Welcome to week three of the Humanities Commons Group Month! We’re dedicating this time with you to explore groups features, network, and build online community. Each week features a quick challenge (only 5-10 minutes required of your time) to help you familiarize yourself with groups and develop your online presence. As you complete each challenge, share your progress with the larger HC community by tweeting your work to us at @humcommons and using our hashtag, #HCGroups. That way, we can answer questions, direct folks to your work, and keep the conversation going.
If you’ve already missed the first two weeks, never fear! All of our challenges are explained in this blog, so just look back to early blog posts to see what you missed.
Week 3 Challenge
Post a new discussion post. Let at least three people know about it.
This challenge will last from March 15th to the 21st. To complete our third challenge, first navigate to the Groups area of Humanities Commons by clicking the Groups tab. Find a group you’re already a part of or join a new one and click onto that group’s page. Once there, click on the Discussion tab of the group’s navigation bar (just below the group’s header image). After you’ve reached the Discussion page, click on the green button labeled Create New Topic and type your new post into the text box. There are many options you can choose to customize this discussion post. For example, you can select to be notified of any follow-up replies by email, or you can choose to post the same comment to multiple groups by using the checklist at the bottom of the page.
Once you’re done typing in your message and selecting from the many options, click the green button labeled Submit. Congrats! Your discussion post should now be live! Share the post with three people by copying and pasting your post’s link to social media. Please also share your new post with us on Twitter so we can share it with our followers!
Week 3 Group Admin Challenge
Show or hide a menu item for members. For example, if your group doesn’t use one of the group features, you can remove it from the menu to decrease clutter!
To complete this challenge, first go to your group’s page. Select Manage from the group’s navigation bar; then, click on the Settings button. Scroll down to see the option to hide or show menu items. Don’t forget to click Save Changes after you’re happy with your selection, or else it won’t be saved.
If you ever change your mind about whether you’d like the menu item to be visible or hidden, you can always return to this page and change it back. Read more about these new options for groups in our recent blog post.
Week 2 Solutions
Get stuck last week? Or missed the challenges announcement? Not to worry, you can still complete them this week! Here they are (you can also find them on the blog post dedicated to Week 2), with instructions.
Week 2 Challenge
Respond to a discussion post that somebody else began.
To complete this challenge, navigate to the Groups area of Humanities Commons, and either find a group you’re already a part of or join a new one. Once you’re in the group, click on the Discussion tab of the navigation bar (by default, it’s right next to Activity, the main page for most groups). Once there, respond to one of the discussion topics! Or, if there aren’t any, make a discussion topic of your own (that’s jumping ahead a bit to week 3, but you won’t lose points, promise!). Topics can be anything related to the group’s purpose: a pressing issue in a given field, a call for papers, an announcement of a major publication, etc.
Week 2 Group Admin Challenge
Change the group photo or cover image. If you like the one you already have, feel free to switch it back!
To complete this challenge, navigate to a group that you are an administrator for. Next, click Manage in the navigation bar. Once on the Manage page, you can click on Photo or Cover Image in order to change these elements of your group. Do the process again to change it back to the old Photo/Cover Image!