurity research may be found by navigating through Document Type -> Report path or Topics -> Foundations -> Security path.

	Step 1: Select "Repositories" under the "Browse" tab in the global menu on the CPS-VO home page to go to the archives.
	Step 2: Click on the folders to locate documents.

Tags, Terms and Labels

Taxonomies of terms are used for organizing content. Taxonomies are a set of 'Vocabularies' which can contain 'Terms'. Because of their impact on finding and accessing items on the site, creating and modifying taxonomies can only be done by Site and Group Administrators. However, the description of this process is helpful for all Portal users. Users posting content to the portal should tag content with relevant terms.

SEARCHING BY TERMS

Terms associated with content can be found below the content as clickable links. The example below is a file in the SURE group tagged with a series of terms created within that group. The term "Evaluation and experimentation" is highlighted as the mouse hovers over the link. Clicking on this link will take you to a page listing all the materials tagged with that term.

​

DEFINING VOCABULARIES AND TAXONOMIES

The following are some principles defining vocabularies and taxonomies (more details can be found in the documentation of the DRUPAL Taxonomy Module):

• Each vocabulary consists of a set of terms.
• A site can have an unlimited number of vocabularies each containing an unlimited number of terms.
• Within a taxonomy, terms can be ordered into hierarchies.
• Vocabularies may be designated as Free tagging in which users creating new content don't have to classify it with terms from a "controlled vocabulary", previously defined. Instead users can freely define keywords, or "tags".
• Vocabularies can be set to allow terms to define related terms. This function is similar to "See also" in a dictionary.
• Vocabularies define whether users may attach only a single term to a content node or whether users may attach multiple terms to a content node.

At the start, taxonomies are living, changing entities. While their establishment and evolution is a trial and error process, the increasing size of content tagged with the terms of a taxonomy creates inertia against future changes.

 

The current organization of the CPS-VO Portal includes a set of site-wide vocabularies and Group-specific vocabularies. Site-wide vocabularies are visible for all Groups and can be used for labeling Group-specific content. Group-specific vocabularies can only be used for labeling content that are uploaded for the group.

 

Site-wide vocabularies currently include:

• Topics – providing terms for major CPS domains and research areas
•  Keywords – including free tags selected by users who uploaded content
• CPS-Events – providing terms for finding CPS Events organized by year
•  Document Type – categorizing CPS documents uploaded to the Portal
•  Document Source – categorizing the source of content

The name of Group vocabularies are prefixed by the Group acronym followed by a colon. For example, the vocabulary ‘SoS: Topics’ refers to the ‘Topics’ vocabulary of the Science of Security group. A snapshot of the CPS Portal vocabulary list is shown in the left side, and the snapshot of the ‘Topics’ vocabulary is shown on the right side.

 

 

Site-wide vocabularies (‘Topics’, ‘Keywords’, ‘CPS Events’, ‘Document Type’, ‘Document Source’) are generic and can be used for labeling content in all groups. Group vocabularies (E.g.  SoI: Topics; the ‘Topics vocabulary of the Science of Integration Group) are specific to individual groups (and there is no automatic protection against conflicting use of terms). It is recommended (but not enforced) that each Group sets up a ‘Topics’ vocabulary, which is the refinement of the Group’s topic area named in the site-wide ‘Topics’ vocabulary. For example, ‘SoI: Topics’ is a refinement of the Science of System Integration term in the site-wide ‘Topics’ vocabulary:

The ‘CPS Events’ vocabulary has unique role among site-wide vocabularies. New CPS Events that can count on community-wide attention are listed as a new term in this vocabulary which is categorized by years. When content is created that belongs to CPS Events (such as a Calendar Event, Announcement, Call for Papers, or event related supplemental documents) its term can be used for labeling. The Year 2011 segment of the CPS Events vocabulary is shown below.

If preferred, a Group can also create a Group Event vocabulary and use it for labeling group related events (not necessarily made public).

NOTE: In the files section of your group: Vocabularies are identified by an arrow icon. Terms are identified by a folder icon.

Taxonomic Search

The CPS Portal includes two search facilities: Keyword search and Guided Search. The keyword search finds strings in item descriptions and the item body. The guided search looks for Portal items based on the label it has been marked with. Some items may have been marked with more than one label allowing the guided search to be refined. The organization of labels and terms is called taxonomy.

	To search for content select the "Search for Content" link under the "Search" tab in the global menu on the CPS-VO home page.
	Keyword search For Keyword search, type the keyword(s) in the window and select the search mode in the roll-down menu.
	Guided search Guided search uses defined taxonomies to find content. Select the most appropriate term from a taxonomy. (It is ‘Foundation’ in the example below. The number after the term shows the number of documents labeled with the term.)
	If the resulting document list is too long, you can narrow the search by selecting more refined terms under the same vocabulary or by selecting terms from other vocabularies. The search can be successively refined until right focus is achieved. NOTE: If a search is initiated from a Group by selecting one of the groups from the "My Groups" list (found in the "My Groups" dropdown menu at the top of the CPS-VO website) the presented vocabularies will be the Group vocabularies or the Site-wide vocabularies that were used for tagging Group content.

 

Search Popular Terms

Portal items that are associated with a label can be found from a tag cloud. A tag cloud is an image of words whose sizes are varied by how many associations it has. They can be clicked through to bring up the list of items that are marked with them.

	Step 1: Select the "Tagcloud" link under "Search" tab in the global menu on the CPS-VO home page.
	Step 2: Click on the labels to bring up the related content.

View Events

The CPS-VO calendar displays event notices that can be clicked through for more information on them. Events can have a specified audience, in which case only for those group members will the notices show. If no audience is specified then they will be global events visible by all authenticated members of the portal.

	Step 1: The portal calendar can be reached by selecting the "Calendar" link under the "Browse" tab in the global menu at the top of the CPS-VO home page.
	Step 2: Clicking on the title of the event post will direct you to more information about it:
	Step 3: The example below shows what information about an event looks like. It may include the URL of the event web site, the start and end date of the meeting, a short abstract, related labels, and may have attachments. The bottom of the page includes links for posting comments and subscribing to notifications about changes to this event as well as existing comments related to the event.

Collaborate with Colleagues

Listening and allowing others to be heard makes for a productive outcome. Facilitating this is essential to advance our goals. Support for working with and building groups is a way to accomplish such success. Users are provided with services that set up and enable infrastructure for groups working together.

Seek out Colleagues

CPS-VO members can be searched by first name, last name, topics, keywords and author.

	Select "Search for People" feature in the "Search" menu at the top of the CPS-VO home page.
	CPS-VO members can be searched by first name, last name, topics, keywords and author by typing into the search window. The search can be constrained to match "all of the words", "exact phrase", "at least one of the words" or "without the words" (omitting the words typed in the box). You may also choose from a list of "guided search" terms displayed below the "keyword search" field.

 

Contribute to Forum Discussions

Each group has a forum where active discussions can be started, commented on and viewed. A privilege of group membership is that forum discussions can be initiated. Group administrators may make discussions inactive. 

Forums provide a place where discussions can be tracked. These discussions come in the form of initiated topics. Forums can be made public or private within a group. A forum must first exist before a topic can be initiated because the topic must be placed inside a forum. Only the initiator of a forum topic and group administrators have permissions to edit the topic content. After discussions are opened in a forum they may be commented on by group members.

 Video example

To participate in a forum discussion, use the following steps:

	Step 1: Go to one of the groups you are a member of and navigate to the forum. Step 2: Click on the link of the forum name you would like to participate in. In the example it would be "General Discussion".
	Step 3: Click on a topic you would like to read and/or discuss.
	Step 4: Reply to a topic by clicking on the "Post Reply" button.
	Step 5: Type your reply in the text editor and click the "Save" button at the bottom of the page beneath the rich text editor.
	Step 6: Reply to an individual post by clicking the "Reply" or  "Quote" button beneath an individual comment.

As other items in the Portal, subscriptions can be made to forums discussions. A subscription to an active forum topic means that you will get an email notification whenever comments are made to the topic.

There are two ways in which to start a new forum topic:

	1. Start a new topic by clicking on the "New Topic" button:
	Type the title and content of your topic and click the "Save" button at the bottom of the page beneath the text editor to add it to the topic cue.
	2. You can also start a new topic from the "Collaborate" menu in the left sidebar of your group home page:
	You will be taken to the rich text editor. Type the title and content of your topic. There will be a dropdown menu which shows the different forums in the group. Select the forum where you would like your topic to post and click the "Save" button at the bottom of the page beneath the text editor to add it to the topic cue.

 

Create a Global Forum Announcement

There may be announcements you want to broadcast to the global forums on the CPS-VO.

	Begin by selecting "Announce on Forums" in the "Collaborate" menu at the top of the CPS-VO home page.
	You will be taken to a form where you can add the Title and Content of your announcement, select Vocabularies to tag it, and select which forums the announcement will post to.
	Optionally, add a slideshow image if you want your event to be added to a group spotlight slideshow. Click the "Browse" button to navigate to the image on your computer then click the "Upload" button to submit the image. It should show as a thumbnail if successfully uploaded. The dimensions of the image should be 320x230 pixels. Leave 47 pixels at the bottom for the slide title. Also leave 45 pixels on each side (making a 230 pixel square "sweet spot"). This will allow for the image to be cropped nicely in the set of icons beneath the spotlight.
	Use the area with the gray menu below the image browser to set: Notifications: set whether members will be notified when you post or edit your announcement. Groups: This tab will be disabled for Global Forum Announcements. URL path settings: Optionally specify an alternative URL by which this node can be accessed. For example, type "about" when writing an about page. Use a relative path and don't add a trailing slash or the URL alias won't work.
	Optionally, set a date and time that your post will be archived and disappear from the CPS-VO homepage using the "Sunset" feature. Click the "Save" button to submit your announcement.
	Your announcement will then post in the forums you selected, as well as appearing on the CPS-VO homepage (if you are a trusted user). Announcements can be found via the "Announcements" link under the "Browse" tab in the global menu at the top of the CPS-VO home page.

About Publishing Options

• Publish: Uncheck this option if you don't wish for this content to appear on the VO yet. Useful for saving drafts of content that requires editing before going live/published.
• Publicize to Entire VO: Selecting this option will place this post on the VO homepage. Exercise caution when using this option.
• Publicize on Group Homepage: This option will place your post on your group's homepage in the corresponding section (Recent News, Upcoming Events, etc…)
• Archive: Clicking the archive checkbox hides this content from global and group home pages. However, the content will still be accessible in other areas of the site. Unchecking the archive checkbox allows this content to display on global and group home pages.
  • Sunrise: Setting a sunrise date will de-archive this content at the set date and time (midnight is the default if a time is not set). The content will then display on global and group home pages.
  • Sunset: Setting a sunset date will automatically archive this content at the set date and time (midnight is the default if a time is not set). The content will no longer display on global and group home pages after the sunset date/time, but will still be accessible in other areas of the site.
• Display in Slideshow: Will place this post, along with its image (or video), in a slideshow. Must be used with either Publicize to Entire VO or Publicize on Group Homepage options.
• Pin to Top of Lists: This option will make this post appear at the top of content listings, regardless of any other settings. Useful for denoting important content or content that has a "call to action" associated with it.

 

Create a Calendar Event

CPS-VO events are postings in the calendar. Events have important details such as a Title, a start date, a location. It may also have a description and a URL. Events also have "Audiences". Audiences are CPS-VO groups and you may be a member to any number of them. If no audience is marked for an event or it is marked public then it will only show in the global calendar for all CPS-VO users. If you have selected groups in the audience section, the event will show on the selected group calendars and activity stream pages.

To post events in the calendar follow the instructions outlined in steps 1 and 2 below.

STEP 1:

	Go to the "Create Event" form by clicking on the link in the "Collaborate" dropdown menu at the top of the CPS-VO home page.
	You can also "Create Event" from within a group by using the "Collaborate" toggle menu in the left sidebar area of a group page.

STEP 2: Before submitting the event details it is suggested that you fill out as much information as possible about your posting. Required items are marked with a *red star. (Details below):

	"Title" and "Description". Choose topic categories from the menu to the right that your event fits into. Choose the event type from the dropdown menu to the right
	Post the event date and time zone
	Choose a frequency and period to repeat this date from month to month and a date to stop the repetition cycle. If nothing is selected the date will not repeat.
	Attach a file by clicking the “Attach” button and finding the file on your computer then clicking the “Upload attachments” button.

Use the advanced options to select specific months and days to repeat on. 

