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Guidance for SETAC Website Group Moderators (Page Administrators)

One of the primary elements of the Your Membership (YM) platform used by SETAC is the Group. Each group in YM has a defined membership and certain other characteristics that uniquely specify its identity within the system. This guidance presents the types of groups available on the SETAC website; Do’s, Don’ts, and Maybes for group admins, and finally concludes with a “How to” section for group admins.

Types of Groups

SETAC has established two major types of groups – open, where membership is unrestricted, i.e. anyone can belong or join, and closed – where membership is limited by delegation or election. The former typifies groups, like the various Interest Groups, where broad and unrestricted membership is desired to allow large numbers of participants with common interests to interact around a common set of topics. The latter type applies generally to elected groups, like governance boards/councils, committees, and workshop steering groups. In both cases, some kinds of additions or modifications of the contents of the various pages can be done by any group member and other kinds only by a designated group administrator/moderator.

This guidance document provides information to designated group page administrators in three categories – things we encourage you to manage, things we are OK with you managing and last, things we would prefer you not change, even if you technically can. Once you are designated as an admin and you log in and visit the group page of a group for which you have admin privileges, you will see a couple new elements in a bar below the group title and the links to Group Pages, Directory and Features, and Options. The primary areas to be familiar with are the first two “Group Admin Options” and “Change Homepage Layout”. Don’t worry about “Resource Manager”for the time being.

Group Admin Options – Do’s, Don’ts, and Maybes

When you click on this link, it will open a drop down menu (see figure) containing seven categories – Content Management, including both the way the pages look and adding new pages; Calendar Functions, including items already in the calendar and adding new ones; Photo Management, including both adding photos and managing the contributions of photos from group members; Blog and Forum Management, including adding subcategories and starting new folders within categories. The final two categories, Member Management and Member Communication, are similar to the functions available to membership in general but sometimes offer some group specific capabilities or additional details on group characteristics.

Content ManagementHomepage Options
Group Homepage LayoutCustom Pages
File Library
Calendar ManagementView Dates & Events
Add a New Date
Add a New Event
Photo ManagementManage Photo Albums
View All Photos
View Pending Photos
View Accepted Photos
View Rejected Photos
Blog Management
View Blogs
Start a New Blog /
  • Forum Management
View Forum Categories
Add a New Category
View Forums
Add a New Forum
Member Management
View Current Members
View Pending Members
View Membership Log
Member CommunicationMessage Group
Email All Group Members

Content Management

Admin Options – Do’s

  • Suggested Content for Group Homepage Welcome Text is provided in the last page of this guidance.
  • Select Group Features to display (by clicking the selection box) that best convey useful information to the group (other than the Welcome Message and Group Navigation, which are required to be turned on).

Admin Options – Maybe’s

  • The standard Group Feature Menu Options should be kept turned on. But if there is a feature that is not relevant or the group decides not to use, this item may be unchecked so it does not appear in the menu. We would strongly prefer that the Directory not be turned off.
  • If you want to change the general layout of the page, it is permissible to do so, but we prefer you keep a right column format if possible.
  • Set the item counters for events, blog items, forum activity, and group news to levels that reflect what things are most important to let members know about. We want the Group News Feed feature(includes a variety of event, blog, and forum items in a single category), if you turn it on at all, counter be set to 5.
  • The sequence of category items below the Welcome Message can be altered if you want, but we would prefer the Photo Gallery to remain in the right rail area below the Group Navigation menu. You can increase or decrease the number of photos displayed as you wish or select the order of display.
  • Custom Pages may be set up if the Group Home Page is not adequate or if file collections, special collaborations, or other advanced capabilities are needed by the group. If you want to set up a custom page or add certain elements to custom page(s).
  • File collections are useful if the group has a significant amount of archival material. Otherwise, it may be more intuitive and easier to use forum folders.

