Browsing

Start browsing Ethics CORE materials by selecting a link from within the Resources menu. Publications, teaching materials, and RCR resources have tri- or four-fold menus much like the Finder on a Mac. Use the columns or pull-down options to limit your results.

Searching

Ethics CORE offers a couple of ways to search its collection and citations for resources on other sites. First, there is a small search box on the top right of each page that searches the materials that members have contributed to Ethics CORE.

Second, there is a research literature search featured on the home page and in the Resources menu. This search looks for ethics resources in the Scopus database, the PRIM&R website, the IIT Ethics Education Library, and the archival collection of items that Ethics CORE has commissioned and/or had peer reviewed.

Lastly, Ethics CORE offers an RCR resources search. Rather than type in a term, use the pull-down boxes for type, audience, RCR area, and/or discipline to focus the results set. Every time you change a pull-down box selection, the site launches a search with the new parameters.

As a registered member of Ethics CORE, you will have two spaces that are uniquely yours: your home page, called myHub, and your profile management space. Your management space differs from MyHub: the management spaces is where you control profile information, privacy settings, keep a resume, and write your blog; and myHub is where you track information that is useful to you. See "Personalizing myHub" below for information on your myHub space.

You can get to your profile management space at any time after you have logged in by clicking on your name as it appears in the upper right-hand corner of a page to the left of the "Logout" button.

The main page of your profile management spaces houses your privacy settings. To change them, click the "Edit Profile" link at the top right.

At the top of the edit page is a check box that will allow you to make your profile public, even to non-registered site users. Drop boxes below will allow you to keep data such as your email address completely private, visible only to registered users, or completely public.

Your profile management spaces contains several tabs with features useful to you, namely Contributions, Groups, Favorites, Messages, Resume, and Blog.

• The Contributions and Group tabs will summarize your activities in these areas and allow you to go to, edit, or delete groups and memberships. You can also see your contributions and get to your groups from myHub.
• Any Ethics CORE materials that you mark as a Favorite will be listed on the Favorites tab, making finding them again easy.
• The Resume tab allows you to upload one resume/vita at a time and include it in your profile so that others can see it. Ethics CORE can accept most of the file formats you are likely to use, and you do not have to specify the type that you upload. Uploading a new file will automatically delete an existing file.
• The Ethics CORE blog feature functions like any other blog except that it does not contain an RSS feed for updating readers when new content is available.

The myHub page has 8 modules that it can hold to help you track things in which you are interested and get to features that you use often, like your message inbox. To customize the modules on your myHub, go to your myHub page and click the "Personalize" link on the top right.

• Take a module off the page by clicking the "X" on the left side of the module title.
• Add modules from the list on the left side of the page by clicking the "Add" button by a title. Any module you delete from your page will show up in the list so that you can add it back later if you want to.
• Reposition modules by clicking and dragging them around.

The messaging system in Ethics CORE has one quirk: to write a new message to another user, you must find the user's name in the Members list and click the envelope to the far right of the name. You cannot compose a new message from your inbox; you can only reply to messages.

If you manage a group within Ethics CORE, you may compose messages within the group's message space and send them either to the entire group, members with certain roles within the group, or one member at a time.

Finding/Creating/Using a Group

Selecting "Groups" from the Members menu will take you to the general Groups page, where you can browse or search lists and descriptions of existing groups and find information about what the Groups feature can help you do. To create a new group, click "Create User Group" at the top right of the page and follow the prompts.

Group Overview Page

The overview page functions as a group's home page. It summarizes what the group is about, who is in it, and what the group privacy settings are. Your role in the group is highlighted at the top of the settings box on the right side of the page, along with your member controls.

Members

A few members will be listed on the overview page, and you see the full members list by clicking "Members" on the left navigation menu. Unless you are a group manager, you will only be able to view the list. To message someone in the group, you will have to find the person's name in the general list of Ethics CORE members and send a message from there.(See "Sending/Receiving Messages above.) However, if you are a group manager, you can message individual members ; invite new members; create and assign members roles, such as "Executive Committee"; promote or demote members to and from group manager status; and delete memberships from the members page. You will also see a count of pending membership requests, invitees, and total members.

Group managers have permission to edit information about the group,; manage its members and resources; and send messages to individuals, members with certain roles in the group, or the entire group.

Discussion Forum

The discussion forum is fairly simple. It supports wiki formatting and allows several privacy options for discussion threads. A new discussion topic can be kept within the group or made public to Ethics CORE users, and all topic and comment postings have the option of being posted anonymously. Checking the "Make Topic Sticky" box when starting a new thread will keep that thread at the top of the discussion page.

Group members, including group managers, can only delete their own comments or topic postings. If you feel a posting should be removed from a forum, please contact the Ethics CORE tech team at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or submit a tech ticket (see "Reporting a Technical Problem" below).

Wiki Space

We recommend that the first thing created in the wiki is a home page that will function as the wiki's table of contents. Creating this type of main page first will make creating and linking other pages easier.

Once you have created a table of contents page, you can start new articles by creating a link to the new page on the table of contents. The wiki will automatically create a blank page to go with the link, which you can then write and edit by clicking on the "Edit" tab under the article's title.

Comments on wiki articles will not go on the same page as the article, but rather on a separate tab. The "Comments" tab is located just below the article title, between the article "Edit" and "History" tabs.

Resources

Uploading documents and other resources to Ethics CORE is the same process, whether you start it from a group space (via the link on the lower right side of the Group Resources page) or the Ethics CORE Resources menu. During that process, you can associate the resource with a group, and then it will show up in the group space on the Resources page.

There are two ways to report a technical problem or a confusing feature:

• Go to the Support menu and select "Report a problem."
• Go to the Support menu, select "Tickets," and click "New Ticket."

The "Wishlist" option that appears on the Support menu will take you to a form where you can request functions or features that you would like to see on Ethics CORE. These requests will be listed in the "My Wishes" module on your myHub page.