	Use the 'Except' box to input dates that should be omitted from the results. Use the ‘Additional’ box to insert extra dates which fall outside of the repetition pattern. Click the “Add more” buttons beneath exceptions and additions for multiple entries.
	Add a slideshow image if you want your event to be added to a group spotlight slideshow. Click the "Browse" button to navigate to the image on your computer then click the "Upload" button to submit the image. It should show as a thumbnail if successfully uploaded. The dimensions of the image should be 320x230 pixels. Leave 47 pixels at the bottom for the slide title. Also leave 45 pixels on each side (making a 230 pixel square "sweet spot"). This will allow for the image to be cropped nicely in the set of icons beneath the spotlight.
	A set of options near the bottom of the page allow you to set notifications, event details, groups, publishing options, authoring information and URL path settings: Choose whether or not you want to send email "Notifications" about this event updates to audience members. Click on "Event Details" and type the "Location" of the event and the "URL" (website address) if the event has a web page. Checkmark each of the "Groups" to which you would like to promote your event. Checkmark “Public” if you would like everyone to see your event in the CPS-VO global calendar. If you would like a shorter URL to your event page, you can type the path in the "URL Path Settings" field. (e.g. instead of node/125 it might read /your_conference_name) Upload an "Event banner" to allow your event to be on your "Audience" group home pages by clicking the “Choose file” button. Find the file on your computer then click the “Upload” button. You may also add a "Title" and a "URL" (web page) that the title links to when someone clicks on the banner. Checkmark “Open URL in new window” in order to cause a new page to launch when someone clicks the link.
	Publicize the event to show up on the selected group home pages and/or CPS-VO home page by going to your group events page (click the "more" button under the "Upcoming events" section on a group home page)
	Select "Publicize". The event will now show in the "Upcoming events" list sections.
	If you log back in and make changes to the event you can log the changes in the "Revision Information" field. Click “Save” to submit your event or “Preview” to preview before submitting.  Set a "Sunset" date and time for your event to automatically archive. After saving your event, you can view "Repeat" and "Attached file" information or "Invite attendees" from the left menu (covered in next tutorial page).

Promote and publish news items to the group home page in the "events" section and/or spotlight slideshow.

About Publishing Options

• Publish: Uncheck this option if you don't wish for this content to appear on the VO yet. Useful for saving drafts of content that requires editing before going live/published.
• Publicize to Entire VO: Selecting this option will place this post on the VO homepage. Exercise caution when using this option.
• Publicize on Group Homepage: This option will place your post on your group's homepage in the corresponding section (Recent News, Upcoming Events, etc…)
• Archive: Clicking the archive checkbox hides this content from global and group home pages. However, the content will still be accessible in other areas of the site. Unchecking the archive checkbox allows this content to display on global and group home pages.
  • Sunrise: Setting a sunrise date will de-archive this content at the set date and time (midnight is the default if a time is not set). The content will then display on global and group home pages.
  • Sunset: Setting a sunset date will automatically archive this content at the set date and time (midnight is the default if a time is not set). The content will no longer display on global and group home pages after the sunset date/time, but will still be accessible in other areas of the site.
• Display in Slideshow: Will place this post, along with its image (or video), in a slideshow. Must be used with eitherPublicize to Entire VO or Publicize on Group Homepage options.
• Pin to Top of Lists: This option will make this post appear at the top of content listings, regardless of any other settings. Useful for denoting important content or content that has a "call to action" associated with it.

 

Create Event and Meeting Invitations

After you have created your event or online meeting you will want to invite others to attend.

	Click on the "Invitations" tab from the left menu.
	From that page, click the “Create Invitation” link in the content area to the right.
	Write your invitation in the rich text editor and click the “Save Invitation” button at the bottom of the page.
	This will take you to a page where you can invite members from your groups.
	Click the “Add selected groups/users” button.  User names will indent beneath group names. If you click a group name, all users within that group will be invited. You can also add guests by typing their CPS-VO usernames or email addresses in the “Add guests” text box.
	Your invitees will show in a guest list to the left of the member list.     1. Use the icons next to their name to view the invitation, invitation status, remove attendee, send a message, or send the invitation. 2. You may send the invitation to all users by using the link at the top of the list. 3. Export a CSV file of your guest list by using the blue “Export” button to the right of the “Guest List” header text.
	As the invitees respond, categories (no response, attending, not attending) will appear with their names according to their responses. If you click on the tab "Send Message" (as shown below) it will allow you to attach a message to your invitation and send it to a select audience from a dropdown menu (which includes selectors for Entire guest list, Guests who do attend, Guests who do not attend, Guests who might attend, and Guests who have not replied yet).

Upload a File

A File can belong to the general CPS-VO portal / community or it may be associated with one or more groups. Submission of a file can be made through the Primary Menu (see Step 1 figure) or when within the context of a Group, the primary menu disappears, and group-specific file upload mechanism appear (details are provided in the following section). If a file is submitted through the primary menu then the audience by default will be for all site users unless the Audience is specifically marked. If a file is submitted through the group browser then the default audience is that group. In this case additional groups can also be marked to see the file so that the file is cross-posted in multiple groups concurrently.  Additionally, files may be marked Private so that only members of the group have access, or it can be checked as Public and thus visible to all site users.

 Upload a File -Video example

Submit a file from the global menu either as public for all CPS-VO users or to select groups

	Step 1: Go to the form for creating a file by clicking on "Upload File" under the "Collaborate" tab at the top of the CPS-VO home page.
	Step 2: Select the file you wish to upload by clicking the "Choose File" button and navigating to the file on your computer and selecting it. Fill out any relevant information describing your submission. Make sure to select vocabularies in the area to the right of the rich text editor (Topics, CPS Events, Document Type or source) that will help others find your file when searching for content. You may also type your own keywords. Note: The default file extensions allowable include: doc, docx, exe, gif, gz, jpg, jpeg, json, msi, odp, ods, odt, pdf, png, pot, pps, ppt, pptx, py, tar, tgz, tif, tiff, txt, xls, xlsx, zip.
	Use the "Groups" selector (located in the area beneath the rich text editor) to choose which groups you want your file to publish to and whether you want it to be publicly available in the CPS-VO Repository. Click the "Save" button to submit your file.

Upload a file within a group

 Upload a file within a Group - Video example

Select "Upload file" from the "Collaborate" toggle menu in the left sidebar of a group then follow the same instructions as uploading a file using the global menu.  Don't forget to tag the file with the appropriate taxonomy terms, if you want it to show up under the groups Files menu item (i.e.the group's virtual filesystem) .  Files uploaded from within the context of a group are automatically tagged as belonging to that group, thus you do not have to edit the Groups setting for these files unless you want to simultaneously post them to other groups as well.

Upload multiple files within a group using the bulk uploader

 Bulk Uploader - Video example

Step 1: Go to your group file browser. Step 2: Select a destination folder where you would like to upload your files and begin the upload process by selecting "Upload files".

Step 3: Drag and drop files from your desktop or select files from your file browser by clicking on "Add files". Click on "Start upload" to complete the upload process. As in the previous section, these files will automatically be tagged as belonging to your group. You will then be directed back to the file browser after your files are uploaded where you can individually edit the files and add other vocabularies.

Link to a term within a folder

	Step 1: Determine the node ID of the group (which can be found by hovering over the “edit group button”).
	Step 2: Select the gray “taxonomy button” to navigate into the list of group vocabularies.
	Step 3: Select “list terms” to the right of its vocabulary parent to go to a list of its terms.
	Step 4: Scroll to the target term by navigating to that term in the taxonomy listing and hover over the linked name to determine its node ID.
	Step 5: Provide a link to the term following this syntax: node/{groupid}/browser?target_term={termid} The resulting content will appear as an open folder in the files section of the parent group. (i.e. http://cps-vo.org/node/724/browser?target_term=959 will take you to the open term/folder "medical device interoperability" in the files section of the medical group).

Activity Messaging

The Notification service allows you to subscribe to notifications of updates to items (such as Events, Files, etc.). For example, you will receive an email each time the author updates a document to which you have subscribed or when details about an event change.

Below are the steps demonstrating how manage subscriptions.

	Step 1: To receive notifications about updates and new comments on the item, select the "Subscribe to: This post". If you want to subscribe to posts by the authors of the item, use the "Subscribe to: Post by USERNAME" link.
	Step 2: The "Subscribe to" link takes you to the subscription confirmation page, where you can choose how often to check whether the item or its comments have been updated. If any change is noticed, an email will be sent to the email address linked to your account.
	Step 3: After subscribing you will see a confirmation in a green outline box. The "Subscribe to: This Post" link then changes to "Unsubscribe from: This Post" for canceling the subscription. (Note: You can also manage all your subscriptions via your "My Account" page by selecting the "My Subscriptions" link in the left sidebar toggle menu as described here.) Read more about managing your subscriptions from your Account

An exemplar email is shown below. Click on the hyperlink provided in the email to navigate to the content that has been updated.

Logging and Viewing Revisions

A revision is saved each time content is edited. Add a log message to help identify changes made to the content.

	From the "notifications" tab (located in the vertical tabs beneath the editing area), you can enter a log message before you save the content. This log message will be included in the notification that is sent out and also in the revisions report.
	View the list of revisions by clicking the gray "revisions" tab at the top of the node.
	The list of revisions displays log messages, post date and node author. Select two revisions with the radio buttons and click the "Show diff" button to reveal differences between the two revisions.
	Older content is shown in the left column and newer content is shown in the right column. Click the "list revisions" tab at the top left of the content to go back to the revisions table.
	Revert to a past revision by selecting the "Revert" link to the right of the revision entry.
	A warning message will appear. Click the "revert" button.
	A copy of the revision that you chose to revert will be copied and placed at the top of the list as the current revision.

 

Create a News Item

As a member of a group you can post news items which will show up in the activity stream and can be set by the group manager to show up in the Spotlight Slideshow and the Recent News section of the group's home page.

	Go to the "Create News Item" link in the "Collaborate" toggle menu which is located in the lower left sidebar on your group page.
	You will be taken to a rich text editor where you can add a title and the information about your news item.
	You can upload a photo to go with your news item. This will enable it to later be added to the spotlight slideshow if so desired by the group manager.   The dimensions of the image should be 320x230 pixels. Leave 47 pixels at the bottom for the slide title. Also leave 45 pixels on each side (making a 230 pixel square "sweet spot"). This will allow for the image to be cropped nicely in the set of icons beneath the spotlight.
	When the photo is successfully uploaded it will display as shown below. Click the "Remove" button to remove the photo.
	Click the "Save" button at the bottom of the form to submit your news item. The news item will show in the activity stream section of your group by default.

 

For Moderators and Managers:

If you are a moderator or manager, you will be able to promote and publish news items to the group home page in the recent news section and/or spotlight slideshow.

To edit publishing options on a news item:

	Click the "edit" button at the top of the news item page.
	Go to the "Publishing options" section beneath the rich text editor. Select "Publicize to group home page" to display in the "Recent news" section and/or "Display in slideshow" to display in the spotlight slideshow.
	Your item will show up in the "Recent News" Section and/or "Spotlight Slideshow" on your group’s home page.

 

About Publishing Options

• Publish: Uncheck this option if you don't wish for this content to appear on the VO yet. Useful for saving drafts of content that requires editing before going live/published.
• Publicize to Entire VO: Selecting this option will place this post on the VO homepage. Exercise caution when using this option.
• Publicize on Group Homepage: This option will place your post on your group's homepage in the corresponding section (Recent News, Upcoming Events, etc…)
• Archive: Clicking the archive checkbox hides this content from global and group home pages. However, the content will still be accessible in other areas of the site. Unchecking the archive checkbox allows this content to display on global and group home pages.
  • Sunrise: Setting a sunrise date will de-archive this content at the set date and time (midnight is the default if a time is not set). The content will then display on global and group home pages.
  • Sunset: Setting a sunset date will automatically archive this content at the set date and time (midnight is the default if a time is not set). The content will no longer display on global and group home pages after the sunset date/time, but will still be accessible in other areas of the site.
• Display in Slideshow: Will place this post, along with its image (or video), in a slideshow. Must be used with either Publicize to Entire VO or Publicize on Group Homepage options.
• Pin to Top of Lists: This option will make this post appear at the top of content listings, regardless of any other settings. Useful for denoting important content or content that has a "call to action" associated with it.

 

Create a Group Project

Your group may have a "Projects" page where you can share your project within that area of interest.