Admin Options – Don’ts

  • Use the standard homepage as a template as we do not want to have every group’s page customized or look so different that members of several groups/committees cannot find things.
  • Don’t uncheck certain features that are essential to convey essential information about the group. These include the Welcome Message and Group Navigation.
  • Don’t move the Header or Welcome Message text fields down the page. This information needs to be at the top.

Photo Albums, Blogs, and Forums

Admin Options – Do’s

  • If you expect extensive use of the photo gallery feature, keep the collection orderly by creating new albums as needed.
  • In a similar vein, if members are allowed to upload photos (the current default), please insist they provide a caption and tags. Note that the default also allows members to submit comments on individual photos. You can change this to “Not allowed”.

Admin Options – Maybe’s

  • You may get questions about image format or color specifications. There is text indicating what is permissible on the “Upload a Photo” page.
  • Although there is an applet to allow multi-image uploads, this feature does not allow photo tagging or captioning, so limit its use.
  • Change the setting for allowing members to directly upload photos if you have some question about what could be uploaded or the group wants to limit what is placed in the gallery. If you want to set this to require admin review and approval of photo posts, please contact the office.
  • All groups have a default blog with the name of the group pre-assigned. You as admin may create additional blogs, name them, and specify other attributes (for example, admin approvals of posts prior to public display, member commenting, voting on posts, voting on comments or text about the purpose of the blog) to support other kinds of group activities. If you have set up multiple blogs, you can also decide in what order they will appear on the page.
  • All groups have a default forum category with the group title. As administrator you can add forum categories and decide in what order they appear. You may also add forums within a category and specify in which order they appear in the category. You may also change certain settings – archived forums are simply stored in the back end of the database and are not visible to members while locked forums are visible but only the administrator may post to them or reply to previously posted topics.

Admin Options – Don’ts

  • Do not create an excessive number of photo albums,blogs or forums or it will become confusing to members as to the guidelines on what they should use or where to find things.

Group Page How to

  • Change content on the home page:
  • Select ‘group admin options’ then select ‘home page options’, edit, then do not forget to push ‘submit’ at the bottom of the page
  • Store and Link a File:
  • To store a file:
  • Select ‘Resource manager’. If you need to create a new folder for the file category, choose tab ‘Create new folder’ at the top of the page: create a folder (these folders won’t be visible for webpage users but it’s just helpful for the webpage administrator to give somehow a structure to the various types of files you want to upload to the page). You could for instance make a folder for workshop activity updates, annual reports, images, meeting minutes, newsletters, PowerPoint presentations, annual meeting session summaries, etc.
  • Choose tab ‘upload files’ at the top of the page
  • Select your file and click ‘upload file(s)’
  • Upload to this folder’: choose the folder where your file belongs to
  • Click ‘drop files here or click to upload’, select your file and click ‘upload file(s)’
  • To link text
  • Select the text you want to hyperlink
  • Choose tab ‘Insert’
  • Choose icon ‘hyperlink manager’
  • Choose tab ‘hyperlink’
  • Click on the icon next to the bar ‘URL’
  • Select the file in one of the folders where you created previously
  • Click insert
  • Text has been linked to the file, you now need to ‘submit’ the changes in the text editor.
  • Add Pages
  • Select ‘group admin options’ then under ‘content management’, select ‘custom pages’, then select‘Add new custom page’give it an appropriate name and press ‘Submit’. Examples for new categories to consider: “charter”, “steering committee minutes”, ‘Technical output’ (e.g., TIP, summary paper of SESSS, FTM, etc.), or ‘Annual reports’ (these are currently embedded in the homepage, which is fine as well).
  • Add Forums
  • Select ‘group admin options’ then under ‘forum management’, select ‘add a new category, give it a name then save.
  • Create a File Library
  • Select ‘group admin options’ then under ‘content management’, select ‘file library’
  • Once you have created a collection, go to ‘custom pages’ (within group admin options/content management), select the page in which you would like the collection to appear, then associate the collection. You can associate multiple collections with custom pages.