OPOSSEM OPOSSEM

This page has a current draft of all the FAQs for the MAIN OPOSSEM website. Feel free to edit or add.

FAQs batch 2

• Instructional Materials and IP
• put this one at top* I put a lot of effort into my lecture notes and slides. Why should I share them online with anyone else?

The short and snarky answer is that if you are asking the question, you probably shouldn't participate in the project. OPOSSEM is part of a sea-change in the provision of collective goods through decentralized, massively collaborative projects. In theory, these efforts should fail. And many do. But others succeed, both on a very large scale, such as Wikipedia, Linux, LaTeX, and R, or on the small scale of the thousands of free applications available for the iPhone and Android. The answer ultimately depends entirely on what makes you happy. OPOSSEM is not planning to send legions of jackbooted thugs (or rampaging packs of slobbering marsupials) to smash down office doors and wrench your lecture notes and problem sets from your cold, dying hard drive. Participation is entirely voluntary. Some people enjoy participating in collective efforts: if you are in any town anywhere in the world, you can probably witness more voluntary time expended on social, sports, charitable and civic activities on any randomly chosen weekend than we are likely to invest in the entire history of OPOSSEM. Others don't find such activities rewarding. It's your call.

• How do I upload my instructional materials?

Once you have created a user account, you may upload your instructional materials (lecture notes, lecture slides, problem sets, in-class exercises, etc.) by visiting: http://opossem.org/node/add/instructionalmaterials. You may attach multiple files and file formats to one page. For instance, if you have both lecture notes and in-class exercise hand-outs that belong together, you can add both documents to one page.

• What types of files can I upload as instructional materials?

Currently, only files with the following extensions may be uploaded: jpg jpeg gif png txt doc xls pdf ppt pptx csv pps odt ods odp rtf tex dtx ltx bib bbl bst idx ist ps eps tif clo cls sty def ldf fd cfg. If you need to upload another file type, please let us know by emailing admin@opossem.org.

• What types of files should I upload as instructional materials?

That depends. If you have chosen the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0), then you would probably want to upload a file format that is difficult to manipulate or modify, such as a password protected Acrobat (PDF) file. On the other hand, if you choose the license that encourages others to modify or improve upon your work as long as they cite your original contribution (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)), you should upload a file format that will be usable by the greatest number of users and which will stand the test of time. For instance, rather than upload a document in Microsoft Word (.doc, .docx), consider uploading a document as a Rich Text Format (.rtf). Instead of uploading a Stata file (.dta), consider uploading tab-delimited (.txt) or comma-delimited text file (.csv).

• What is the largest file size that I can upload?

The maximum upload size is 7 MB. If you have a datafile that you would like to post that exceeds this limit, consider compressing the file (as a .zip or .tar).

Other site features

• Who is sponsoring OPOSSEM?

OPOSSEM has received support from various sources. The initial development of the site was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), through a grant administered by the University of South Dakota. Staff at the ICPSR at the University of Michigan developed the site, and site hosting is provided by the Sherman Centre for Digital Scholarship and McMaster University Library. In 2012, the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada will fund a workshop at McMaster to develop additional educational materials to be hosted on OPOSSEM. The OPOSSEM project is always looking to expand its community and network of partners. Interested parties should email admin@opossem.org.

• What are “ratings”? (also put in Instructional Materials, if possible via tags)

OPOSSEM allows registered users to use a 5-star system to ‘rate’ both instructional materials and web links. Users can only rate an item one time. This helps users find materials and links that are considered particularly helpful by other members of the community. No one can see who rated their material or what rating an individual user gave the material or link. This is to reduce measurement error in the rating system.

• What's the difference between the two Creative Commons licenses used for OPOSSEM instructional materials? Why would I choose one or the other for my materials?

OPOSSEM recommends that users choose 1 of 2 Creative Commons licenses for the materials that they share on OPOSSEM. Both licenses are “non-commercial” and “attribution” licenses. This means that others are not licensed to use your materials for commercial purposes. That is, they could not include your materials in commercial or for-profit publication without your permission. Both licenses also require that others cite your work if they want to use any of it for non-commercial purposes. The only difference between the two licenses is that the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ allows others to modify your work and redistribute it, provided that they cite your original work (attribution) and distribute the new work with the same license (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0). The Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) allows others to use your material for non-commercial purposes as long as they attribute (cite) the material to you and do not modify it in any way. Which license you choose is up to you. If you want your materials to receive more widespread use, OPOSSEM recommends the CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 license.

• What instructional materials are acceptable for uploading to OPOSSEM? What materials aren't?

You should only upload your own intellectual property (IP) to OPOSSEM. If you find useful information somewhere else on the web that is not your IP, you can add a link to it using the weblinks form (http://opossem.org/node/add/weblinks). OPOSSEM welcomes any kind of instructional materials, including lecture notes, problem sets, videos, podcasts, etc. Since anyone can browse OPOSSEM without an account, you should NOT post answer keys, exams, or anything else you would not want your students to find because they WILL find it.

• Some of the source files are in LaTeX format. Where can I learn how to use LaTeX to customize those materials?

LaTeX (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeX) is a document markup language that is particularly useful for displaying formatted math characters. More information and an introduction to using LaTeX is available at http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX.

• Where can I find other open source teaching materials for social science courses?

There are many open source projects that distribute teaching materials for the social sciences, and new projects seem to be developed all the time. Your best bet would be a Google search, like http://www.google.com/#q=open+source+textbooks+social+science, since any list we made would become quickly outdated.

• Who is using OPOSSEM materials?

• How do I decompress the files I download from your site?

I downloaded a .zip or .tar file but can’t open it. What is the problem?

• What do I do when my email address changes?