	Adding a group project can be initiated by going to the “Create Project” link in the “Collaborate” toggle menu in the left sidebar of your group page.
	Clicking the “Create Project” link will take you to a form where you can enter important information about your Group Project.   Enter your Project Title and Abstract in the Rich Text Editor.
	Enter PI, Co-PIs and Researchers by typing their username in the text field. An auto-fill feature will help you find the correct user.
	Related Artifacts can also be added. Choose a “vocabulary” and “term” from the dropdown list. All content types with that taxonomy will then be listed on your project. You can add as many vocabularies as you choose by clicking on the “add more values” button.
	Add Related Projects by typing the name of the project that is related to yours. An auto-fill feature will cause a dropdown menu to appear with suggestions of the projects you might be referring to. Click the "Add more items" button to add more projects.
	You will be taken to your project page after clicking the "Save" button at the bottom of the form.
	Clicking on the Projects tab in your group left sidebar menu will take viewers to a page that lists all your group's submitted projects in a table.
	Archive a project using the "Publishing Options" tab in the area beneath the text editor in edit mode. Select the "Archive" check box as shown below.

Post a Video

Videos can be shared from TED, Vimeo, or YouTube.

style="vertical-align: top;"Go to the video server of your choice and copy the video's "URL" (share this video link) or the "Embed" code. The example below is YouTube. (The following services are supported: TED, Vimeo, YouTube)

 

You can navigate to the "Post Video" form in 2 different ways.

 

	1. Select "Post Video" in the "Collaborate" tab in the global menu at the top of the CPS-VO home page.
	2. Click on the “Post Video” link in the “Collaborate” toggle menu which is located in the left sidebar of your group page.

 

 

You will be taken to a form to create your video.

 

	Fill out the “Title” and “Description” and paste the URL or embed code into the “Video” text field. Select "Vocabularies" in the area to the right of the rich text editor to make your video show up in the search engine.
	Enter "Contributor" and "Sponsor" names in the text fields beneath the rich text editor. You can add more names by clicking the “Add another item” button.
	Use the next area down to set:   Notifications: whether group members get an email notification of changes to your video page Groups: Check the boxes next to the groups you want to share the video with in the “Audience” section. URL Path settings: If you would like a shorter URL to your video page,  you can type the path in the "URL Path Settings" field. (e.g. instead of node/125 it might read /your_video_name) Revision information: If you log back in and make changes to the event you can log the changes in the “Revision Information” field.
	After you click the “Save” button, you will be taken directly to your video.
	If your group administrator has set up a "Video(s)" page, your video will be posted on the “Video(s)” page of each selected group.
	A link to your video will also appear in each selected group's “Activity Stream”.
	You can also add a "Sunset" date and time to automatically archive the video. When it is archived, it will no longer show in the featured portion of the video page

 

Setting a video as a Featured Video

Only group administrators can set videos to be "Featured". 

 

If you are a group administrator, you will have more settings available for you to use.

You will need to edit some of these settings to make a video show in the "Featured" section.

 

	Make sure the video is set to"public" in the group settings.
	Publishing options should be checked as "published" and "publicized to group home page".  Be certain the video is not archived by the sunset date (described above).

Create Wiki Pages

If the group manager has set up a wiki feature, group members can create wiki pages. (Managers see the tutorial page: "Creating a Wiki" for instructions on adding the wiki feature to your group.)

 Create Wiki Pages - Video example 

There are 2 different ways for users to create a wiki page.

1. Create a wiki page from the "Collaborate" menu

	Use the "Create Wiki Page" link in the "Collaborate" toggle menu beneath the left sidebar menu in your group.
	This will launch a rich text editor where you can type the title of your wiki page and add content and checkmark vocabularies (in the column to the right of the text window).
	When you click the save button (toward the bottom of the editing page), your wiki page will show up on the "Activity Stream" page of your group by default.

 

In order to get your wiki page to show up in the group wiki you will need to link your content to another wiki page. Navigate to the wiki using the "Wiki" tab in the left sidebar menu. Go to the existing wiki page that best relates to your new page and copy its title. You will then paste that title somewhere in your wiki content to create a link as described below.

 

A system of “Freelinking” is built into the wiki feature that makes it easy to create a link.

 

 

Your page will then be included in the backlinks of the page you linked to.

 

2. Create wiki pages by linking from other pages in the wiki.

 

If the manager has set up a wiki feature, it will show up in that group's left sidebar menu. To begin editing a wiki, click the blue "Edit" icon in the first wiki page.

Create a link following the "Freelinking" instructions provided above.   When  you click the link that you created, you will be taken to a blank rich text editor that is pre-populated with the title of your link (like the rich text editor displayed in section 1). Simply begin adding content and save the page when you are satisfied. Do not change the title or your link to the other page will break.   Pages subsequent to the first page do not need the blue "Edit" icon and may be edited by clicking the gray "Edit" tab at the top of the content area.   A list backlinks will display underneath each wiki page as related pages are created.

Create a Bibliographic Reference

As a member of the CPS-VO, you can create a bibliographic reference that can be added to the groups of which you are a member. If you are a "Trusted User", you have permissions to import a batch of bibliographic references using a BibTeX file.

You can create single bibliographic references by following the instructions in the table below.

	Select the "Create Bibliographic Reference" link in the "Collaborate" toggle menu which is located in the lower left sidebar on your group page.
	1. Paste the BibTeX code copied from a digital library Paste BibTeX code into expanded "Paste BibTeX" text area. Select "Populate using BibTeX" You will be taken to an edit page where you may review the information in the fields that have been populated and make any necessary changes Select the “Save” button to the bottom left of the editing window. Your bibliography reference will populate on the biblio page of the group(s) you selected. (The group which you created the bibliography reference from is selected by default).
	2. Enter the publication details manually Select "Publication Type" from the dropdown menu Continue to fill in details as form fields emerge
	Select "Authors", "Other Biblio Fields", and/or other pertinent information from the gray vertical menu at the bottom of the form. Select the “Save” button to the bottom left of the editing window. Your bibliography reference will populate on the biblio page of the group(s) you selected. (The group which you created the bibliography reference from is selected by default).

 

Trusted users can import a BibTeX file to create a batch of bibliographic references. You should use batch processing if your import file contains more than about 20 records, or if you are experiencing script timeouts during import. See instructions in the table below.

	Select the "Import" tab at the top of the biblio page to get to the batch import tool.
	Click on the "Choose Files" button and select your .bib file from your computer Select File Type: "BibTeX" The group to which you are importing will automatically be selected in the "Audience" menu. You may also select other groups to which you are a member. Click the "Import" button after setting your publishing and notifications options.

Your multiple bibliographic references will now show up on the main biblio page.

Search, Sort, and Filter Biblios

Bibliographic references can be searched by typing keywords into a search field. The search can be further sorted by author name, date posted, content type, or year. The filter feature allows you to show items from pre-populated menus categorized by author, type, term, year and keyword.

	Search, Sort, Filter and Export bibliographic references from a group's biblio listings page.
	Search: Enter content into the text field and click the "Biblio Search" button.
	Sort: Sort bibliographic references by author, post date, title, type or year.
	Filter: Click on the Filter tab to narrow results by author, type, term, year or keyword.
	Export: Clicking on the “BibTex” link at the top right will allow you to export the bibliographic references listed.

 

Conflict Detection

Sometimes more than one person simultaneously attempts to edit a node. Conflict Detection enables detection and assists resolution of this conflict to users with permissions to this feature.

	Turn on Conflict Detection from the Publishing Options menu (in the area beneath the rich text editor that has settings for your page). Checking the “Conflict Detection Enabled” box will turn on the feature.
	A yellow pencil icon will appear at the top right of the node when Conflict Detection is enabled. A red pencil icon will replace the yellow pencil if a node is in conflict (being edited by another user).
	When Conflict Detection is enabled, the first person editing a node with locking enabled will see this message at the top of the rich text editor: You have a lock on editing this node until Mar 6 2015 - 3:45pm (Extend). This lock will automatically end if you navigate away from this page. The end time can be extended via the “Extend” link in the text.
	Navigating away from the locked page will generate a notification message

Another person trying to edit a node that is already being edited will get a warning message identifying the original user (lock owner) and options either to break the lock or to subscribe to be notified when the other user’s session ends.

	1. BREAK: If the original user (lock owner) attempts to save after another user has broken their lock, BUT before the other users hits save, a notification message will appear to let them know the node is locked against edits and who broke the lock. They will have the option to break the lock or receive a notification message when the lock is released.
	If the original user attempts to save after another user has broken their lock AND saved, they will receive a notification message letting them know their content has been modified by another user and cannot be saved, who broke the lock, and to copy their work and reload the page to make changes. NOTE: For best results, reload by clicking the edit tab above the Title field rather than refreshing your browser.
	2. NOTIFY: The interrupting user will get a pop up message indicating they will receive an email when the other user’s session ends. Click OK to activate the notification process.
	An example of the notification email is shown left.

 

Form and Manage Groups

The CPS-VO Portal provides extensive support for Special Interest Groups.

Exemplars of types of groups are:

1. R&D SIGs
   • Federal Agency
   • PI Projects
2. Websites for workshops and conferences
3. Planning meeting groups for workshops and conferences
4. Program committee groups for workshops and conferences
5. Working groups

Groups may be formed to meet different needs. Typical use cases include:

1. Planning R&D Workshops, Meetings, and Conferences
2. Birds of a Feather (e.g. technical or policy issues)
3. Archival of Proceedings
4. Managing Research Projects
5. Publicizing Research Results
6. Competitions / Challenge Problems
7. Open, Educational Resources

The services provided to Groups include:

• Customized Branding with a Configurable Dashboard/Homepage
• Configurable Security Policy
• Calendaring Services
  • iCal Support
  • Online, Desktop Sharing Meetings
  • Meeting Invites
• A Virtual Filesystem (incl. revision control)
• Electronic Discussion Forums
• Wikis
• Group-specific Vocabularies (or 'taxonomies; for labelling documents; incl. associated, domain-specific Search engines)
• Email Broadcasting to Group Membership
• Customized Forms (e.g. a tailored attendee registration page for upcoming conference)
• Inviting Other Potential Members
• Creating Subgroups (i.e. hierarchical families of Groups)

For information on user roles see http://cps-vo.org/tutorial/types-of-users

Configure a Group

After your group form has been approved by site administration, you can go about the process of configuring your group and setting up its pages. The following tutorial section will break down the process for configuring your group settings, branding your group, creating panel pages and adding widgets and custom content to your pages.

Group Settings & Branding

Set the branding and populate content on the home page.

 Video example

	Click on the gray tab at the top of your page labeled “Edit Group”.
	You will be taken to a window which includes a place for you to: edit the title of your group (which shows in the group header banner), add your description sentence, and add a mission statement (that will show under the title of your group in the header banner) The rich text editor can be used to set text styles and insert graphics (much like Microsoft Word).
	The area to the right of the rich text editor is the area where you select your vocabularies and group type by simply clicking the check box next to the appropriate categories. Use the toggle triangles to reveal sub-categories. Setting up vocabularies will help define your group and make your group searchable in the cps-vo community and to Google search engines.
	Scroll below the rich text editor to configure the group settings. You can set the group to private or you can list the group in the groups directory. You can also choose to add your group to the registration form so that new cps-vo registrants can join. You can determine a policy for how new membership requests should be handled. Private: set whether the group will be visible to the public or group members only. List in groups directory: set whether the group will be listed in the groups directory (http://cps-vo.org/og). Registration form: set whether users may join the group upon registering for an account. Membership requests: determine how membership requests should be handled for the group.

The bottom section of the “Edit Group” panel has a left side menu where you can choose your group chat settings, branding, and set an alias URL path.

	Choose Chat Options for your group. Selecting the radio button will turn off chat for your group.
	Choose a group base theme from a selection menu. Many styles and colors are available. Try each one to see how it affects your page header and colors.
	Next choose whether the group logo and sponsor logo will show in the banner header of your page. The default group logo is the CPS-VO logo, but you can upload a custom logo and sponsor logo if desired. Each logo can also have a link added with a hover title. Lastly, you will be able to upload a custom header for your group. Keep in mind all of these files have specific size and format requirements (defined beneath the "Choose File" buttons).
	You can change your URL path from the machine-set node number to a relative (English) path. Simply type the name that you would like to appear after the slash. The recommended best practice is to preface your group URL with the "group/" string (e.g. http://cps-vo.org/group/vo/exemplars/option1).

Set a custom welcome message

Group Managers may customize the welcome message that is sent to newly approved members. A custom welcome message can help new members know where to start in your group. Note: only moderated groups generate a welcome message.

Customize the message in the "edit group" form  by scrolling down to the "welcome message" text field and composing a message. If a custom welcome message is not entered, the default welcome message will be sent.

Example of the default welcome message:	Example of a custom message:

P.S. Don't forget to click the save button to save all these settings to your group.

