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Skills Development
in Rural Areas
A debate among practitionners, policy makers, programm designers, ..... How to use InstantTeam |
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Using the InstantTeam
A kind of manual (Ueli Scheuermeier, LBL, 21.6.2003) I suggest that you print out this document and use it while you are trying out InstantTeam: Download this as a Word-document for printing . What is InstantTeam: InstantTeam is a Teamsoftware that was specifically designed for use under conditions of poor internet-access. It was developed by IDESO for Helvetas, and Helvetas is using it for their worldwide internal Knowledge Management network. InstantTeam is still being developed further. There is scope for improvement. But we use it here because of it's advantages for what we want to do also in countries with poor communication-lines. Particularly it allows to do everything by email if surfing is not possible. Furthermore it is "open source software". This means that there is no copyright on it. Anybody can use it and change it, provided s/he then again allows everybody to use it. This is also called the "copyleft". Copyleft is extremely important for poor countries to bridge the digital divide. For details you can download a document which explains it. It is at http://www.skilldevrural.net/downloads/copyleft.pdf InstantTeam works in two ways: a) InstantTeam is a mailing list. This means, that everybody on the list gets the messages that somebody sends. You can also search and automatically get documents by sending a particular email (see in the feature „rules for discussing“ at http://www.skilldevrural.net/rules/rules.html ). You can therefore follow a debate simply by saving the messages. Like that you can participate like anybody else who surfs. However, you cannot get an overview of the full debate. b) InstantTeam is a website It is a different website than our home-base at http://www.skilldevrural.net . You can click on the icon on our homebase (upper left), and it takes you onto our InstantTeam. You can then have a look at all the features that I am going to explain below. You can debate online or via emails. For rules how to debate look at "Rules for discussing " on our home-base. Just keep in mind, that no matter whether you debate online or via emails, all messages are sent by email to everybody on the list. And all messages are archived on the InstantTeam-website. There are two categories of people who can use our InstantTeam: a) Anybody Anybody can enter our InstantTeam by using the ID "guest" and the Password "readonly". (Keep this in mind when you contribute on the InstantTeam. Private messages should be sent personally). Guests can only read what is there, they cannot contribute anything. They are not on the mailing list. b) Authors These are people who can read everything and also contribute. They are on the mailing list. They have to use their personal ID and Password, that is given to them by the moderators. Now go to InstantTeam and I'll take you through the features: "News" You will usually come here when you enter. Here you will find a list of news that is important to everybody, also for those who are not on the mailing-list. "Change Password" You entered the first time with the ID and Password that I gave you. I suggest that you should change the password immediately - but don't forget it!! In case you do, you'll have to ask me again for a new one! "Events" Events are both listed and in the calendar. "Calendar" You can have a look at it in various formats. Try the various options on the upper right corner 1-2-7-14-30 You can make a new entry of an event by clicking on "new" in the top grey bar. "List" This is a list of events. What is on the list automatically is also on the calendar and vice-versa. "+" When you click on the "+" it is just a shortcut to "new". "Discussion" Here you see all the entries that have been made. You also see them in relation to each other, in "overview threading window". An indented message is a reply to the one above. Two messages at the same level of indentation both reply to the same message at a higher level. The little boxes in front of some messages means, that they are messages that have a reply. When the box is (+) you can click on it and the replies are shown. You can click on the (-), and the replies will fold away again. Click on a message.... Now you see the whole message: - The top grey navigation bar - The subject of the message - The summary of the message - The body of the message - The list of responses to this message, if there are any. "new" in the top grey bar makes a new message, that will start a new thread. It will be added to the top of the overview threading window. "edit" appears when you have editing access to the message. This is the case with your own messages. When you click on "edit" you can then delete the message or change it. After you change it, you must "save". "reply" replies to this particular message. Your reply message will be shown just below this message in the overview threading window. When replying, you can change the subject line, and the message will still appear at the correct place in the thread. (Watch out: It is different when you reply over Emails. See " How to discuss " on our home-base). "Documents" We have checkrealities, syntheses, others, and later maybe more categories. As an example click on "Others": Now you find a list of documents under this heading. Click on one.. Again you have the "edit" possibility, if you are the author of it, or been invited to co-author it. "Tasks" This allows us to keep track of who needs to do what. The little (+) in front of the names tells us that there is some stuff for that person. Click on it, and you will see "open" tasks and "completed" tasks of this person. "Search" This simply searches throughout the InstantTeam for a word you type in, and lists the messages, documents, events and tasks where this word or set of words appear. "Contact" This simply sends an email to me, the facilitator. "License" This explains the "copyleft" under the GNU General Public License. At the bottom you see who is "online" at the same time as you are. I hope this makes it clear. Do not hesitate to send me a mail at uscheuermeier@dplanet.ch and ask questions in case you are confused or something doesn't work like the way you want it to work. Please be specific in a) the result that you wanted to getI will then get back to you and we'll try to clear the problem. This software is new. So there will be glitches. And we are all learning to use it. So give it a try. It's all learning by doing for all of us.... Good luck to us all! Ueli Scheuermeier |
