Communities

Learners, but also administrators, can create communities to promote communication & information exchange among learners taking the same courses, having similar assignments etc. To promote this objective, following community types can be created:

Types of communities

Public communities:

can be found on the Communities page
posts published by members of a public community can be searched & are visible to all learners with access to the learning platform
however, commenting on community postings is only permitted once the learner becomes member of the community
community membership is granted automatically, without approval from a community administrator
members of the community are visible to all learners, with or without community membership

Private communities:

private communities can be seen on the Communities page
however, posts and comments in this community will not be seen/found via search, unless a learner applies for membership & is accepted by a community admin
members of the community are only visible to other community members, but not the public

Private hidden communities:

hidden communities are not seen on the Communities page, unless the learner has a pending invitation to the community by a community admin
posts and comments in the community are not visible until membership is granted
members of the community are only visible to other community members, but not the public

Locked communities:

communities can be locked at any time by a community administrator
posts, comments & members of a locked community are no longer visible, even to other community members
these can again become visible if the community administrator unlocks the community

Communities with post release:

in these communities, posts will not be directly published
posts only become visible once a community administrator has accepted the publication of the post
posts that are not accepted for publication will remain in the private space of the author, but will not appear in the community or via search

Creating a community

Learners can create communities in the learner area: under the listing of existing communities, click on Create community, then add the mandatory title & description of the Community's purpose, if desired upload a picture to single the community out on the overview page and then define it according to the types of communities.

The creator of a community will automatically be the Community Administrator. Therefore he can immediately add members to the community by going to the Members tab and searching for persons contained within the Person administration, by name and/or prename, then clicking Add.

These members will then receive an invitation to the community which they will need to confirm in order to gain full access rights to the community, within the bounds of the community definition.

Members can also be removed from the same screen, by clicking Remove and then selecting the desired persons from the listing and saving the option.

Once several community members have been added, the community administrator can also change the role membership: under Members > dropdown Change role, select the new role, then selected the desired member and click Save.

Creating posts in communities

Members of communities can create posts that will appear in the respective community and if linked with a course / course content, on the course overview pages, like for example here:

The visibility of such posts is contained within the definition of the community, as such:

Open communities: posts can be seen & liked by all learners, even those without community membership. Comments only possible by community members.
Private and private hidden communities: posts can be seen only by community members, even on course pages as the above
Posts created by learners without being linked to a community will only be visible to the learner himself and no one else.

To create a post, one can do this directly in the community overview page or in the Communities listing page by clicking the Create post button and then adding the mandatory title & post content. Alternatively, you can create a post directly in a community, where the same form will opened, but the current community will be already linked.

Following options are available:

the content text editor enables some formatting options and insertion of links
files can be uploaded in the content area and even in comments added to the post. As long as the visibility is not set to off by clicking the eye icon next to each attachment, these will be visible to post readers
the post can be linked with one or more communities of which the post author is already a member of
the post can be linked with one or more assignable or assigned courses and course contents under the links section in the post creation form
the post author can decide on whether comments are allowed or disabled for his post once published