 

Create a Basic Web Page

As a manager or moderator of a group you can post web pages which will show up in the activity stream and can be embedded in panel pages of your group.

  Video example 

	Use the "Create Web Page" link in the "Collaborate" toggle menu beneath the left sidebar menu in your group.
	This will launch a rich text editor where you can type the title of your web page and add content and checkmark vocabularies (in the column to the right of the text window).
	There is an area beneath the rich text editor that has settings for your page. Click on the links in the gray boxes to navigate to the area you wish to edit. Notifications: set whether members will be notified when you post or edit your announcement. Groups: Select which groups to which your web page will publish. Check the box next to "Public" if you want it to be publicly available in the CPS-VO Repository. URL path settings: Optionally specify an alternative URL by which this node can be accessed. For example, type "about" when writing an about page. Use a relative path and don't add a trailing slash or the URL alias won't work. If you want the page to be specific to your group you must type "group/groupname/about". Revision information: If you log back in to edit your web page you can use this field to document your revisions.
	When you click the "save" button (shown above), your web page will show up on the "Activity Stream" page of your group by default. (The Activity Stream page is a panel page set up to dynamically report recent changes.)

You may later need to reference the node number of your web page for other uses in the portal. The node number of your page is at the top of the browser page in the URL window. If a custom URL was set, you can find the node number by clicking the edit button at the top of your page.

NOTE: Web Pages may only be created/edited by group managers and moderators.

Create Panel Pages

You may want to create panel pages for your group. 

Use panel pages to organize your content in an attractive and informative manner. Each panel page becomes a tab when viewing your group. Different layouts can be chosen to best display the content for each panel page. 

	1. Click on the gray “Panels” tab above the content area.
	2. This will take you to a page where you can add a new panel page. Start by clicking the “Add new page” tab at the top left of the page.
	3. Type the name of your new page in the page title input area and add a word after the slash in the path input area. Click the “Create page” Button.
	4. Your page will now show in the list of panel pages as below:

After you create a panel page you can then "Change the Layout of your Page" and add content.
Content can be added in 2 different ways: "Widgets" or "Custom Content".

Widgets enable you to quickly add automated content. Custom Content provides flexibility to manually add content (e.g. lists, links, descriptions, definitions, etc.)

Change the Layout of your Page

You may want to change the layout of your page.

	1. In the area where you edit panel pages, click the “Change layout” link.
	2. You can set the number of columns and the layout (in the example below we chose two). After selecting your layout choice, click the “Next” button.
	3. Click the “Save” button in the next window.

 

Add Widgets to Panel Pages

After you have created your panel page and edited the layout, you will want to add content.

 Video example

Widgets can be added to automatically pull in certain kinds content from your group. Search, Calendar, Activity Stream, Member List, etc. are examples of the widgets available. A full list of widgets can be found in the "Widget Reference Table". Content can then be added to different regions of the page via widgets.

	Step 1: Content and widgets can be added to your panel page by clicking the "Edit content" link next to the name of your panel page.
	Step 2: You will be taken to a page that shows the regions of your panel page. Click on the gear icon in the upper left corner of a region.
	Step 3: Then select "Add content" from the dropdown menu to add widgets and custom content.
	Step 4: This will take you to a page where you can add widgets and custom content (for more detail see pages adding custom content and "Widget Reference Table".
	A spotlight slideshow is one example of a widget you might want on your panel page.   a. Click "Widgets, group dashboard" in the left side menu. Then select "Spotlight [group]" from the available widgets.
	b. Change the Spotlight title if desired, then click "Finish"  to set your changes. Group administrators and moderators may now add news and event slides to the spotlight. See "Adding a Spotlight Slideshow". The news and event items will also appear in recent news and upcoming events sections if you have added those widgets to your panel page. Events and news widgets work best when added to the right side of your 2 column layout.   See "Widget Reference Table"  for a list of widgets and their functions.
	Step 5: After adding widgets, click "Save" to take you back to your panel pages list.
	After adding content to your group you can expect to see something like this Example Home Page

 

Add Content to Widgets

Each widget requires certain content which is either automatically populated by activity in your group, or purposely added by the group manager. A "Widgets Reference Table" displays the widgets that are available to add to panel pages. Adding content to those widgets is covered in the section called "Kinds of Pages".

A spotlight slideshow is one example of a widget to which you might want add content.

Only group Managers and Moderators have permissions to add content to the group spotlight slideshow.

 

“Events” and “News items" can be displayed in the spotlight slideshow.

 

	Scroll down to the area that is titled “Slideshow Image”. Click the “Choose File” button to retrieve an image from your computer. Click the “Upload” button to upload the image.
	If your upload is successful, the image will display next to a button giving you the option to “Remove” it.
	Next, click on the gray tab titled “Publishing options” and checkmark the box next to “Display in Slideshow”.

 

Click "Save"  to publish your event or news item and show it in the spotlight. News and event items will also appear in recent news and upcoming events sections if you have added those widgets to your panel page. Events and news widgets work best when added to the right side of your 2 column layout. 

About Publishing Options

• Publish: Uncheck this option if you don't wish for this content to appear on the VO yet. Useful for saving drafts of content that requires editing before going live/published.
• Publicize on Group Homepage: This option will place your post on your group's homepage in the corresponding section (Recent News, Upcoming Events, etc…)
• Archive: Will remove this post from displaying publicly (or to members of your group) and add it to a historical archive listing. You may also want to type in a date and time in the “Sunset” section to control when your event or news item is automatically archived.
• Display in Slideshow: Will place this post, along with its image (or video), in a slideshow. Must be used with either Publicize to Entire VO or Publicize on Group Homepage options.
• Pin to Top of Lists: This option will make this post appear at the top of content listings, regardless of any other settings. Useful for denoting important content or content that has a "call to action" associated with it.

Widget Reference Table

Widgets fall in different categories for different uses on pages.

• Widgets in the "Organic Groups" category would be used in creating your home or about page.
• Widgets in the "View Panes" category would be used on pages where you want to display recent comments.
• Widgets in the "Group Dashboard" category are typically embedded into one of the regions of a panel page.
• Widgets in the "Group Menu Items" category typically populate an entire page.

Click on links in the left column of the table below to see an example of the widget dashboard. 
Click on links in the right column of the table below to see examples of those widgets being used on pages.

Widget Categories	Widgets within Category
Organic Groups	OG Description OG Mission
View Panes	comments_recent
Widgets, group dashboard	Forum Topics [group] Past Events [group] Recent News [group] Spotlight [group] Upcoming Events [group] Video, Featured [group]
Widgets, group menu items	Calendar [group] Group Activity Stream Group Meeting Agenda & Minutes Group Members Group Search [cloud] Group Search [simplified] Manage Group Content Popular content [group] Research Projects [group] Videos, All [group]

 

 

Add Custom Content

Custom content can be added to panel pages either by referencing an existing node (preferred method), or by creating content within a region on the page.

	Step 1: Click the "Edit content" link next to the name of your panel page.
	Step 2: You will be taken to a page that shows the regions of your panel page. Click on the gear icon in the upper left corner of a region.
	Step 3: Then select "Add content" from the dropdown menu.
	Step 4: This will take you to a page where you can add widgets and custom content.
	New custom content: Clicking the “New custom content” link will take you directly to an editor where you can type in the content you desire to shown in the widget.
	Existing node (preferred method): To reference an existing node, you will need to type the number of the node in the first text field. The number of the node can be found in the URL of the page you want to add. If a custom URL has been set, you can find the node number by clicking the "edit" button on the page (For more information see "Creating a Web Page"). There are options to override the title of the node, leave existing node title, link the node title to the full node, allow comments and 'read more' links and tell whether to show the entire node or just a teaser (build mode).
	Don’t forget to click the “Finish” button when you’re done typing.

Edit content that has already been created

Existing node: simply click the "edit node" link that shows when you hover over the content on the page.

Custom embedded content: navigate to "Panels" and edit the page where the content is placed. Click the gear icon and select "edit".

Edit Embedded Custom Content

You may need to edit content after adding existing nodes and custom content into a panel page. 

1. Edit existing nodes embedded in a panel page.  

 Video example

	To edit existing nodes embedded into the panel page (see ”add custom content”) hover your mouse at the top left of the content.   An “Edit node” link will appear only if you are group administrator, manager, moderator. Click  on “Edit Node” to launch the text editor and edit the content.
	Click "Save" when you are finished editing and you will be taken back to the panel page where the node was embedded.

 

2. Edit custom content embedded in a panel page. 

 Video example

	Go to the listing of panel pages by clicking the “Panels” tab at the top right of your group page.
	Click on the “edit content” link to the right of the title of the panel page with the custom content you wish to edit.
	You will be taken to a page that shows the regions of your panel page.
	Click on the gear icon at the top right of the region that has “Custom: Add custom” in it. Select “Edit”.
	A text editor will be launched where you can make changes to the content.
	Click “Finish” at the bottom of the text editor when the changes are complete.
	Red text “status:changes not saved” will show in the region that contains the custom content. Click “Save” at the bottom of the panel region page to commit the change.

 

Kinds of Panel Pages

Different layouts can be chosen to best display the content for each custom page. Content can then be added to different regions of the page via widgets.

Creating a Home Page

Creating a basic custom home page versus creating a dashboard style home page.

Creating a Basic Home Page

After editing your group settings your home page will have a left menu with 3 tabs: Home, Forums, and Files.

 Video example 

The content area of your home page will include the mission statement and an activity stream (a dynamic listing of content as it is added to the group). Many times groups do not want the activity stream on their home page. In order to remove it you will need to set up a custom home page.

	1. Click on the gray “Panels” tab above the content area.
	2. This will take you to a page where you can add a new panel page. Start by clicking the “Add new page” tab at the top left of the page.
	3. Type “Home” in the page title input area and add the word home after the slash in the path input area. Click the “Create Page” Button.
	4. Click the radio button next to your new page and then click the “Save settings” button.

Once you have created the new home page you can customize the content.

	1. Click the “Edit content” link to re-insert your mission statement into your home page without the activity stream beneath it.
	2. This will bring you to the settings display of your panel page. The top area is where you will add your mission statement widget. Click on the gear icon in the upper left corner of the ‘top’ region.
	3. Then select “Add content” from the dropdown menu.
	4. From the left menu select “Organic groups”. Then click on "OG Mission".
	5. This will take you to window where you can override the title by clicking the checkbox. You can either leave the title empty or add any title you wish to show on your home page content area. Click the "Finish" button.
	6. Click "Save" to take you back to your panel pages list. The home page will now be set to your custom content page and will no longer show the activity stream.

 

Creating a Dashboard-Style Home Page

After creating a basic home page for your group, you may want to change the layout to accommodate more features.

View a video example for creating a Dashboard Home Page

 Video example

	Step 1: In the area where you edit panel pages, click the “Change layout” link.
	Step 2: Choose the number of columns and click the radio button to select a layout. Click the “Next” button.
	Step 3: Click the “Save” button in the next window.

For instructions on how to add widgets and custom content to your dashboard-style home page see page adding widgets to your panel page and adding "custom" content page. Adding slides to your slideshow widget is covered in the next tutoral section "Adding a Spotlight Slideshow". See the widget reference table for further description of available widgets. 

View a video example for adding news, events and spotlight slideshow widgets to your Dashboard Home Page

 Video example

 

 

 

Adding A Spotlight Slideshow

You might want to add a slideshow to your home page.

 Video example

	You will first need to add the Spotlight widget. Click the "Edit content" link.
	You will be taken to a page that shows the regions of your panel page. Click on the gear icon in the upper left corner of a region.
	Then select "Add content" from the dropdown menu.
	This will take you to a page where you can add widgets and custom content (for more detail see pages adding custom content and Widgets Table).    Click "Widgets, group dashboard" in the left side menu. Then select "Spotlight [group]" from the available widgets.
	Change the Spotlight title if desired, then click "Finish"  to set your changes.
	Step 5: After adding widgets, click "Save" to take you back to your panel pages list.

 

Adding Content to the Spotlight Slideshow

Only group Managers, Moderators, and Members who have been granted the 'Trusted User' status have permissions to add content to the group spotlight slideshow.

	After creating an “Event” or “News item", scroll down to the area that is titled “Slideshow Image”. Click the “Choose File” button to retrieve an image from your computer. Click the “Upload” button to upload the image.
	If your upload is successful, the image will display next to a button giving you the option to “Remove” it.

How to add content to your spotlight slideshow (usually found on the group home page).

An image is required for an event or news item to display in the spotlight slideshow.
 

