Reading and Writing In Conferences
As you've seen, each topic in a conference is called an item, and each item has responses in it.
Caucus uses a linear style of conferencing. You'll see one message after the other in a stream. The item is created with an initial post. Then someone else comes along and adds a comment or question. Other participants read and then add their own experience. Someone else may come along and start another thought process within the topic by posting something unrelated to the first person's post. And people will come along and respond to that as well. The first person comes around again to read the other responses and add another. Soon there are dozens, perhaps hundreds, of responses in an item. In the linear style, one post follows another, as if you were writing each post or response within an item on the next sheet of an unbroken roll of paper towels.
There are other styles of conferencing, such as the threaded style. Instead of a long stream of conversation sorted by topics, messages are a collection of posts on various subjects within larger conversation, with responses attached only to that post. Each post starts a new "thread" and the responses follow that thread. In a threaded board, you would write the post on the next paper towel, then write each response on another piece of paper and staple it to the post under which it belongs. Usenet newsgroups are an example of the threaded style.
If you have conferencing or message board experience with other styles give this linear approach a week or two. It may take a little getting used to, but you'll find that it's a lot more like regular conversation.
Here are what responses look like:
To Post Your Own Response
Following an item and its responses, you'll find a response box, and below it, some links to help you navigate in the CalSTAT Catalyst environment.
- To add a response of your own, click in the response box and enter your comments.
- You can enter comments as text with line-wrapping, text without line-wrapping, or using html code. Normally, you're simply enter text to be line-wrapped.
- You can also insert a file from your computer -- a text file, something you have written in html, a graphic, a sound file, etc. YOU CANNOT ENTER MICROSOFT WORD FILES.
- When you are finished with your response, click Post & View. It lets you see what you've just posted. That's all there is to it!
- If you don't want to post a response, just use the navigation links underneath the response box
Navigation Guides
First Prev Next Last All
Catalyst displays a number of responses on each page. The navigation guides help you move between pages of responses. They become a lot more important when you have dozens or hundreds of responses in an item!
All shows you all responses in a topic. Warning: if a topic is very long, this may take a few moments to load
Prev takes you to the page of responses before the current page.
First takes you to the first page of an item.
Last takes you to the last page of an item.
Next takes you to the next page of responses after the current page.
Sometimes you'll see these guides without color, as above, they appear as grayed out. This means that the navigation option is not available for that page. For instance, if you are on the first page of a topic, the First button will be gray.
Posting Tips
Don't get discouraged if you don't get a response to your own post right away. People check in at various times. Remember that especially on weekends, holidays, and during personal vacations, community participation may be reduced. Don't mistake a lack of response for a lack of interest in your post.
For the most part, shorter posts that take up no more than one screen will have a better chance of being read than a longer post.
Keep your tone conversational. If you think someone has misunderstood what you've posted, ask first. It's easy to not "hear" another correctly because there is no inflection online.
When you are making a longer post, be sure to break it up into several shorter paragraphs. Short paragraphs are easier to read than long blocks of text.
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