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This guide describes the details of how a Caucus conference organizer administers a conference. When the Caucus administrator creates a conference, he or she also assigns someone to be the primary organizer - the person in charge of the conference. Caucus gives this person special abilities. The primary organizer may in turn give other people these special abilities in order to share the power and responsibility of managing the conference. Faculty can setup a conference for their classroom, Staff can setup conferences for their departments. At this time, students are not allowed to create conferences.
Request organizer privileges and a new conference from the Caucus Conference Request Form by clicking on the button at the bottom of the CAUCUS CENTER homepage.
Information Needed:
You will receive email notifying when your conference is ready, then you can join your new conference - click on the 'customize' button to customize your conference. You can make changes at any time.
Conference names may be up to 20 characters long but cannot contain any blanks. You may use underscores to link words, as in "MY_CONFERENCE". (Conferences may not be named CHECK, HELP, STOP, or LIST, because these are key commands for the text interface.) The "CONFERENCE or LIBRARY" question determines the type of the conference. A CONFERENCE is a traditional discussion conference with items and responses. A LIBRARY is a conference that is organized as a file library. File libraries are not currently available for use with the Web interface to Caucus. The organizer should join the new conference as soon as is convenient to prepare the conference for its participants.
Caucus gives the organizer of a conference special abilities to assist with setting up and maintaining a conference. Many of these abilities, such as controlling who can join a conference, are provided by the customize link in the conference home page. Only the organizer can use this feature. Pressing the customize link brings up a form (a page with various check boxes and text boxes) that the organizer uses to modify the conference. This form includes boxes for:
The user list has a special format which must be followed precisely. Each line in the list contains only one word, either a username, or a control word. The control words are :include, :exclude, :readonly, and :organizer. The control words affect the usernames immediately following them until the next control word or the end of the list is reached. Here is a simple example:
:include
The usernames "harpo", "chico", "zeppo", and "groucho" are included in this conference. This means that they may join the conference. No one else is allowed to join the conference unless the organizer adds their name to the list. Zeppo can only read the material in the conference. Harpo and chico can both read the material and add their own items and responses. Groucho can do anything that the primary organizer can do. The user list Caucus displays is numbered in paragraphs and subparagraphs. Caucus numbers this list automatically. The subparagraph number is always 0 for "organizer", 1 for "include", 2 for "readonly", 3 is "exclude". For example if you type in the above user list, the next time you click on the customize link you will see:
"Edit the HTML text of the greeting..." lets the organizer edit the text of the greeting that appears each time a person joins the conference. Note that the greeting can include HTML and CML ("Caucus Markup Language") text.
"Edit the HTML text of the introduction" lets the organizer edit the text of the conference introduction. This is the text that appears the first time a person tries to join the conference. The introduction should briefly describe the purpose and content of the conference, and who should join it.
The Group File option is not used at the University of Arizona at this time.
The primary responsibility of an organizer is to keep the conference running smoothly. The conference participants expect the organizer to answer questions, monitor the progress of the conference, assist in any communications difficulties, and in general help keep the conference well structured. As organizer, you may want to structure the first few items of the conference. For example, Item 1 could explain the intents and purposes of the conference, Item 2 could be a place to discuss questions about Caucus, and Item 3 could be reserved for special bulletins or other timely announcements, such as "Class registration begins tomorrow, June 17, at 8:30 am". The organizer also has the ability to change the text of any item or response in the conference, regardless of who entered it. This ability, however, should be used sparingly. A typical example would be helping a user make the text of his or her item more readable. If an interpersonal problem occurs in a discussion on the conference, as organizer you can intervene or even censor parts of the discussion. Fortunately, such problems are rare. To change the text of an item or response, simply click on the edit button next to that text. Normally this button only appears next to responses that you wrote; but since you are an organizer, it appears next to all items and responses.
Please join the Organizer conference and share information and ideas with other Organizers. The Organizer conference is closed and the CAUCUS Manager will add you to the member list. All you have to do is 'join'. Important Organizer Information will be posted.
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