	If you want the slideshow image and title to link to something other than the node URL (default), enter a custom "slideshow link" to make the spotlight link to a custom page with the setting below. Checkmark "Open URL in a New Window" if you want the browser to launch a new window upon click. If it's an external link, it needs to be a fully qualified URL, ie. http://www.somesite.com If it's internal, it should be sufficient to put a relative URL, ie. node/1234.
	There is also a "more" button at the bottom right of the slideshow that links directly to the CPS-VO news item or event rather than the custom link.
	Next, click on the gray tab titled “Publishing options” and checkmark the box next to “Display in Slideshow”.  Click "Save"  to publish your event and show it in the spotlight.

About Publishing Options

• Publish: Uncheck this option if you don't wish for this content to appear on the VO yet. Useful for saving drafts of content that requires editing before going live/published.
• Publicize on Group Homepage: This option will place your post on your group's homepage in the corresponding section (Recent News, Upcoming Events, etc…)
• Archive: Will remove this post from displaying publicly (or to members of your group) and add it to a historical archive listing. You may also want to type in a date and time in the “Sunset” section to control when your event or news item is automatically archived.
• Display in Slideshow: Will place this post, along with its image (or video), in a slideshow. Must be used with either Publicize to Entire VO or Publicize on Group Homepage options.
• Pin to Top of Lists: This option will make this post appear at the top of content listings, regardless of any other settings. Useful for denoting important content or content that has a "call to action" associated with it.

After adding content to your slide show you can expect to see something like the example below.

Notice that the event and news items were added both to the Spotlight and to the Events and Recent News sections in the right column.

Creating a Projects Page

Creating a projects page is a convenient way to post your group research projects in one easily accessible location.

 Video example

First create a "Projects" Page by adding a new page in Panels. (see Creating Custom Pages for additional instructions).

	When your page is set up and named, click the "Edit content"  link to the right of the title of your "Projects" panel page.
	You will be taken to a page that shows the regions of your panel page. Click on the gear icon in the upper left corner of a region. The "Project" widget works best if placed in the Top or Bottom region of your panel page display settings due to its horizontal layout.
	Select "Add content" from the dropdown menu.
	This will take you to a page where you can add widgets and custom content. There are 3 widgets associated with Group Projects content. Research Projects, All [group] - All projects associated with your group Research Projects, Archived [group] - Archived projects associated with your group Research Projects, Current [group] - Current projects associated with your group Click the "Research Projects, All [group], Research Projects, Archived [group], or  Research Projects, Current [group]" widget link - which is found under the left menu item called “Widgets, group menu-items”. This will insert the widget into the chosen panel-page region (top or bottom).
	A new page will launch with a "Finish" button. Click the "Finish" button to insert the widget. Only one widget at a time may be added using this process. Click the "Save" button at the bottom of your panel regions page to set your changes.
	Initially the "Projects" page will read "no projects found".
	Linked project titles will display on the "Projects" page in a table as group members add projects (Further instructions to members about contributing projects can be found in this tutorial at Creating a Group Project).

 

Clicking on the linked project title will lead to the individual project page (which will appear as below). 

 

Creating an About Page

Creating an "About" page is a way to provide a brief overview of your group.

	When you initially created your group, you added your group “Description” and a “Mission statement”. This content can be included in your “About” page by using widgets.
	First create an "About" Page by adding a new page in Panels. (see Creating Custom Pages for additional instructions). When your page is set up and named, click the "Edit content"  link to the right of the "About" panel page title.
	You will be taken to a page that shows the regions of your panel page. Click on the gear icon in the upper left corner of the region in which you want your content to appear.
	Select "Add content" from the dropdown menu to add widgets and custom content.
	Click either the "OG description" or "OG Mission" link to add the desired content to your page and click “Finish”.
	You may also add new custom content or content from an existing node to your "about" page by following the “Add Custom Content” instructions.    Click on the widget name to insert that widget. A new page will launch with a "Finish" button. Click the "Finish" button to insert the widget. Only one widget at a time may be added using this process.   After both widgets are added, click the "Save" button at the bottom of your panel regions page to set your changes.
	Your description and mission statement will now show on your "About" page.

 

Creating a Members Page

A "Members" page is a convenient alphabetical listing of all members in a group with easy access to features such as adding to contacts, viewing contributions, linking to profile, etc.

	First create a "Members" Page by adding a new page in Panels. (see Creating Custom Pages for additional instructions). When your page is set up and named, click the "Edit content"  link to the right of the title of your "Members" panel page.
	You will be taken to a page that shows the regions of your panel page. Click on the gear icon in the upper left corner of the full-width region where you want your members list to display. The top or bottom region is best for this widget.
	Select "Add content" from the dropdown menu.
	This will take you to a page where you can add widgets and custom content. The “Group Members” widget can be found by selecting the left menu item “Widgets, group menu items”.
	Click on the widget name to insert that widget. A new page will launch with a "Finish" button. Click the "Finish" button to insert the widget. Only one widget at a time may be added using this process.   Click the "Save" button at the bottom of your panel regions page to set your changes.
	Example of a "Members" directory page..

 

Creating a Calendar Page

A "Calendar" page is a convenient place to post a group event calendar.

	First create a "Calendar" Page by adding a new page in Panels. (see Creating Custom Pages for additional instructions). When your page is set up and named, click the "Edit content"  link to the right of the title of your "Calendar" panel page.
	You will be taken to a page that shows the regions of your panel page. Click on the gear icon in the upper left corner of the region in which you want your search widget to display.
	Select "Add content" from the dropdown menu.
	This will take you to a page where you can add widgets and custom content. The “Calendar [group]” widget can be found by selecting the left menu item “Widgets, group menu items”. Add the widget by clicking on its title.
	Click on the widget name to insert that widget. A new page will launch with a "Finish" button. Click the "Finish" button to insert the widget. Only one widget at a time may be added using this process.   Click the "Save" button at the bottom of your panel regions page to set your changes.
	A calendar will then be added to your "Calendar" page.

 

 

See Creating a Calendar Event for more information on posting events to calendar.

 

 

Creating an Activity Stream Page

The content area of a basic home page will include the mission statement and an "activity stream" (a dynamic listing of content as it is added to the group). Many times groups do not want the activity stream on their home page. In order to remove it you will need to set up a custom dashboard style home page.

Creating an"Activity Stream" page is encouraged if you remove the activity stream.

Follow the directions below to create an "Activity Stream" page.

	First create an "Activity Stream" Page by adding a new page in Panels. (see Creating Custom Pages) for additional instructions). When your page is set up and named, click the "Edit content"  link to the right of the title of your "Activity Stream" panel page.
	You will be taken to a page that shows the regions of your panel page. Click on the gear icon in the upper left corner of the region in which you want your content to appear.
	Select "Add content" from the dropdown menu to add widgets and custom content.
	The “Group Activity Steam” widget can be found by selecting the left menu item “Widgets, group menu items”.
	The "Recent Comments" widget is found in the “View Panes” category in the left menu.
	Click on the widget name to insert that widget. A new page will launch with a "Finish" button. Click the "Finish" button to insert the widget. Only one widget at a time may be added using this process.   Click the "Save" button at the bottom of your panel regions page to set your changes.
	When activity and comments begin to populate in your group, you can expect it to look like the image on the left. Notice the option of filtering recent posts by type.

 

Creating a Wiki

Managers can create Wikis for their group where they and their group members will be able to add and edit shared pages (see "Creating a Wiki Page")

	Make sure you have already created your first wiki page before you add the wiki widget to your group. If not, you can use the "Collaborate" toggle menu to get started. Click "Create Wiki Page" to launch the rich text editor.
	You can then find the node ID number in the top address bar.
	After you create your first wiki page, create a panel page and name it "Wiki" (see “Creating Custom Pages”). Click “Edit content” link to the right of the title of your "Wiki" panel page.
	You will be taken to a page that shows the regions of your panel page. Click on the gear icon in the upper left corner of the full-width region in which you want your wiki to display.  The "Wiki" widget works best if placed in the Top or Bottom region of your panel page display settings due to its horizontal layout.
	Select "Add content" from the dropdown menu.
	This will take you to a page where you can add widgets and custom content. Click the "Existing node" link in the bottom left menu to begin.
	This will launch a form. Type the node ID number of your first wiki page in the first text field.
	Don’t forget to click the “Finish” button when you’re done typing.
	Click the "Save" button at the bottom of your panel regions page to set your changes.
	Your first wiki page will now be displayed on your "Wiki" panel page. Group members can now add and edit shared pages (see "Creating a WIki Page").

 

Creating a Popular Content Page

A popular content page is helpful for perusing the most viewed and used group content.

	First create a "Popular Content" Page by adding a new page in Panels. (see Creating Custom Pages for additional instructions). When your page is set up and named, click the "Edit content"  link to the right of the title of your "Popular Content" panel page.
	You will be taken to a page that shows the regions of your panel page. Click on the gear icon in the upper left corner of the region in which you want your search widget to display.
	Select "Add content" from the dropdown menu.
	This will take you to a page where you can add widgets and custom content.  Click to add the “Popular Content (group)” widget (which can be found by selecting the left menu item “Widgets, group menu items”).
	A new page will launch with a "Finish" button. Click the "Finish" button to insert the widget. Only one widget at a time may be added.   Click the "Save" button at the bottom of your panel regions page to set your changes.
	As content is developed in your group, a table will display on the page like the example below.

 

Creating a Videos Page

A "Videos" page is a convenient way to provide a place for group members to share embedded videos from services such as TED, Vimeo, or YouTube.

	First create a "Videos" Page by adding a new page in Panels. (see Creating Custom Pages for additional instructions). When your page is set up and named, click the "Edit content"  link to the right of the title of your "Videos" panel page.
	You will be taken to a page that shows the regions of your panel page. Click on the gear icon in the upper left corner of the region in which you want your search widget to display.
	Select "Add content" from the dropdown menu.
	This will take you to a page where you can add widgets and custom content. Click on the “Videos, All [group]” widget (which can be found by selecting the left menu item “Widgets, group menu items”).
	The "Video, Featured [group] widget"  is found in the “Widgets, group dashboard” category in the left menu. A video must be set to "public" in the group settings and in the publishing options as "published" and "publicized to group home page" in order to show up in the featured videos category. (see bottom of page for more about featuring a video).
	Click on the widget name to insert that widget. A new page will launch with a "Finish" button. Click the "Finish" button to insert the widget. Only one widget at a time may be added using this process.   Click the "Save" button at the bottom of your panel regions page to set your changes.
	You and group members can now begin adding videos to your "Video(s)" page (see "Creating A Video"). You can expect the video page to look similar to the example below.

 

More About Featured Videos

Only group administrators can set videos to be "Featured". 

 

You will need to edit some of these settings to make a video show in the "Featured" section.

	Make sure the video is set to"public" in the group settings.
	Publishing options should be checked as "published" and "publicized to group home page".  Be certain the video is not archived by the sunset date (described above).

 

Creating a Moderation Board Page

A Moderators Board page is helpful for editing, deleting and moving group content.

	First create a "Modboard"* Page by adding a new page by that name in Panels. (see Creating Custom Pages for additional instructions). When your page is set up and named, click the "Edit content"  link to the right of the title of your "Modboard" panel page.​ *Some groups choose to name this page differently, but the standard CPS-VO terminology is "Modboard".
	You will be taken to a page that shows the regions of your panel page. Click on the gear icon in the upper left corner of the region in which you want your search widget to display.
	Select "Add content" from the dropdown menu.
	This will take you to a page where you can add widgets and custom content.  Click to add the “Manage Group Content” widget (which can be found by selecting the left menu item “Widgets, group menu items”).
	A new page will launch with a "Finish" button. Click the "Finish" button to insert the widget. Only one widget at a time may be added.   Click the "Save" button at the bottom of your panel regions page to set your changes.
	As content is developed in your group, a table will display on the page like the example below. A set of dropdown menus give you bulk-editing capabilities.

 

see Using the Modboard for additional instructions on how to use the modboard feature.

 

Creating an Agenda and Meeting Minutes Page

An "Agenda and Meeting Minutes Page" page is a convenient way to store and search meeting documentation.

	An "Agenda and Meeting Minutes" page collects and displays anything tagged with 'Meeting Minutes' or 'Agenda' from the 'Document Type' taxonomy (located to the right of the text editor when creating group content).
	First create a "Meeting Minutes" Page by adding a new page in Panels. (see Creating Custom Pages for additional instructions). When your page is set up and named, click the "Edit content"  link to the right of the title of your "Meeting Minutes" panel page.
	You will be taken to a page that shows the regions of your panel page. Click on the gear icon in the upper left corner of the region in which you want your search widget to display.
	Select "Add content" from the dropdown menu.
	This will take you to a page where you can add widgets and custom content. Click on the “Videos, All [group]” widget (which can be found by selecting the left menu item “Widgets, group menu items”). The "Group Meeting Agendas & Minutes widget"  is found in the “Widgets, group dashboard” category in the left menu. Click on the widget name to insert that widget. A new page will launch with a "Finish" button. Click the "Finish" button to insert the widget. Only one widget at a time may be added using this process.   Click the "Save" button at the bottom of your panel regions page to set your changes.

