VI Forum information
About VI Forum
The VI Forum is a UK based email discussion network, established to support staff working within education. The list aims to facilitate discussion of issues relating to the teaching of students who are blind or partially sighted and provide an opportunity for teachers and other educational practitioners to discuss issues, share best practice, resources and provide a practical information-sharing forum.
VI Forum is facilitated by the Department for Education (DfE) in partnership with RNIB and is comprised of education professionals who work with children and young people who have vision impairment, including teachers, teaching assistants, support workers and early years practitioners.
Network aim
The aim of the network is to create a community of professionals working within education across the UK, for peer support, development and dissemination of best practice, problem solving, sharing ideas, experiences and resources relevant to supporting and advising blind and partially sighted children and young people.
Network format
VI Forum is an e-mail discussion network. E-mail discussion networks are very easy to use and do not require members to log on to an external website to check network activity as all information is delivered directly to your chosen email account.
Once registered (see 'How to subscribe' below) members can email messages to the forum via their chosen email account (personal or work). When a member emails a message to the forum, it will immediately be sent to all network members instantly. Members will be able to easily respond to colleagues messages by replying to the email. This will allow members to provide support, advice and guidance to colleagues in a quick and easily accessible manner.
How to subscribe to VI Forum
Becoming a member is easy! You can 'subscribe' to the network by visiting the VI Forum login page.
· Provide your name, email address and choose your password.
· You can select your preferred language and whether you would like to receive a daily 'digest'.
The 'digest' default is 'No' which means you will receive an email directly to your inbox whenever a member posts to the forum. If however, you would prefer to receive one daily summary of all network activity, please select 'yes'. You can update your personal settings at any time and change your network preferences.
Once subscribed you will receive a welcome email asking you to confirm you registration. Once confirmed you can begin posting!
How to post a message
To post information to the network, you simply send an email from your 'registered' email account to
When a member posts to the network, all registered network members will receive the message and will support each other by responding to enquiries and resource requests as and when they are sent.
VI Forum message guidelines
Please view the 'VI Forum forum message guidelines' at our Events, training and networks page for further details on how to optimise your interaction with the forum:
How to reply to a message
To reply to a message, click 'reply' as you would when replying to any other email. It is important to note that when hitting 'reply' and 'reply all' this automatically adds the forum list email address to your message which will send your response to ALL members. If you wish to send a personal reply, you will need to manually delete the eisn list email address () from the 'TO:' field.
Please note, once an email is sent to the forum it cannot be retracted so please be careful to maintain confidentiality and avoid sending personal messages.
Updating your settings
You can adjust your network settings at anytime.
Changing your message options
As you know, VI Forum is a mail based forum and you have the option to receive emails from the forum in two ways:
1. 'As and when' people send emails or;
2. As one daily 'digest'
The default for receiving messages is 'digest' so that you receive just one daily 'digest' or summary of all messages sent on that day. However, if you would prefer to receive messages 'as and when' members post (please note, this may mean a significant increase in emails!), please follow this procedure:
· Visit the VI forum landing page
· In the VI Forum subscribers section at the bottom of the page (Blue section) under 'To unsubscribe from VI Forum, get a password reminder, or change your subscription options enter your subscription email address', enter your email address and click 'Unsubscribe or edit options'.
· Enter your password (or if you have forgotten your password click 'Remind' under the 'Password Reminder' section at the bottom of the page).
· Scroll down to 'Your Vi-forum Subscription Options' and in the second box down entitled 'Digest Mode' click 'Off' and you will receive your emails 'as and when' people post emails rather than in a daily digest.
N.B. If you currently receive emails 'as and when' and are finding this overwhelming especially when the forum is very active please change this setting to 'On'. Your messages will then appear as one email with the days forum messages as attachments within this email.
Plain Text Vs MME
You can set your digest as either Plain text or MME.
Plain text
This is the default option which gives you one email containing all messages which you can scroll through.
MME
This is the preferred option as it is one email which contains all emails sent that day as attachments.
How to unsubscribe and request a password reminder
To unsubscribe, request a password reminder or update your preferences, visit the VI forum landing page.
· In the VI Forum subscribers section at the bottom of the page (Blue section) under 'To unsubscribe from VI Forum, get a password reminder, or change your subscription options enter your subscription email address', enter your email address and click 'Unsubscribe or edit options'.
· If you have forgotten your password click 'Remind' under the 'Password Reminder' section at the bottom of the page.
· If you would like to unsubscribe, click 'unsubscribe' and you will be removed from VI Forum. You will of course be welcome to return to the forum at any time in the future.
Advertising on VI Forum
At the request of VI Forum members, all advertising is restricted to the Weekly notifications and announcements update which goes out every Friday during school term.
This is an opportunity for members to share any information relating to courses, conferences, network meetings, training, job vacancies, new resources and more. The aim of this weekly digest is to limit the amount of 'adverts' within the daily running of the forum which will continue to be for sharing information in relation to resources, texts, effective practice etc.
Submitting an item for inclusion...
If you have any announcements, information about courses and conferences, job vacancies, new resources etc, that you would like included in this update, please send a paragraph (approx 100 words including a link to a website for further details) to by 5pm on Thursday and your information will be included in that weeks digest.
N.B. Please do not send information to the forum email address.
Acceptable Use Policy
By subscribing to the VI Forum email discussion group, you agree to the Acceptable Use Policy at our Events, training and networks page.
Please ensure you read it before signing up. Anyone not following this policy may have their email deleted and be removed from the mailing list if a registered user.
Further information
For more information about VI Forum or if you have any queries regarding the forum, please contact the VI Forum Moderator by emailing
rnib.org.uk