Web Site News : Tips & Tricks

Looking for "what's new" in corrections?

National Institute of Corrections — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 18:18:00 GMT

The National Institute of Corrections (NIC) is making it easy to stay on top of the latest corrections news, resources, training, and more on a single web page. On this new page, you can quickly scan the latest headlines, download new items in the library, and join discussions about correctional topics.

Bookmark and visit this page often as it is automatically updated so you can be assured that the information will always be fresh.

Come see "What's New" @ http://nicic.gov/New

Have some suggestions for this page? Leave a comment below!

Staying Current In the Community - Part 3: RSS Subscriptions

Web Services Manager — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 15:30:00 GMT

In this series you will learn how to organize and keep track of new information as it becomes available in the Community. While you can always come to the web site and browse for new information, there are other ways to stay up to date.

In case you missed it, read:

Part 3: RSS Subscriptions

What is RSS?

RSS is an agreed upon "standard" for publishing information. This standardized format allows people with information (like us) to easily share that information with others. A news item in an RSS feed will always have a Title, a Link, a Description, an Author, and a Published date. This lets web site developers and software companies create programs that automatically pull in information from web sites in an aggregated way. It lets individuals pull in information from their favorite news sources without having to visit individual web sites.

If you go to a major web portal like Yahoo!, MSN, or AOL you will see that there are a variety of new headlines being displayed. You might see sports, market, or entertainment headlines that you can click on for more information. You can add additional headlines for other things that you might be interested in, such as Music or Food. The Corrections Community makes its information available to other web sites and to the general public in the same way that CNN might make its headlines available to AOL or MSN. For example, I was able to add headlines from the "Thinking About Corrections" news blog to my MSN start page. See my example.

How do I use RSS?

There are a wide variety of personal RSS programs that will go to all of the web sites you get news from, automatically grab all the new information, and display this information to you in one spot. This way you do not need to go to every single web site all the time. There are many free personal RSS aggregators available like Bloglines and NewsGator.

Adding an RSS feed to your personal aggregator will be different for each type of program, so read the instructions for the program you choose. Basically, with all of them, you will need to copy the address (URL) of the RSS feed into the program and the program will take care of the rest.

It takes a little work to get used to using RSS, but once you get it, you'll wonder how you ever got along without it. Look for the following icons and text on our web site and other web sites. They represent links to the addresses you will add to your program.

Text you might see: RSS, Atom, Subscribe, Feed, Syndication
Icons you might see (They are typically orange):

Look for RSS subscription options for the Corrections Community in the following areas of this site:

News Blogs (all or individually)
Discussion Forums (individually)
Tags (individually)
File Libraries (Individually)

The Future of RSS

Like many web technologies, RSS will likely change, but the concept of syndicating and subscribing to content will likely be around for very long time. The next version of Internet Explorer (soon to be released) will have a built-in RSS aggregator. Other popular browses like FireFox and Opera already have RSS built into them.

What are "tags" and how do I use them?

Web Services Manager — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 20:04:00 GMT

Throughout the blogs, forums, and file libraries, you will see sections called "Tags" or "Popular Tags" that are full of keywords of varying sizes. Also, when you are creating or replying to a post, you may see a section called "Tags" or "Edit Tags" where you can add your own "tags".

Ok...So, what's a "tag". A tag is a keyword or short phrase describing something. For example, if I were posting a file or topic about "The eating habits of wild buffalo in Montana", I may "tag" that information with "Eating; Buffalo; Montana".

Now that you know what a tag is your next question should be, "So what? What do tags do?"

Tags organize the information in the Community based on your descriptions. The more people that tag information with a certain tag, the more popular that tag is and the bigger it appears in the "Popular Tags". People interested in a "Popular Tag" need only click on that tag to see all the related information for that keyword. Pretty neat, huh?

What makes a good tag? Good tags are usually one word long (but sometime 2 or 3 words). You don't want to use silly or "cute" tags because they will never be used by anyone else and your information will not be easy to find. That said, please feel free to tag your information the way you feel it should be tagged but don't be surprised or offended if a moderator decides to edit your tags.

Have a question or suggestion for tagging? Leave me a comment.

Happy tagging!

What is the "Points" and "Member Rating" system that is used in the Corrections Community?

Web Services Manager — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 22:24:00 GMT

If you are a member of our Corrections Community and have asked a question or answered somebody's question in our forums, you will see that your Community participation statistics may have changed. This system is in place to encourage active participation and to provide an indicator for determining how long someone has been a member and how active they are in the Community. There are a number of ways that your participation is measured:

1. Top Contributors
There is a horizontal bar that appears under your name in your posts that indicates if you are a Top Contributor and at what level (Top 10, Top 25, Top 50, etc). This is simply based on the number of times you have posted in the forums compared to everyone else.