 

Initially your Meeting Minutes page will be empty. However, the search features will automatically populate as content is added and tagged with 'Meeting Minutes' or 'Agenda' taxonomies from the 'Document Type' taxonomy (located to the right of the text editor when creating group content).

Manage a Group

The CPS-VO Portal provides extensive support for Special Interest Groups. Group Managers and Group Moderators are responsible for maintaining and grooming the content in their group. To edit group content select the [Edit] menu tab in the upper righthand corner of the page. To remove content select the [Edit] menu tab in the upper righthand corner of the page and then the [Delete] button located next to 'Save' and 'Preview'.

The links below explain how to perform advanced group management functions.

Administer Members

Handling memberships in a group involves overseeing who is a member of the group, and who are the administrators, managers and moderators. There must be at least one administrator for every group. Members of a group may leave the group at any time. As the administrator you may only leave the group if at least one other administrator is designated.

	View Member Information Table Click on the "Membership Information Table" link in the "Member Info" toggle menu beneath your group menu in the left sidebar.
	This will take you to a "member list" where administrators and managers can moderate group membership requests and edit user group privileges. Displays the CPS-VO username and credentials (badges). Hovering over a badge displays user privileges. Read more about user roles at http://cps-vo.org/tutorial/types-of-users Real Name of user as shared in account details. Blank if no name was written. Google search on user's email address. Organization with which user is associated. Date user joined CPS-VO. Results can be sorted by join date by clicking blue "Joined VO" link. Blue Log icon indicates notes have been written about user (e.g. "Did a Google search on this user. They are a professor at USF. OK to approve?"). Gray indicates no notes have been written. Click to read and write oog notes. Indicates Admin role in group. Group Managers can remove admin privileges by clicking the red minus icon or add admin role by clicking blue plus icon. Approve or deny membership requests from the "member list". Users requesting membership will have a green checkmark icon. Managers can grant membership by clicking the icon. Group Managers and Group Moderators will receive an email notifying them of new membership requests. See more about group membership request settings. The red "X" icon allows managers to deny or remove membership. Clicking the orange "CSV" button at the bottom left of the table will export the list in spreadsheet format.
	View Group Members To view a page with the photos and names of the members of your group, click the "Faces" tab.
	Add Members Managers can add members to a group and configure their function in the group.  Click on the “Add Members” tab. Type one or more usernames into the “List of Users” text area. Separate multiple usernames by commas or new lines. Click the “Add users” button to complete the process.   If you need to find a user, enter their name in the upper right hand search field (see Seeking Out Colleagues). Click the individual's name to go to their profile page where you will find their username listed beneath their real name.
	Configure Roles  Configure member roles from the "Configure roles" tab. Members can be given "manager" or "moderator" roles from this page by checkbox selection. Click the "Save" button to submit changes.
	Invite Members Group members can invite users to join the group by using the "Invite members" tab. This will send an email message asking the invitee to click a link to join your group. Type one or more comma delimited email addresses and/or VO usernames into the "Invitees" text input area, provide an optional message in the textbox entitled "Additional message". Finally, click the "Invite" button to send the message(s).  Note, a maximum of 20 invites can be sent out at a time.

 

Send Out Messages

Only group managers can broadcast a message to members of a group. A broadcast emails all group members with a copy of the message. Remember your message will be read by all of your group members. The "From" field of the message upon delivery will say it is from "cps-vo on behalf of" and your name from your profile.

To broadcast a message, follow these steps:

	Step 1: Go to the page of the group you manage by selecting it from the “My Groups” dropdown menu from the home page of the portal.
	Step 2: Select the gray “Broadcast” tab under the top banner of your group.
	Step 3: Enter a subject and body message. You may also want to provide your name in the "Reply-To Name" field and your email address in the "Reply-To Address" field. This will allow people to know who sent the email and how to reply.  When you have filled out all the information click the “Send Message” button at the bottom of the form.
	A green confirmation message will appear above the text editor form to let you know your message has been sent.

 

Set Up Group Vocabularies/Terms & File Folders

Content should be labeled to make it searchable. See http://cps-vo.org/node/878 for an explanation of Tags, Terms and Labels.

As a group administrator you can edit and create taxonomies for your group with the following steps.

  Video example

 

	Step 1: Go to your group and select the “Taxonomy” tab.
	Step 2: To add a vocabulary click on the "Add vocabulary" link. This will take you to a form where you can create a new vocabulary for your group.
	Step 3: To keep vocabularies consistent and well defined, type each one as an abbreviation of your group name (in this case "eg"), followed by a colon, a space, then the name of your new vocabulary (See example below). Adding a description can help existing or future functionality of the Portal to clarify the intended nature of your new vocabulary.
	If you select the "file" content type, the vocabulary will show in your group’s file browser. You may select other item types that you wish your group members to be able to label terms with from this vocabulary.
	A vocabulary can be free forming or controlled. Free forming vocabularies come as open keywords labeling an item and are also called tags. Mark the “Tags” checkbox to make your vocabulary free forming. Select the “Multiple select”option if you intend to provide a list of terms for labeling content. Selecting "Required" vocabularies force a label on uploads.
	Once you have created your group vocabularies, they will appear in your group taxonomy table (as shown left).
	Step 4. Add Terms to your group vocabularies by selecting the "add terms" link at the far right of the vocabulary name in the taxonomy table.
	Add the name of the new term (folder name in files) and a short description then select the "save" button to add the term.
	The new term will now show in the list of terms for that individual vocabulary.
	Use the crosshairs to re-order the terms.
	NOTE: Terms with the "file" content type selected will also show up as folders in your group’s file browser. File folders are really just group vocabularies that are relevant to the File content type.

* NOTE: Details for further customizing your group are given in Configuring Groups.  

 

Create a Webform

Webforms may only be created/edited by group managers and moderators.

As a manager or moderator of a group you can post web which will show up in the activity stream and can then be embedded in panel pages of your group.

Create Webform and add components

 Video example 

	1. Use the "Create Webform" link in the "Collaborate" toggle menu beneath the left sidebar menu in your group.
	2. This will launch a rich text editor where you can type the title of your webform, add a description, and checkmark vocabularies       (in the column to the right of the text window).
	There is an area beneath the rich text editor that has settings for your webform. (Refer to screenshot) Click on the links in the gray boxes to navigate to the area you wish to edit. Notifications: set whether members will be notified when you post or edit your webform. Groups: Select which groups to which your webform will publish. By default the webform will publish within the group in which it was created. Check the box next to "Public" if you want it to be publicly available in the CPS-VO Repository. Publishing options: Gives you the option to publish or unpublish your webform by clicking a radio button. If the webform node is left unpublished, only the node author will be able to view the content. URL path settings: Optionally specify an alternative URL by which this node can be accessed. For example, type "about" when writing an about page. Use a relative path and don't add a trailing slash or the URL alias won't work. Revision information: If you log back in to edit your webform you can use this field to document your revisions.
	When you click the "save" button (shown above), your webform will show up on the "Activity Stream" page of your group by default.
	You may later need to reference the node number of your webform for other uses in the portal. The node number of your page is at the top of the browser page in the URL window. If a custom URL was set, you can find the node number by clicking the edit button at the top of your page.
	3. Next you will be then be taken to the webform component editor (shown below).   A.Type the "label" of the component. B. Select the type of component you want to add via the “Type” selection menu. C. Select "Mandatory" to make this a required field. D. "Add" the field to your webform and further define your settings for each component type. E. Use "drag tool" to reorder form components.

Types of Components:

• Date:  Inserts a drop-down menu for user to select a month/day/year. Optional calendar selector is also available.
• Email: A field where user can enter their email address
• Fieldset: A boxed field that contains a description and a title
• File: A place where user can upload a file.

  *NOTE: Create a custom directory by typing a path similar to the one below. This identifies attachments with the webform.

• Grid: a series of questions and options with radio button selectors 
• Hidden: This gives you the option to insert variables or notes which users cannot see.
• Markup: This allows webform creator to enter text in multiple colors and font styles.
• Textfield: You can collect lengthier responses from your users by creating "textarea" fields
• Number: Creates either a dropdown menu or a text area with predetermined low and high integers.
• Page break: Allows you to split your webform into 2 pages.
• Select Options: Makes a list of options with radio buttons.
• Textarea: You can collect lengthier responses from your users by creating "textarea" fields
• Textfield: A one line field for user to enter text.
• Time: A dropdown hr/minut/am/pm selector

Each component will have further option settings (upon clicking the "Add" button) which are defined by hover text in the editing area.

 

The sample form images below display these components in order as the user would see them.

 

 

 

After configuring the webform components, you will need to configure notification emails, confirmation landing page, webform validation and access policies. These options are located in the secondary tabs at the top right of webform configuration page. 

 

Configuring Notification Emails

 Video example

You can configure the webform to send a submission receipt for each entry received. This may be useful to notify the user of successful webform submission. It can also be useful for letting webform administrators know a submission has been received.

 

Typically two notification emails are configured for each webform.

1. The first is the email address (or multiple addresses) of the webform administrators.
2. The second will be the submitter's email address as they typed it in the "email" field on the webform. 
   *NOTE: You must include at least one email component field in the webform to enable this function.

	To get to the configuration settings: Select the gray tab labeled "E-mails". You can enter an email address into the text box, or select component value "Email Address". The dropdown box next to component value is populated by any email field(s) that have been configured in your webform. Select from the dropdown menu which email field should receive submitssion notifications. Click the "Add" button to the far right.
	After clicking the "Add" button, you will be taken to a page where email settings can be configured. Email Address: The Email To address has already been configured in the previous step. You may choose to change it if necessary. Email Header Details ​Email Subject can be set to "Default", "Custom" or "Component". Default sets the subject of your email to "Form submission from: Name of your webform" Custom allows you to set the subject of your email. Component allows you to select a field from the form via a dropdown menu. Email From Address can be set to "Custom" or "Component". Custom allows you to enter an email address. "Component" may be used if you want it to go to an email address the user enters into the webform.  Email From Name "Default" is CPS-VO. A "Custom" name can be typed or a "Component" may also be used if you want it to use a name the user enters into the webform.
	Email Template Settings A default email template already exists in the Email Template window. However, you can customize the message to suit your needs. Left is an example of custom elements added to the template. Values can be found by expanding the token values section beneath the template. A token value was used in the custom template below to populate the user's name (Dear %value[name]).
	Included E-mail Values All of the webform field components are listed in the expandible section called "Included e-mail values" with checkboxes next to each value. All components will be included by default in the notification email. You may choose to deselect components you wish to be excluded from the email.
	Click the "Save e-mail settings" button to save your changes and go back to the previous page where you can set up more email notifications if desired.
	An example of a notification email.

 

Configuring Form Settings

 Video example

The "Form Settings" tab will take you to a page where you can choose a landing page, set submission limits, and choose access policies.

Submission Settings

The submission settings section contains a text editor where you can type the confirmation message the user sees on the landing page. After typing the confirmation you will configure the landing page URL, limit the number of times the webform can be submitted (globally or per user), and close the form when necessary.

Landing page option with confirmation message

The webform user will be taken to a landing page after submitting the form. You may choose (three options shown in image below) where the user is redirected.

1. Confirmation Page - Sends user to generic CPS-VO.org confirmation page.
2. Custom URL - Redirects the user to a custom page (most usually the group home page)
3. No Redirect - Reloads current page.

Submissions Limit

	Limit the number of times the webform can be submitted globally or on a per-user basis by clicking the desired radio buttons and/or typing a number in the text box.
	Status of this Form After your submission period has ended you can close the form (or reopen it) with the radio button settings.

Submission Access

Select which user roles are able to view and submit the form. Note: Only authenticated users (CPS-VO members) are able to edit their submissions.

Configuring Form Validation and Access Policies

This tab will take you to a section where you can add validation rules to individual fields on the webform.

