Communities: policy
Purpose of this policy
The purpose of the policy is to define the management and use of LMS communities at the University of Melbourne.
Use of communities at University of Melbourne
Staff may request an LMS community site to establish an online environment to share resources, projects, collaborative research and online communication with colleagues, groupings of students or a general ‘community of interest’.
LMS communities should possess the following attributes
- LMS communities have the same features and structure as LMS subjects, and are just as customisable.
- Communities are displayed to members on the Communities tab in the LMS.
- LMS user guides referring to ‘subjects’ also apply to ‘communities’.
- Each community has at least one leader (university staff member) and a number of participants (staff or students). The leader of a community will be responsible for maintaining the site and managing the participants.
- The membership of a community may be linked to enrolment in particular subjects, courses or other communities, or nominated individually or in groups by the community leader.
- Communities may be configured to allow any university user to self enroll themselves into the community.
Alternatively, communities may configured to allow self enrolment but only after entering the password supplied by the community leader. - Communities can be created as secure password protected environments – for example for shared project work and discussion, or for tutor groups involved in large cohort teaching; or as a guest accessible, publicly available community site for general resource and information distribution.
- As a leader you have full access to the Control Panel and use the range of features available to create an interactive online environment to keep your participants engaged!
- Once the community has been created, the leader will be given ‘leader’ status (this is the same as a subject coordinator status in an LMS subject). The leader can then add other staff to the community site via the staff management tool in the Control Panel.
Accountabilities and responsibilities
- LMS Governance Board: endorse this policy
- LMS Academic Support team: assist and encourage the use of communities.
- Community leader: responsible for maintaining the site and managing the participants.
- Participants: ensure compliance with Regulation 8.1.R7 - Computing and Network Facilities Rules
Policy overview
- Communities must be requested and administered by a UoM staff member (leader).
- Students are not able to request a community.
- Each community must have at least one University staff member as a leader, and a number of participants (staff or students).
Definitions and references
- Regulation 8.1.R7 - Computing and Network Facilities Rules
[ http://www.unimelb.edu.au/ExecServ/Statutes/r81r7.html ] - Participants: referred to as any student member (internal or external) who has a login account to the LMS.