FAQ

Who has access to the forum?

The general public has limited access to the forum, including

1. Theme-Description Pages
2. Main Project Pages
3. Researcher (PNIs and CNIs) Pages (excluding information about the researcher's private bio and financial contributions to GRAND activities)
4. Publications, Artifacts, Activities, Awards and Press Pieces
5. GRAND conferences

All members of the GRAND community, including PNIs, CNIs, HQP, and members of the Board of Directors, have (or can have) a forum account. A GRAND-forum account holder has access to

1. all pages starting with the account type of the user ("PNI", "CNI", "HQP", "BOD")
2. all pages starting with the prefix "*ProjectName:*", where "*ProjectName*" is the name of a GRAND project with which the account holder is associated.

User Roles

There are various types of users on the forum. Each role implies access to different areas of the forum.

A user's role can change through their participation in GRAND, and a user can assume multiple roles at the same time. There are also four special user roles: (a) Project Leader and co-Leader, and (b) Theme Leader and co-Leader. Users with no roles are considered to be 'Inactive'.

A more in depth view of who has access to what can be seen here: Help:AccessControl

How do I read the forum pages?

The Project pages

1. Project Name : The full name of the project
2. Project Leader : The leader of the project as a wiki link
3. Project Co-Leader : The co-leader of the project as a wiki link
4. Researchers : The list of researchers in the project as wiki links.
   1. PNIs : The Principle Network Investigators in the project
   2. CNIs : The Collaborating Network Investigators in the project
   3. HQP : The Highly Qualified Personnel in the project. This section is only displayed if the user is logged in.
5. Description : The description of the project, written by the Project Leaders.
6. Theme Distribution : The percentage of the project activities associated with each of the GRAND themes.
7. Milestones : The list of milestones of the project. This section is not public to users who are not part of this project and can only be edited by the project leader and co-leader.
8. Publications : The list of publications authored by the project team.
9. Artifacts : The list of artifacts produced by the project team.
10. Activities : The list of activities in which the project team has engaged.
11. Awards : The list of awards with which the project team has been recognized.
12. Press : The list of press pieces referring to the project team.

The project members can also see the project milestones.

The project leader and co-leader can edit this page.

The Theme pages

1. Theme Name : The full name of the theme.
2. Theme Description : The description of the theme. Depending on the theme, there may be subsections within this section.

The Researcher Pages

1. Researcher Name : The full name of the researcher.
2. Avatar : A profile picture of the researcher.
3. Twitter : This link is generated if the user has edited their preferences with their twitter handle. The link will go to a page with their most recent tweets.
4. ReaSoN : A link to a researcher' ReaSoN (researcher social network) is automatically generated based on the user name of the researcher. The link will show up if they are in ReaSoN.
5. Contact Information : What university this researcher works at, as well as their department and title.
6. GRAND Projects : The list of projects that this researcher is a part of.
7. Profile : A profile of this user. Every user has both a public and private profile. The public profile is shown to those not logged in, while the private profile can only be accessed by members of the forum.
8. Publications : A list of publications co-authored by the researcher.
9. Artifacts : A list of artifacts co-produced by the researcher.
10. Activities : The list of activities in which the researcher has engaged.
11. Awards : The list of awards with which the researcher has been recognized.
12. Press : The list of press pieces referring to the researcher.

In addition, researchers can see the list of their own financial contributions to their projects and can edit their own profile page.

The Publication and Artifact Pages

1. Publication/Artifact Title : The full title of the publication/artifact.
2. Authors : The authors of this publication. If the authors are users, they should have wiki links to their pages.
3. Abstract/Description : The list of projects related to this publication/artifact
4. Publication/Artifact Information : Depending on the type of publication/artifact, the subsections will be different. The subsections cover information such as the publisher, DOI, ISBN, year, etc.
5. Projects : The list of projects related to this publication/artifact

Once logged in, a GRAND user can edit any publication. Editing a publication will generate notifications to all the authors previously and currently mentioned in the publication.

The Activities, Awards, Press and Contributions Pages are similar.

How can I find information in the forum?

The forum offers a set of index pages through which information can be accessed.

Index Tables

For the main entities in the forum, there are index tables, which list all the pages about that entity.

• Themes
• Projects
• Principle Network Investigators
• Collaborating Network Investigators
• Highly Qualified Personnel
• Research Management Committee
• Conferences

These links can also be found on the sidebar.

Some of these pages contain search boxes at the top of the page to filter the table results. On the Researcher Index Tables for example you can filter by name or by projects. Regular Expressions are also supported in this search box, so you can for example ask "NAVEL|MEOW", or in other words the people in either NAVEL or MEOW.

User Search

If you would simply like to search for a user, then you can do so at the Find User page.

Project Pie Chart

On most of the index pages, a pie chart can also be used to search for a page. Above the table there are two links "Expand/Collapse Project Pie Chart" and "Full Screen Mode". By clicking one of these links, the pie chart will be made available to you. This chart can be used to see who is a part of which project, which projects are a part of which theme and many other combinations of relations. Double clicking an edge will bring you to the wiki page of that entity.