 

The following validation rules are currently included:

 

• Numeric values (optionally specify min and / or max value)

• Minimum length

• Maximum length

• Minimum number of words

• Maximum number of words

• Equal values on multiple fields

• Unique values on multiple fields

• Specific value

• Require at least one of two fields

• Require at least one of several fields

• Minimum number of selections required

• Maximum number of selections allowed

• Exact number of selections required

• Plain text (disallow tags)

• Regular expression

• Must be empty (Anti-Spam: Hide with CSS)

• Words blacklist

• Must match a username

 

One example of this feature would be:

Specific value(s)

Verifies that the specified component contains a defined value (select, textfield, textarea, email, hidden, select)

This feature would be used (for example) when a code is required to submit the form. The webform can then be viewable by anonymous users, but can only be submitted by users who have the code.

Export the Webform

Clicking the export button will prompt a download of the PHP code generated to create the form.

Access Webform Results

Navigate to the webform. Click on the tab at the top labeled "Results".

 

You will be taken to the submissions results section which lists the submission number, date submitted, username, and IP address. You may view and edit individual entries.

Secondary tabs at the top right include analysis, table, and download. Analysis views how completely the form was filled out by each user. Table shows the populated fields of the form in table format. Download gives you the option to export the table in an excel spreadsheet. *Note that this does not download attached files... only the values of the fields.

View/Edit Individual Submissions

It's easiest to access individual results from the "table" view. Click on the submission number on the far left of the column. That will take you to their individual submission where you can edit the submissions if needed.

	Click the "Table" tab Click the submission number to the far left.
	This will take you to a window where you can view and edit the individual submission.

Edit the Webform

	Navigate to the webform. Click on the tab at the top labeled "Webform".
	This will take you into the component panel where you can edit or delete components via the links to the far right of each component title.

Webform Check List

 Does your webform have a description?

 Is your webform published?

 Is your webform public or is it private to your group?

 Have you created all the components you need?

 Are the necessary components set as mandatory?

 Have you configured notification emails to go to the user and also to the form administrator?

 Have you configured the confirmation landing page?

 Have you configured the submission access rules?

 Does your webform need an access code? Has one been configured?

 Have the necessary users been granted permissions to view the webform results?

Manage Group Forums

Only group managers have permissions to administer group forums. Managing group forums involves adding new forums, editing or deleting existing forums, controlling the listing order of forums, and adjusting forum privacy settings.

	Navigate to the group forum by selecting the "forum"  tab in the left sidebar menu of the group you manage. Select the "Manage group forums" link (The stacked folders with wrench icon).
	You will be taken to a table that lists all of the forums associated with your group. From the forum management table select the links to: add new forums edit existing forums adjust privacy settings - private forums can only be seen and commented on by group members. reset publicity - will set forum to default (private).
	In the edit window you can: edit forum name or description use the "weight" dropdown menu to set where the forum falls in the list of forums. Note: When listing forums, those with lighter (smaller) weights get listed before containers with heavier (larger) weights. Forums with equal weights are sorted alphabetically. set your changes with the "submit" button or delete the forum with the "delete" button

 

Using the Modboard

see Creating the Modboard Page for additional instructions on how to create the modboard panel page.

As content is developed in your group, a table will display on the page like the example to the left.

 

A set of dropdown menus give you bulk-editing capabilities. The capabilities are listed in the table below.

 

Node: Type	Node: Title	Node: Body	Public	Published	Promoted to front page	Sticky	Items per page
	Type a search word or phrase in text box.	Type a search word or phrase in text box.	Apply Applies the search  parameters	Reset Resets the parameters to 0	Bulk Operations

1. Click the "Apply" button to set your search parameters.
2. Select the nodes you would like to edit by the checkboxes next to the title of the node.
3. Choose a Bulk Operation from the Bulk Operations dropdown menu.
4. Type a log message
5. Check the "disable notifications" box if you want to keep your changes from being broadcast.
6. Select the "Execute" button
7. Follow the prompts for the operation you chose
8. You will be taken back to the modboard page with a confirmation message at the top describing the action (see example below).

 

 

Appendix: The VO Architecture

The Computing Infrastructure

The server powering the CPS-VO deployment is currently a Dell PowerEdge r515:

• 2 x 2.1ghz 4170HE AMD Opteron w/6 cores per, for 12 cores
• 64GB of memory
• 6.38TB of usable storage, configured as a RAID5 array
• 6 x gigabit network interfaces
• protected by a Vanderbilt ITS firewall service (2 x Checkpoint 4600 configured as a HA pair)
• backed up to an LTO tape using the ISIS/Vanderbilt backup service

This server hosts 4 Virtual Machines:

1. The Development Machine
   where various new features and bug fixes are initially integrated together in an environment that is similar to the actual CPS-VO installation
   (2 vCPU, 8GB memory, 96GB storage)
   
2. The Staging Machine
   used for final testing before deploying new code; this is an exact replica of the actual CPS-VO
   (6 vCPU, 16GB memory, 532GB storage)
   
3. The Production Machine
   where http://cps-vo.org actually lives; this is the live site
   (6 vCPU, 16GB memory, 532GB storage)
   
4. The Big Blue Button Server
   hosts the VO's open-source web conferencing system (e.g. desktop sharing, video & voice over ip)
   (2 vCPU, 4GB memory, 80GB storage)

The Virtual Organization Software Stack:

The software architecture of the VO comprises a large suite of open-source technologies.

In the following sections, we progressively walk through an overview of each of the layers, proceeding from the lowest systems level software, to the upper application-specific codes.

The Drupal CMS

The VO collaboration platform is built on top of the open-source Drupal content management platform, which powers millions of websites and applications. It's built, used, and supported by an active and diverse community of people around the world (including a dedicated Drupal Security Team, which is 40 strong). Presently, we use version 6 of the Drupal CMS.

Within any Drupal installation, there are three primary catagories of information that defines the look, feel, and features provided by the site. These categories are code, site configuration, & data.

Code

The code of your installation defines the fundamental behavior and feature sets provided by the site.

The architecture, installation, configuration and maintenance of Drupal-based content management systems is well documented at http://drupal.org, but we summarize the essential ideas here. The Drupal architecture is defined by a series of abstraction layers, along with an extensive and well documented API for extending and modifying default behaviors.

"Effective Web design is driven by the need to balance flexibility and simplicity. If a system is too simple, it can only be used for a single purpose - but if it is too flexible, it may be too difficult for new users to learn.

Drupal strives to reconcile these conflicting goals by providing its users with the tools they need to make their own content management solution, while still providing some pre-built components to help them get started. Thus, it can be described both as a content management system (CMS) and a content management framework (CMF) - one system which strives to have the strengths of both, without their deficiencies.

Most CMS's are like a toy boat or truck - specific assumptions have been made about their use, assumptions that would be hard for you to override. Frameworks, on the other hand, provide you with raw materials only - you need to know a programming language and have a clear design vision to put them together.

Drupal is like a Lego kit. Skilled developers have already made the building blocks - in the form of contributed modules - that you need to create a site that suits your needs, whether that is a news site, an online store, a social network, blog, wiki, or something else altogether."¹

Modules

A fundamental component of the Drupal Framework is the Modules system. Modules are Drupals term for it's plug-n-play extensibility architecture. By writing PHP code that conforms to Drupal's documented API, one may easily extend the core Drupal feature set. At the time of this writing, there are approximately 20,000 freely available, open-source Drupal modules, of which the VO infrastructure relies on approximately 400 modules² that were implemented by the open-source community. Additionally, there are custom modules implemented by the CPS-VO development team to specifically support the CPS-VO project. As dictated by Drupal's open-source contribution policies, customized installation instructions for each individual module are provided in an included readme.txt file.

Themes

Similarly, themes are a mechanism for customizing the user interface related behaviors of a Drupal-based website. The VO collaboration framework includes a single, highly customized theme designed specifically to support the CPS-VO community.

Views

Finally, in addition to writing customized PHP code, Drupal includes the concept of Views which provide a graphical user interface to system administrators for defining highly complex SQL queries that implement custom report types. The VO software infrastructure includes several custom views for generating common, re-usable [typically paramaterized] reports³.

Configuration

In addition to code, which is typically stored within the CPS-VO Subversion open-source version control and configuration management system, any Drupal installation has custom configuration data that is stored within the site's database tables.

Content Types

The first major category of configuration data defines a type system for information that may be posted on the website. As of this writing, the defined content types at http://cps-vo.org are:

Type	Description
Bibliographic Reference	Allows members to add bibliographic references to groups in which they have membership. Biblios can be added manually or imported from BibTex.
Event	Events are special because they have a start date/time and an optional end date/time as a first-class concept.
File	Files allow uploads of documents and other pre-existing content.
Forum topic	A forum topic is the initial post to a new discussion thread within a forum.
Group	The basic unit of organization for adding new virtual communities to the VO.
Group Project	Used for documenting research projects relevant to some Special Interest Group.
NSF CPS Project	Used to build the catalog of NSF CPS research projects.
News Item	News items are more ephemeral forms of information than Pages. They are ideal for creating and displaying content that informs or engages website visitors. Press releases, site announcements, and informal blog-like entries may all be created with a news item entry. News entries may be automatically featured on the site's or on a group's home page.
Online Meeting	A virtual teleconference/desktop sharing session.
Page	A simple web page for creating and displaying information that rarely changes, such as an "About us" section of a website. By default, a page entry does not allow visitor comments and is not featured on the site's initial home page.
Panel	A panel layout broken up into rows and columns. Used for building Dashboards with various content embedded within the rows and columns at specified locations.
Story	Deprecated
Tearline	A content type that differs from web pages in that there are separate sections, each with differing access permissions
User Profile	Used to track basic data and meta-data for individual users (e.g. place of employment).
Video	Used for embedding videos hosted at sites such as youtube or vimeo.
Webform	Create a new form or questionnaire accessible to users. Submission results and statistics are recorded and accessible to privileged users.
Wiki page	A version of web pages that supports hyperlinking by symbolic names, rather than explicit URLs.

Permissions

For each feature implemented on the VO, there is a role-based mapping between capabilities and classes of users that are allowed access to those capabilities. Presently the defined roles are:

• anonymous users
• authenticated users
• trusted users
• group moderators
• group managers
• site moderators
• site administrators

Data

Finally, the last component of an instance of a VO is it's data. This includes, for example all of the web pages belonging to a site, as well as the list of validated users that may log onto the site. As with configuration settings, the data within an instance of a Drupal website is stored in a series of database tables.

Users

Every visitor to your site, whether they have an account and log in or visit the site anonymously, is considered a user to Drupal. Each user has a numeric user ID, and non-anonymous users also have a user name and an email address. Other information can also be associated with users.

Taxonomies

Taxonomies are Drupal's mechanism for providing meta-data that classifies site content along categories defined by Vocabularies.

Vocabularies may be either structured and defined by administrative personnel, or free-form and defined dynamically by users.

Nodes

A node in Drupal is the generic term for a piece of content on your web site. A node consists of several fields. The simplest node type is a web page, which contains a title field and a body field. Drupal allows site administrators to build a type system for content, which extends the web page with other, customized fields. For example Event nodes contain from, to, & URL fields in addition to their title and body. Some other examples of nodes are:

• Pages in books
• Discussion topics in forums
• Entries in blogs
• News article stories

Comments

Comments are another type of content you can have on your site (if you have enabled the core Comment module). Each comment is a typically small piece of content that a user submits, attached to a particular node. For example, each piece of discussion attached to a particular forum topic node is a comment.

Panels

One rather unique content type defined at the VO is what is termed Panels. Panels provide a drag-n-drop interface for laying out custom homepages or dashboards. Consult Appendix A of The VO User's Manual for an explanation of Panels.

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1. Quoted from http://drupal.org/getting-started/before/overview

2. List of module pre-requisites for the VO collaboration framework

3. List of some of the Views defined by the VO collaboration framework

Appendix: FAQ

Answers to the most frequently asked questions about the CPS-VO

• What is the CPS-VO Portal?
• What is the CPS Community?
• What is the CPS Community Forum?
• What are repositories? What services are offered by repositories?
• How will CPS-VO activities and accomplishments be reported?
• How do I interact within the CPS-VO?
• Who can join the CPS-VO? How do I join?
• I forgot my username/password, what do I do?
• Who can form groups? How are groups formed? 
• How do I join a group? Can I belong to more than one group? 
• How do I leave a group?
• How do I post content to a group? Who can see the content posted in a group?
• How do I find the content I have posted?
• Where do I post community announcements, CfP’s, events?
• How do I adjust my subscription notification settings?
• How do I report a bug/inappropriate content? Submit feedback?

What is the CPS-VO Portal?

The CPS-VO Portal content is created and managed by the CPS Community. The Portal technical infrastructure is integrated and expanded by the CPS-VO Portal Team of the Institute for Software Integrated Systems (ISIS) at Vanderbilt University.

