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myLesley Community Planning Guidelines and Request Process

 

What is a myLesley community?

A community space in myLesley is a place where a group of individuals can communicate and collaborate on information and tasks. Communities use many of the same tools that are used in myLesley courses such as Announcements, Discussion Boards, Email and uploading and organizing content. However, communities are different from courses in some of the following ways.

Courses...

  • Are automatically created.
  • Have a specific academic outcome/objective and are either an extension of the classroom or take the place of the classroom.
  • Have required activities, such as assignments.
  • Members are defined by the course with a formal leader (instructor) and participants (students).
  • Have a start date and end date.
     
  • Are fixed. While faculty may tinker with their course, major design changes or reorganizations are usually done for future offerings.

Commmunities...

  • Must be requested.
  • Have broad and varied goals and are typically unrelated to course work.

  • Are voluntary. Members don't have to complete activities or even log in.
  • Members can be a mix of faculty, staff and/or students.
     
  • Are continuous. No end date, with the exception of cohort communities.
  • Are dynamic. Since they are continuous, they must grow and change as the members' needs change.

Example Uses of a myLesley Community

Communities are used for many different things here at Lesley, but using them as a repository for forms and information is a good place to start. For example:

  • Stop printing out or emailing forms. Post them in the community. Members have access 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
  • Post meeting notes and agendas.
  • Use the Announcement and Email tools to quickly and easily let members know about a change in a procedure, a reminder of a due date or an upcoming event.
  • Use the Discussion Board to discuss topics for an upcoming meeting or to continue a discussion between meetings.
  • Create a discussion space for members to ask questions. You can then answer them once on the Discussion Board rather than 100 times in emails to individuals. Or create an Frequently Asked Questions document.

Process for Creating a Community

A few things to consider when planning your community space:

  • Pick conscientious leaders who will develop the community space, will make sure all the forms are posted and will monitor the Discussion Boards for questions. They don't necessarily need to "participate," but will need to do regular housekeeping.
  • Pick 2-4 leaders. It's always good to have a backup person.
  • Do an inventory of the content you would like to place in the community. Consider different ways to organize it. What will make sense to your members?
  • Designing and planning an effective community is where all the hard work is. Actually building and uploading the content is easy. Don't skimp on the planning stage.
  • Ask for feedback from your participants.

Basic steps in the request process:

  1. Complete the Community Planning Guide [doc].
  2. Email the completed guide to ut@lesley.edu who will then contact you regarding your request.
  3. Begin planning what information will be in the community and how it will be organized. (see above)
  4. Community space will be made available to the leaders in myLesley. (see above)
  5. Consult with eLIS for a design consultation. (optional, but highly recommended)
  6. Upload and arrange your content in myLesley.
  7. Launch community and welcome participants.

Roles of University Technology & eLearning and Instruction Support:

University Technology (UT) and eLearning and Instructional Support (eLIS) work collaboratively to assist the Lesley population in myLesley community creation and design. Here are the things that each group will help you with in the process of creating your community.

University Technology

UT assists with providing the actual community space including the Name and Enrollments. Communities are typically populated based on data sets in Colleague.  UT can also provide you with technical support.

Email: ut@lesley.edu
Phone: 888-MYLESLEY (888-695-3753)
Online: Help Center (myLesley course related documentation also applies to communities)

eLearning and Instructional Support
eLIS assists with planning, design and selection of myLesley features to create a stronger community space.

Email: elis@lesley.edu
Phone: 617.349.8960
Online: Help Guides (myLesley course related documentation also applies to communities)

 
updated 09/15/11 | 02:39 PM
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