Searching

If none of the above indices are sufficient, there are three more flexible ways to look for information in the forum. Keep in mind that this method will only show wiki pages, not the more specialized pages as mentioned above in the How do I read the forum pages? section

• First, by using the "Search" textbox at the top of the screen.
  • This will list first the pages named with the search string, and next the pages whose content includes the search string. Please keep in mind that the search only searches for wiki pages, so there will be many pages on the forum that may not be found using this method.
• Second, by using the Search tool.
  • In this page, you will be able to restrict the Namespace whose pages will be examined for the search string.
• Third, by using the various Lists of Pages utilities in the Special:SpecialPages.

How do I add information to the forum?

Adding a new member

To add a new member to the forum, you can Add Member. Filling out this form will notify the forum administrator, who, in turn, will review the request, and (in most cases) approve the request. On this page make sure to select the roles and projects with which the new user should be associated.

Adding/Editing Publications, Artifacts, Activities, Awards, Press and Contributions

• To add a new publication, you can go to Add Publication. On this page, there is a search box where you can enter (a part of) the publication title. A list of publications with titles that match the string entered in the search box will appear below the search box. If the publication you want to add is included this list you may select and edit it. Otherwise, after you have entered the complete title of the new publication, you can press the Create button, which will lead you to a form where you can enter the complete bibliographic data of the publication.

You can also add a new publication using the Import BibTeX page.

A similar user-interaction workflow can be followed to edit/add Artifacts, Activities, Awards, Press and Contributions.

• Add/Edit Artifact
• Add/Edit Activity
• Add/Edit Press
• Add/Edit Award
• Add Contribution

The addition and/or editing of a publication will generate notifications to all the persons associated, previously and currently, with the publication.

Editing People-Project Membership Information

To change the roles and project membership of a user, go to Edit Member.

PNIs/CNIs can change the roles and projects of their HQP.

Project leaders and co-leaders can request changes to the membership of their projects. These requests are reviewed and approved (or rejected) by the GRAND administration.

The GRAND manager can assign(remove) project/theme leader/co-leader roles, as well as BOD roles.

Editing My HQP list (for CNIs/PNIs)

To change your list of HQP, go to Edit Relations. The left column contains your current HQP, and the right contains the full listing of HQP. If one of your HQP is graduating, go to Edit Member, where you can deselect the HQP role for them and add a comment on what they will be doing after graduation and mention their thesis.

Through the same form, PNIs/CNIs can edit the list of people with whom they work closely.

If the HQP is continuing as an HQP in GRAND, but you no longer are his/her supervisor, then simply remove him/her from the left column listing your HQP.

Notifications

Many of the features on the forum create notifications for various actions. For example if your project membership on the forum has changed, you will be notified, as well as the project leader. If you have any notifications, a tab at the top of all pages will be colored red, and contain the number of notifications you have. To view notifications, click the My Notifications tab at the top of the page. A listing of all your current unread notifications will appear. Deleting the notification usually occurs once you have viewed the page that the Notification links to.

I have an idea for a new functionality; how do I ask for it?

If you need a new feature, the best place to go is Feature Request. Here you can request that a new feature be added, or if you have a problem with an existing feature, you can ask to get it fixed. Before you ask for a new feature though, you should go to Feature Request Viewer as somebody else may have already asked for that feature. From this page, you can also comment on other people’s requests.

Where is the Report?

http://forum.grand-nce.ca/index.php/Special:Report

What about polls?

Creating a new poll

Go to Create Poll and from there you can create a new poll. The poll can be composed of multiple questions by clicking the "Add Question" link. Similarly, you can add an option to a question by clicking the "Add Option" link to the respective question.

Controlling the scope of members to be polled

You can limit the visibility of the poll by checking off the projects/user groups for the type of people who should be able to see the poll. If you want it to be visible by everyone on the forum, simply select "All Users".

Poll reminders

You can email all the users who have not yet voted by viewing the results page of the poll (This page is only visible by the creator of the poll, once they have voted themselves). Go to My Polls and find the poll in question. This page you can use to view the results of the voting, but you can also email the users who have not voted by going to the aggregates table at the bottom of the page, and clicking the "Email" link.

How do I utilise project mailing lists?

Each project has an associated mailing list designated <project_name>@forum.grand-nce.ca. In general all members of a project are included in the associated project mailing list, however this is up to the discretion of the project leaders. You can access a log of the messages sent by going to <PROJECT_NAME>:Mail_Index , and you can see a list of all the mailing lists which you are a member of by going to the tab at the top of the screen 'My Lists'.

How am I supposed to use the forum?

The forum has two fundamental purposes to serve:

1. to help the GRAND administration collect the information it needs for reporting purposes
2. to help the GRAND researchers communicate information of interest and collaborate with to their project and overall GRAND membership

With respect administrative tasks, specific instructions will be emailed to GRAND members as specific information becomes necessary.

More generally, project members should make sure that the information available on the forum about their projects is correct and up to date.

With respect to the collaboration objective, the forum provides a mailing list for each project (it is mentioned at the top of the project page) whose activity is included in (and can be searched through) the forum. Moreover, since the forum is based on Mediawiki, anyone can create new pages within their project namespace (namely pages starting with their project prefix) to collaborate with their project members. The actual practices of how to use the forum for collaboration are up to the individual projects.