Collaboration Features

One of our major goals is to promote collaboration among people and projects by enabling tools and a special spaces to facilitate communication, sharing ideas, information, resources and coordination of joint activities.

groups

Users can create their own groups to collaborate, get in touch and share information. The creator of each group can decide if membership is only by invitation; if approval is required for becoming a member or if the group is open to everyone. In addition, he/she can choose to have this group listed in the fellownies.org registration form and in the list of groups or choose to maintain it hidden and not list it anywhere on the site. Also, whem a member of a group posts information on the site, he's presented now with the option to make that information accessible to the public or only to the groups he belongs and selects.

Once you have created a group, go to the groups page and click on the number of subscribers to your group (second column) to manage the groups members (add new ones, approve, remove, make a user an admin, etc.).

templates for collaboration requests and offers

Any user, even those not registered can easily request help or offer it for any project, initiative or activity related to human development. Once we have some requests or offers, a listing place for them.

Detailed templates have been added for:

• collaboration requests.
• extended form
• quick form
  
• collaboration offer.

members (users list)

Both visitors and users can browse a directory of registered users that lists both their profiles and special interests to discover collaboration and partnering opportunities. No sensitive information such as e-mail is displayed. If a visitor wants to contact a user and that user has chosen to allow others to contact him/her, then clicking on the name will bring the full profile with options to send an e-mail (without disclosing the e-mail address of the registered user) or a private message to the user's private inbox in fellownies.

polls

Registered users can create polls where both registered and non-registered users can vote and help decide on the feasibility of an idea, the direction of a project or just show preferences on a particular topic. 

forum 

A forum area built around actions and needs, not topics, allows people to engage in relevant interaction and actually collaborate and address issues valuable to their projects.

The initial main forum areas are: Funding and Sustainability Issues, Lessons Learned and Experiences, Problems, Difficulties, Limitations and their solutions, Sharing Ideas and Projects, Technologies and Platforms, Volunteering and collaboration.

Any forum discussion can also be put under any of the Development Issues categories, so for example, a post in the Lessons Learned and Experiences forum can also be found under the Education category.

calendar of events

Both registered and non-registered users can add events to our shared calendar of human development. Upcoming events and a small calendar are displayed on the left bar of every page. The calendar and the events can be browsed in a month calendar, week calendar or a plain list of events. Users may also choose to display only events relevant to a specific topic from our list of categories.

rsvp

An rsvp link is enabled to every event they add to the calendar. This allows the creator of the event to invite people to the events and manage their responses. People invited to attend receive an e-mail with a link to the event and the option of confirming their attendance.

collaborative documents (books)

Users can work together producing a document by posting articles that are then combined as "chapters" of a "book" and arranged in a specific order and hierarchy. Navigation links (such as previous/next and a list of sub-topics) are then added by the system to each article in the "book". For an example take a look and navigate the different articles part of the about fellownies "book" this text is part of:

• www.fellownies.org/about/fellownies 

Users can start by creating a "book", or just turning any content they have already posted into a book or part of a book by opening the content and clicking on the outline tab in the toolbar that's shown below the title.

surveys and webforms

Users can create their own surveys and webforms that visitors can fill to register in their projects, do field research, volunteer, etc. Responses are sent via e-mail to the address set by the creator of the form and are also available for browsing at fellownies and as an Excel file. Surveys and webforms are similar, but differ in their options and flexibility. While one gives you more control on the look and feel of the form, the other is quicker to use and allows downloading responses as an excel file. 

• create a survey
• create a webform