2. Number of Posts
This is the number of times your have posted a message in the Corrections Community. The more posts you have, the more likely you are to be listed as a Top Contributor.

3. Points
Points are a bit more complicated. It is important to understand that they measure the amount of member participation in the Community but do not measure the quality of the participation. Please respect those members with many points but do not ignore or downplay those with few points--they may simply be new members or members who do not regularly participate.

Points are assigned in the following way (although this may change):

5 points: Create a post
15 points: Anytime someone replies to one of your posts
2 points: For replies from a unique member (not multiple replies from the same person)
6 points: For each star that someone gives your post or thread
5 points: Each time someone else downloads something you've posted in the file library
100 points: If someone adds you as as a "favorite" member
1 point: For rating someone else's post, file, or blog entry

4. Peer Rating
Members can rate a variety of things in the Community. Please feel free to show your support for a topic or item by rating its value to you. Rating items helps indicate to fellow members what information has been found interesting or useful.

5. Mark As Answer
If you post a question or topic in a discussion forum, or if someone (or more than one person) answers your question, you can indicate which answer or answers did so by clicking on the "Mark As Answer" button. This is a great way to help future readers of the Community.

Staying Current In the Community - Part 2: Using "Favorites"

Web Services Manager — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 17:24:00 GMT

In this series, you will learn how to organize and keep track of new information as it becomes available in the Community. While you can always come to the web site and browse for new information, there are other ways to stay up to date.

In case you missed it, read: Part 1: Email Notifications

Part 2: Using "Favorites"

Throughout the Community, you will notice a button for "Favorites". If you click on this button, you will have the option to add a member, post or forum to your favorites.

Favorites are like bookmarks but better. If you want to keep track of new posts from a particular member, add them as a favorite and you can quickly be notified and view all of their new posts. If there is a particular thread or forum that you like, add it to your favorites for easy access.

You can access your favorites by clicking on your screen name to access your profile. Your screen name is located in the upper right-hand corner of the page. It should say something like, "Welcome [your name]!" Once you are in your profile, click on the Favorites tab and you will see all of your Favorites.

Advanced Options: You can share your Favorites so that other members can access them by clicking on your name. This is optional.

Next Time: In Part 3 of the series, we will learn how to use "Syndication" to pull new information directly to you.

The Listservs are moving to the Community. Read what you need to know.

Web Services Manager — Sat, 01 Jul 2006 19:17:00 GMT

This is a basic guide to answer some questions you might have as we move our listservs to our new Corrections Community.

Top Questions:

Do I have to create a new account in order to participate?
Yes. You can look around anonymously, but in order to participate you will need to create an account.
Did my listserv account transfer to the new system?
No. We wish we could have made it that easy, but you will need to create a new account.
Can I still use the old listserv?
No. Once a listserv is closed, it will no longer accept new messages.
Can I view past messages in the old listserv?
Yes. You can access past listserv information here.
Can I finish my discussion on the listserv?
Yes. You can finish discussions in-process, but you will not be able to start new topics. New topics need to be started in the Community.
Important! Can I still participate through email?
Partially. You can sign up to receive an email alert with a link that will let you reply whenever a new message is posted in your forum(s). A brief tutorial on setting up your email subscriptions can be found here. You cannot use email to send a new message or reply to messages. All messages must be sent through the web site.
Why are you doing this?
While our listservs have provided a great service for many years, new technologies and opportunities have become available that we believe are far superior to what the listservs provided.
Are all the listservs going to be moved into the Commuity?
Probably. While each listserv will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. the plan is to move most if not all listservs into the Community by no later than late August.
Is there a help guide?
Yes. You can access the help guide here, or take a look through our articles on making the most of your experience on this web site.

Ready to get started?

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Staying Current In the Community - Part 1: Email Notifications

Web Services Manager — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 16:03:00 GMT

Part 1: Email Notifications

One of the simplest ways to stay current in the Community is by using email notifications. When you enable email notifications for a particular forum, thread, blog, member, or file library, you will receive an email whenever something new happens in that area.

Option 1:
On the forums page, look under "Shortcuts" for the link to manage your forum subscriptions -- Once here, just click to put a check in the box next to the forum you want to subscribe to, then click "Save" at the bottom of the screen.

Option 2:
On the main page of any forum, go to the bottom of the page and click on the "More Options" button. One of the dropdown boxes that appears will let you set your subscription status for that forum.

>> Read Part 2: Using "Favorites".