Community & Team Site Overview and Navigation
The Community of Practice (CoP) and Team Sites are similar in that they can both have similar features and functionality however a team site has controlled membership. DAU's CoPs are open to the public, but membership is highly encouraged as it will give you the added functionality of being able to contribute and participate in the community. Simply click the blue JOIN button at the to right area in the CoP. In team sites, membership is by invitation only. The setup, look and feel of the team site are controlled by the team site leader and thus they may not have all the exact same features turned on as the standard CoP. Below are the standard available features for either collaboration space.
Below you will find an overview of the look and feel of the Community of Practice page layouts and information on how to navigate the community and a walk through of the different areas. A Team SIte may look different. If you have a particular area of interest, click the topic areas listed below to go right to that area. On the right are other training links related to Communities and Team Sites..
Topics:
Community Overview
The community pages (and team sites) use modular design (web parts) and have a variety of navigational methods.
We'll take a look at all of the pieces and parts, but first, here's an overview of a community layout.
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Community & Team Sites Layout
Sign In / Sign Out
To sign in, click the Sign In button and follow the prompts for our single sign-on process. For Team Sites, you will not see your Team Site listed from the community hub unles you are already signed in to the DAU.mil site.
After signing in, you will be able to access your personal profile page or sign out from that same button.
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Join / Leave a Community
Joining a community or team site is easy and beneficial. All public communities are set for automatic approval, so after signing in, simply click the Join this Community button to become a member. By joining, you can now add Q&A, submit documents, and view members. Team Sites are by invitation only.
And on the Members page, you can view how many points you’ve earned by participating. You’ll also be able to leave the community, if you wish.
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Search
The search field lets you choose to search within the community or throughout all of DAU's assets.
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Share an Idea / Ask the Community
This area displays the newest questions. Clicking a title will display that question and any responses to it. You can filter the questions by clicking on the tab titles. You may also choose to receive alerts for any new discussion activity. Clicking the section banner will take you to the list of all questions.
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Featured Multi-Media
Relevant multi-media is pulled in from the DAU video library. You can play the videos listed here, or you can go to DAU's video library and search for additional videos.
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Community Poll
Voting is optional on the community poll, but voting will allow you to see the to-date results.
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What's Happening / Metrics
Some basic community metrics are displayed in the What's Happening section.
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Site Contacts
Site contacts listing the community leaders are listed at the bottom right of the home page. Each name is hyperlinked to the person's profile so that you may contact that individual, if needed. Column headers allow you to filter on various metadata. And the section banner will take you to the entire list of site contacts.
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Mobile Access
When you resize your computer screen or view the site on a mobile device, the layout changes a bit. For example, the social media icons appear horizontally across the bottom of your screen, the mega menu and search bar are only accessible through the hamburger menu, and the promoted links are displayed horizontally. The left nav disappears (again, use the hamburger menu), and the web parts that were displayed along the right side of your screen are now aligned vertically under the multi-media section.
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Community & Team Sites Navigation
Mega Menu
The mega menu will probably be your most often-used navigational method. The Contribute tab allows a logged-in community member to post a question or response, upload various types of content, or provide feedback on the site.
From the Browse by Subject tab, you can navigate to topics of interest or “View All Topics”.
And from the Browse by Category tab, you can view types or "categories" of documents , as well as other types of content such as Announcements or FAQs, and access related resources such as ACQuipedia articles, policy and guidance, or related websites. To close the mega menu, simply click on the open tab title again.
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Left Navigation
The left nav contains links to commonly used areas of interest within the community, such as Announcements, Calendar, Documents, etc.
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Breadcrumb Path
The breadcrumb path always tells you where you are within the site and how you got there, and it is hyperlinked so that you may easily return to a previous location.
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Featured Topics
The featured topics links provide easy access to some of the most useful pages within a site. When you mouseover each, a pop-up gives additional information about what is contained on that page. Clicking the icon will take you to its associated page.
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Related Resources
Related Resources links take you to pages containing relevant information for the community.
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Hamburger Menu
At the top left of your screen is the most powerful navigational item: the hamburger menu. It contains all of the other navigational methods except the breadcrumb path. When you click on it, an accordion-style menu opens with links to the various navigational sections.Clicking each new section will close the other sections. When you want to close this menu, click the “X” at the top.
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Video
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