Information Technology Services, The University of Western Ontario
How
do I...

Use Caucus


July 1997

Contents

Where to find Caucus

Click here. Or point your web browser to the location
http://caucus.uwo.ca/

How to Log in to Caucus

In the Caucus Start Page, click on
Caucus Centre
When asked for your username (User ID) and password, type in your normal panther account (also known as your Unix or e-mail account) and password.

Your Personal Profile

The first time you use Caucus, you will be asked to type in your name and other (optional) details such as e-mail address and school or work phone number. This is your personal profile. You can change this information at any time by clicking on your highlighted name.

How to Quit Caucus when finished

Click on the button to leave Caucus. VERY IMPORTANT FOR PEOPLE USING PUBLIC LABS: also quit Netscape or whatever web browser you are using, otherwise the person after you is able to attend a caucus conference under your name!

How to Find all Conferences that Exist

On the Caucus Centre page, which is the first page you see after logging on, click on
See a list of all conferences
This shows all conferences that are listed. (It is possible to have unlisted conferences which are only visible to those eligible to join them). You have permission to join any conferences that are clickable. Click on whichever conference you wish to join.

Some Useful Conferences

To start things off, you might find these general-purpose conferences useful:

How do I Start my Own Conference?

To have a conference created, contact caucus-wg@julian.uwo.ca (but first read on).

Sometimes it may be obvious that a new conference is needed, e.g. you need a class conference with restricted access.

In many cases, it's not necessary to create a new conference in the first instance. Start with a discussion item (which may be about anything) in Townhall (for serious subjects) or Farside (for non-serious subjects). If your discussion item takes off and there's a need to create multiple sub-discussions under it, it may make sense to convert the discussion item to its own conference down the road.

During the pilot-phase of the caucus project, only staff and faculty are eligble to create conferences. (Note this is just for creating new conferences - everyone can create items in general conferences such as Townhall and Farside).

Where am I? How to find out

Go into any conference, then into an item. Look at the beginning and end of whatever page you are at. There's always a line that reads something like this:
Caucus Center => Demonstration => Item 2: Introduction to Caucus: Conferences, Items, &Responses.
This tells you exactly where you are. To return to the start (perhaps to select another conference), click on Caucus Centre, or to return to the conference (e.g. Demonstration) containing the item you are currently reading, click on its name.

How to Return to Start at Any Time

At the top and bottom of the screen, you will always see the words Caucus Center. They will be clickable if you are not already at the start. Click on Caucus Centre to return to the start at any time.

How to Become a Member of (or Join) a Conference

Before you can participate in a conference, you must become a member of it (or join it). At the Caucus Centre, click on see a list of all conferences. Click on the conference you wish to join. If you are not already a member, Cancus will invite you to become a member and add the conference to your personal conference list. Click on Yes.

How to Resign from a Conference

If you no longer want to participate in a conference, you can resign from it. To do so, click the word resign in the sentence You may also resign from this conference that is displayed near the top of the first screen of a conference.

How to Read Discussion Items and Responses

Conferences contain multiple discussion items which in turn contain multiple responses.

After going into a conference:

How to Make your own Short Response

If your response is relatively short, you can add your own response to an item simply by typing your response in the box beneath the most recent response. When finished composing your response, click on Post+View.

If your response is in plain text, make sure the box that appears just above the area in which you enter your response, (as you are composing it) says Word-wrapped. If your response contains HTML, make sure this box says HTML.

How to Make your own Short Response

If your response takes longer than a few minutes to enter, it is not a good idea to do it directly in the caucus response window. Your response is not saved to disk while you are typing, so if anything goes wrong you loose your work.

Examples of things going wrong are a power flicker, your system or browser crashing for some reason, or the modem of your Internet Service Provider timing out. ISP's often have a maximum amount of "idle" time they allow before the connection gets automatically broken. While you are typing your response, nothing gets sent over the line, and the ISP's modem thinks (wrongly) that you are doing "nothing." hence the connection gets broken and you cannot post your response.

The way around all this is to compose your response in something like Notepad (Start->Programs->Accesories->Notepad). Save it to disk regularly. When it is finished, import it into the caucus response box using the upload button above the response window.

Notepad is a good choice because it produces simple ASCII text, which is what you need for caucus. You can also use MSWord or WordPerfect, provided you save your text as ASCII (File->SaveAs), using the appropriate save type.

How to Create a New Item

When you go into a conference, if you are allowed to create new discussion items in the conference, you'll see a link called create a new item. Fill in the title and content boxes and click on the Create+View button.

The absence of a create a new item link in a conference means the conference organizer is controlling the creation of new items, and you are limited to entering responses in items created by the organizer.

How to Update your View of the Conferences

While you've been reading and composing responses and/or items, others may have been doing the same. To update your view, click on Caucus Centre, then press the Reload button in Netscape or other web browser. If you're still not sure you're seeing everything, quit Caucus (by pressing ) and come back into Caucus.

How to Keep Track of What's New in Selected Conferences

You should add selected conferences that you wish to keep track of, to your personal conference list. When you first become a member of a conference, you have the opportunity to add it to your personal conference list. If you don't do so at that time, you can do so later.

At the Caucus Centre, click on Personal Conference list. Click on all the conferences. You'll see a list of all the conferences.

In the box entitled Edit your personal list of conferences, type in the names of the conferences you wish to track. (Spaces and spelling matter, case doesn't). When finished, click on the Make these changes button.

Your personal conferences list will be displayed every time you log into Caucus and you will see which conferences have new discussion items and/or responses. It will look something like this:

Conference name            # of items with 
                           new discussion
 
Townhall                         3
Farside                          
This is telling you that, since you last read the conference Townhall, there have been three new items and/or responses. There is nothing new in Farside.

The quickest way to look at the new material is to click on the number. Let's say you click on 3. It will show you the first new item or response in Townhall. Click on Pass and it will show you the next new item or response. Continue clicking on Pass until you've seen all of them. At any time, you can scroll up to review previous responses, or enter your own response, then continue by clicking on Pass.

How to Make External Links from Web Pages to Conferences, Items or Responses