The CPS-VO Portal provides services and content for : 

1. facilitating interaction and information exchange among CPS researchers across a broad range of institutions, programs and disciplines
2. sharing knowledge generated by CPS research with the broader engineering and scientific communities, sharing and integrating experimental tools, platforms and simulators among researchers and stakeholders,
3. fostering collaboration and information exchange between CPS researchers and industry
4. helping international collaboration. The Portal is built on DRUPAL, a widely used free and open source content management system (CMS) that is used as a back-end for at least 1% of all websites worldwide

What is the CPS Community?

The Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) community is a broad community of interest for CPS researchers and developers. The CPS-VO includes institutions from academy and industry, and people who work on a wide range of related disciplines with different approaches, methods, tools and experimental platforms. These entities are all interconnected and evolve driven by a shared goal, to advance our knowledge in the science and engineering of CPS.

What is the CPS Community Forum?

An annual CPS-VO community-building event at CPSWeek, where Federal Agencies, Academic and Industry organizations discuss status of the CPS research and applications. Community Forum archives can be found here: 2009, 2010, 2011

What are repositories? What services are offered by repositories?

At this point, the CPS-VO Portal supports a File Repository for managing information created by the CPS Community. Content in the File Repository is characterized by site-wide and group-wide taxonomies that enables taxonomic search, taxonomy-driven access control, and taxonomy-driven visibility control. Future releases of the CPS-VO Portal will extend the repository suite to education material, challenge problems and solutions, tools and models.

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How will CPS-VO activities and accomplishments be reported?

CPS-VO activities will be reported at the CPS Community Forum each year. A copy of the annual report will be made available in the CPS File Repository.

How do I interact within the CPS-VO?

See full tutorial instructions at http://cps-vo.org/tutorial/collaborate-with-colleagues

There are several ways to interact within the CPS-VO:

• Seek out Colleagues
• Contribute to Forum Discussions
• Create a Global Forum Announcement
• Create a Calendar Event
• Create Event Invitations
• Participate in Online Meetings
• Upload a File
• Activity Messaging
• Use the Chat Feature
• Create a News Item
• Create a Group Project
• Post a Video
• Create and Edit Wiki Pages

Who can join the CPS-VO? How do I join?

See full tutorial instructions at http://cps-vo.org/tutorial/get-an-account

Anyone with a valid email address can become a member of the CPS-VO.

At the top of the portal home page click on the "Click here to register" link and follow the instructions.

I forgot my username/password, what do I do?

At the top of the portal home page (when you are logged out) click on the "Forgot username or password?" link and follow the instructions to receive an email with a one-time login link.

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Who can form groups? How are groups formed? 

Any VO community member may apply to form a group. A request to form a group may be sent by completing and submitting the request form located at http://cps-vo.org/tutorial/form-manage-group/SIG-request

How do I join a group? Can I belong to more than one group?

See full tutorial instructions at http://cps-vo.org/tutorial/groups/join-a-group

VO community members may belong to multiple groups.

Step 1: Go to the publicly listed groups by selecting "Groups" from the "Browse" tab in the global menu at the top of the CPS-VO home page.

A "Join" link is displayed to the right of groups that are open for membership. Other groups require you to "Request Membership". Still other groups are "Invitation Only" or "Closed" indicating that membership is controlled by the group manager (either by inviting you to their group or adding you).

Step 2: To join an available group, click on the link listed in the "Join Link" column to the right hand side of their description.

How do I leave a group?

See full tutorial instructions at http://cps-vo.org/tutorial/groups/leave-a-group

Step 1: Click on the "My Groups" menu link at the top of the CPS-VO home page to show your group list.

Step 2: Navigate to the group you want to leave and click on "Edit membership".

Step 3: The resulting group page will have a link called "Leave this group". Click on this to end your membership of the group.

How do I post content to a group? Who can see the content posted in a group?

Navigate to the group in which you want to post content. There are multiple types of content listed in the "Collaborate" toggle menu (located beneath the left sidebar menu in your group).

Use the "Groups" selector (located in the area beneath the rich text editor) to choose which groups you want your file to publish to and whether you want it to be publicly available in the CPS-VO Repository.

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How do I find the content I have posted?

Most groups have an "activity stream" page where you can access the most recent content. You can also go to your account page and select the "contributions" tab to see all the content you have posted.

Where do I post community announcements, CfP’s, events?

See full tutorial instructions at http://cps-vo.org/tutorial/collaborate-with-colleagues/forum-announcement

Select "Announce on Forums" in the "Collaborate" menu at the top of the CPS-VO home page. You will be taken to a form where you can add the Title and Content of your announcement, select Vocabularies to tag it, and select which forums the announcement will post to.

How do I adjust my subscription notification settings?

See full tutorial instructions at http://cps-vo.org/tutorial/exploring-my-account/subscriptions

You can get to your subscriptions page by going to your account and clicking the "My Subscriptions" menu item in the "My Tools" toggle menu. This is the page where you can manage your subscriptions and your notifications settings.

How do I report a bug/inappropriate content? Submit feedback?

Submit a bug or inappropriate content by clicking the feedback button to the far right of the site or by hovering over the house icon at the top left of the CPS-VO home page and selecting "Contact Support" in the dropdown menu.

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Appendix: Glossary

Activity Stream - a dynamic listing of content as it is added to the group

Archive - Clicking the archive checkbox hides this content from global and group home pages. However, the content will still be accessible in other areas of the site. Unchecking the archive checkbox allows this content to display on global and group home pages.

Authenticated User - entry level users with the most basic level of membership. Authenticated users can contribute content to the global repository, calendar, and forums.

Author - the creator a of a node

Bibliographic Reference - a content type that allows members to add bibliographic references to groups in which they have membership. Biblios can be added manually or imported from BibTex.

Bookmarks - content saved to your library for easy retrieval at a later date

Breadcrumbs - The set of links, usually just below the header, that show the path you followed to locate the current page. For example, it might show CPS-VO > SCIENCE OF SECURITY > CALENDAR, meaning that you started at the home page, selected 'Science of Security' from the 'My Groups' menu, then selected 'Calendar' from the group menu items. The term breadcrumbs is borrowed from Hansel and Gretel, who left crumbs of bread along their path so they could find their way back out of the forest.

Broadcast - sends an email message to all members of the group

Collaborate Menu - toggle menu in the left sidebar of a group. Contains links to create and post content within a group.

Contacts - users you have added to your contacts list

Content - the text, images, and other information on the web site

Content Type - Every node belongs to a single "node type" or "content type", which defines various default settings for nodes of that type. Content types on the CPS-VO include: Events, News Items, Videos, Files, Groups, Projects, Online Meetings, Tearlines, Webforms, Web Pages, and Wiki Pages.

Contributor - the person(s) who authored the document

Event - a content type that has a start date/time and an optional end date/time as a first-class concept. Events postings are automatically listed in the global and/or group calendar.

Field - elements of data that can be attached to a piece of content. Fields commonly contain text, images, or terms.

File - a content type that allow uploads of documents and other pre-existing content

Filter - a tool to narrow search results based upon the specified criteria

Forum Topic - a posted topic of discussion within a certain forum

Global - content not belonging to a group

Group - the basic unit of organization for adding new virtual communities to the CPS-VO.

Group Manager - responsble for the group menu structure, group taxonomy structure, group forum structure, administering group members, and sending group broadcast messages

Group Member - can contribute to the group repository by uploading files, posting videos, and creating events & news items. They can also contribute to the forums, conduct online meetings, and create projects and wiki pages.

Group Moderator - has full control over your group's content. They perform an editorial function and are responsible for grooming the content of your group and ensuring that publicly viewable content is appropriate, correct, and complete to your group's own standards.

Group Project - a content type used for documenting research projects relevant to some Special Interest Group. Contains fields for elements such as: abstract, PI, Co-PI, researchers, artifacts, related projects and vocabularies.

Invitation - invitation of guests to an event sent via notifications

Log Message - a message entered for each revision to help track changes to a post.

Member Info Menu - toggle menu in the left sidebar of a group that contains information about the group and group members.

Messages - information sent via email or portal messaging about content or groups to which a user has subscribed.

Modboard - a bulk editor which allows you to make changes on multiple pieces of content at the same time.

News Item - a content type for more ephemeral forms of information than Pages. They are ideal for creating and displaying content that informs or engages website visitors. Press releases, site announcements, and informal blog-like entries may all be created with a news item entry.

Node - a piece of content in Drupal, typically corresponding to a single page on the site, that has a title, an optional body, and perhaps additional fields. Every node also belongs to a particular content type. Examples of nodes are files, news events, online meetings, and wiki pages.

Notification - messages sent via email or portal messaging to inform users of additions to subscribed content.

NSF CPS Project - a content type used to build the catalog of NSF CPS research projects

Online Meeting - a content type used for a virtual teleconference/desktop sharing session.

Page - a content type for creating and displaying information that rarely changes, such as an "About us" section of a website

Panel - a web page in which content can be added to defined areas in custom layouts with different column configurations.

Private - Content that is not marked as public is private to the group in which it was posted.

Publicize - placing a post on a group homepage or the VO homepage

Publish - Uncheck this option if you don't wish for this content to appear on the VO yet. Useful for saving drafts of content that requires editing before going live/published.

Public - content that may be viewed by unauthenticated users

Region - defined areas of a page where content can be placed.

Revision - one version from a list of tracked differences between multiple versions of a post

Roles - Examples of roles are unauthenticated users, authenticated users, trusted users, group moderators, and group managers.

Search - allows users to jump right to the specific piece of information which interests them

Site Administrator - has global access to all VO content. This means that a Site Administrator has the privileges of a group manager and moderator in all groups. They can add/ remove members, broadcast messages, and create/remove group admins. Additionally, they can configure group services, add/ban group members, and also have full control over group content.

Spotlight - featured content (eitiher news or event) that is placed into a slideshow feature on the portal home page or a group home page.

Sticky - Setting content as "Sticky" will cause that content to be pinned to the top of lists

Subgroups Menu - lists the parent and subgroups related to the current group

Subscription - allows a user to automatically be notified of new or updated content

Sunrise - Setting a sunrise date will de-archive this content at the set date and time (midnight is the default if a time is not set). The content will then display on global and group home pages.

Sunset - Setting a sunset date will automatically archive this content at the set date and time (midnight is the default if a time is not set). The content will no longer display on global and group home pages after the sunset date/time, but will still be accessible in other areas of the site.

Tagcloud - a visual representation for text data, typically used to depict keyword metadata (tags)

Taxonomy - Taxonomies of terms are used for organizing content. Taxonomies are a set or 'Vocabularies' of 'Terms'. Because of their impact on finding and accessing items on the site, creating and modifying taxonomies can only be done by Site and Group Administrators.

Tearline - a content type that differs from web pages in that there are separate sections, each with differing access permissions

Teaser - a teaser is a snippet of text designed to tell the user the content of a post without reading the entire post

Term - an organizational keyword, known in other systems as categories or metadata. A term is a label that can be applies to a node. They are also known as tags.

Trusted User - a member who has been vetted and approved by site managers and site administrators. This trusted member will then be able to post information to the CPS-VO home page. CPS-VO members can apply for elevated "trusted user" status via the "Contact Support" link under the "Home" tab in the global menu at the top of every CPS-VO page.

Unauthenticated User - users who are not logged in, or have not yet joined the CPS-VO. They can browse the site, but are not able to contribute content to the portal. Also known as 'Anonymous Browsers'.

User Profile - visual display of personal data associated with a specific user

Vertical Tabs - tabs to the left of a page that stack on top of each other.

Video - a content type used for embedding videos hosted at sites such as YouTube, Vimeo, or TED.

Vocabulary - a collection of terms

Webform - A content type used to create a form or questionnaire that allows a user to enter data. Submission results and statistics are recorded and accessible to privileged users.

Widget - an application, or a component of an interface, that enables a user to perform a function or access a service

Wiki Page - a version of web pages that supports hyperlinking by symbolic names, rather than explicit URLs

Contact Support

Maintainers of the Portal can be contacted to report a problem, make a suggestion, or to ask the portal manager to request setting up a group. If you would like to make a group request then please select "Group request" as the "Category" in your email.

To contact portal administration perform the steps below:

Step 1: Select the "Contact Support" link under the "Home" tab in the global menu at the top of the CPS-VO home page.

Step 2: The "Contact Us" form is brought up with your username and email from your account information already filled in. Select a category to identify the purpose of your message.

Step 3:  Fill in the Subject and Message fields, and submit with the "Send e-mail" button (you may choose to send a copy of the email to yourself with the provided checkbox).