How we can all contribute in maintaining the site and its content

This new Philip Project website, and particularly the members area, is supposed to provide a place where articles, news and other materials can be posted for the benefit of our online community.

• Readers
• Authors
• Editors/Moderators
• Admins/Managers

Readers

So to begin with, without readers the Philip Project wouldn't have or need a site! But we see readers of the site, playing an active part beyond simply viewing the web pages. As a reader, you will be able to comment on articles and give other helpful forms of feedback. The site thus includes necessary features for people to perform this role, and where these are missing we'd like readers to be able to request particular features and changes needed on the site.

To comment on an article, use any of the following kind of links shown below an article.

Below is an example of some site features that could enable us capture useful feedback:

Staying current
To be automatically notified about new articles or updated materials on the site, there are RSS feeds which people can subscribe to. To do so, look for a feed icon in the left-hand column for the type of material you may be browsing or are interested in. On clicking it, your browser (if you are using Internet Explorer 8 or Firefox) may present you a list of news items, with the option of subscribing to the particular feed. Alternatively, if you use a feed reading program (e.g. Google Reader), you can right-click the feed icon, copy the link and paste it into your feed reader.

Authors

This role is prepared for specific members to create the new articles, documents and other content to be published on the site. It would be great to have a stream of articles posted on the site, to be read by students, alumni, project partners and potentially interested persons across the world.

Simply request to become an author and one of the admins will update your account, so you can access the text editor provided for creating articles. From then on whenever you log in, there wll be a 'Create Article' link in your left-hand side menu. This will take you to an editing page which has tools similar to a wordprocessor.

Thus you can compose articles with rich text formatting, or even copy and paste content straight from MS Word. Links to other content on the site or on external sites can be included. Photos and other multi-media items can be inserted into the article as well.

So, as an author the process for creating a new article is as follows:

• On the website, click on 'Members' in the top menu.
• Log in, if you aren't already
• Click on 'Create Article'
• Add the 'Title'
• Write the article. Below the editing box, there some controls to enable you then:
• Put the article in a 'Section'
• In that section, put it in a 'Category'. For example, under the 'Members Area' section available, one can place articles in the 'Prayer Items', 'Members Articles', or 'Training Resources' categories.
• Save the article. It will be then be listed under 'My Articles', in your left hand side menu.
• Well done!

Once an editor/moderator has checked and published it, the article will appear in the selected menu category. The moderators are included in this process in order to have someone else look at an article.

Editors or Moderators

This role is for people to help in reviewing the articles submitted by authors, as well as other content provided by readers (comments for example), before they are published to the site. The moderators are responsible for ensuring the contents of articles and other materials posted on the site are of good reading quality, are edifying to our online community, and are consistent with the overall aim of the Philip Project: raising faithful bible teachers.

Again to volunteer to be a moderator, simply contact one of the site admins. Once setup as an editor or moderator, you would have a 'PP Moderator' panel in your left hand side menu whenever you log on.

Site Admins or Managers

The admins serve as the primary point of contact for any requests or questions site visitors and members have in using the site. They are responsible for approving newly registered members and for setting up individual users' accounts appropriately for them to perform their different site roles. The admins are also responsible for ensuring the information published across the website is up-to-date, and that any information or features that are needed by or would be beneficial to site users are accessible, and where not available, are provided or implemented.

The site admins role is catered for by volunteers on the Philip Project task team.