Simply go to your user page after loggin in (http://opossem.org/user) and choose the Edit tab. This will take you to a form that enables you to change your email address, without losing your account history. Please do *not* simply create a new account. The new account will not have your uploaded instructional materials or user points.

• Whenever I try to login, I get a message stating that I don't have cookies enabled. What's going on?

Under normal operation the Web site uses the HTTP protocol to deliver content. In a small number of cases we use HTTP with SSL encryption (commonly referred to as HTTPS) to protect the security of the data moving across the network. Our login procedure is one such case. When one tries to access a resource on the Web site, the system checks for the presence of a login ticket (or, more generically, a cookie). If there is no ticket available, the browser is redirected to a URL (using HTTP) where the person enters a login and password. When the person clicks the Log In button, the login and password are delivered to the Web site via HTTPS, and the Web site returns a login ticket via HTTPS. Finally the Web site returns the person to the original Web page or resource via HTTP. If anything goes wrong during this process, we deliver an error message about cookies not being enabled, which is the most common cause of failure. The next most common failure is when a site uses a proxy server or firewall, but only proxies HTTP, not HTTPS, and so the transaction fails. The work around is to force the entire transaction through HTTPS. Here's an easy way to do that: 1. Go to this page: [Michael: can you put the OPOSSEM page here?] http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/mydata?path=ICPSR 2. This should redirect you to the error page about cookies not being enabled. The URL in the "Address bar" should look like this: http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/ticketlogin. 3. Modify the URL above, adding in an "s" between the "p" in "http" and the semicolon. It should now look like this: https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/ticketlogin 4. Enter your OPOSSEM login and password, and click the Log In button. 5. You should now have this URL in your "Address bar"(http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/mydata?path=ICPSR) and have a list of account-related actions you can take. The important thing, though, is that you now have a ticket (cookie) and should be able to download resources. If you click the logo at the top of the page, that will return you to the home page, and you can then use the Web site as usual. Please note that you cannot combine steps (1) and (3) by starting at a HTTPS-delivered version of the home page, because you will still be redirected to an HTTP-type link for the login page after performing step (2). Thus step (3) will still be necessary, and it will also force many web fetches to incur the SSL encryption overhead on both our server and your desktop machine.

• Why should I cite OPOSSEM instructional materials?

Citing the instructional materials on OPOSSEM in lecture notes/slides and other publications based on materials is important for several reasons: ● Other researchers may want to replicate research findings and need the bibliographic information provided in citations to identify and locate the referenced data. ● Citations appearing in publication references are harvested by key electronic social sciences indexes, such as Web of Science, providing credit to the researchers. ● Data producers, funding agencies, and others can track citations to specific collections to determine types and levels of usage, thus measuring impact.

• Where do I find the citation for instructional materials?

Citations for user submitted instructional materials can be found on the page from which you downloaded the material. Regular citation formats for web pages can be used for citing posts to discussion forums or comments.

• How can I let another user that I have used or cited their material?

Users of OPOSSEM instructional materials are encouraged to leave a comment on the page where they downloaded the material. This will let the author of the materials know that their material has been used and give you an opportunity to give the author feedback. .

• How will the OPOSSEM community know that I uploaded new instructional materials?

The most recent additions to OPOSSEM’s collection of instructional materials are displayed on the front page under “Newest Resources.” Also, when users visit the main instructional material page, the most recent additions appear at the top of the list by default. Users who have subscribed to the instructional materials RSS feed (http://opossem.org/instructional-materials/feed) will also see the newest materials at the top of their feed.

• What are RSS Feeds? (Michael: replace existing. I `borrowed` this and those with bold questions from ICPSR, hope that`s ok!)

Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds are free, updated content sent to your computer via the Internet. RSS feeds enable a user to view content from multiple Web sites on one screen, stripped of all site-specific navigation, advertisements, and branding. For example, a user might visit multiple news sites in any given week to keep up-to-date on recent events. Without RSS, the user must go to each news site individually and find the desired information through each site's own navigation.

With RSS, the user subscribes to each site through the browser's built-in subscription functions, or via a standalone news aggregator (also called a news reader) that may be downloaded and installed. The user can then view the aggregated information through a consistent display that automatically sorts the information according to his or her needs.

When the user opens his or her browser and goes to the RSS view, it automatically downloads the latest information from the subscribed sites. Most RSS browsers also let you search the articles (essentially enabling the user to search across multiple sites), sort by a variety of fields (such as title, date, or author), filter/subset by date or source, and customize the amount of information that displays on screen. RSS also presents an alternative to receiving notifications via email. Unlike email, RSS feeds don't get filled up with unwanted solicitations. How to subscribe to RSS RSS readers come with the following Web browsers automatically: ● Internet Explorer 7 (Windows) ● Firefox (Windows/Mac) ● Safari (Windows/Mac) In addition, some readers are available as desktop software that you can download and install on your computer. The reader you choose will have instructions for how to subscribe to RSS feeds. Other Resources on RSS (links to other sites) ● Why Aren't You Using RSS? ● What is RSS? RSS Explained. ● Alex Barnett - Using RSS 101 - Video tutorial on how to use RSS via FeedDemon, a commercial RSS Browser. ● c|net article on How to Read RSS Feeds ● A Guide to Using RSS, Which Helps You Scan Vast Array of Web Sites

• Can I do Boolean searching on OPOSSEM?

You can't do true Boolean searching currently. If you enter multiple terms into the search box it treats them as if they were connected by a Boolean AND. If you use the options under the Advanced tab on the search page (http://opossem.org/search), you can be more precise in your search strategies.

• Can I use an asterisk in the search to match partial words?

No, because our search engine matches partial words automatically. Search terms are stemmed, meaning that partial-word matches will appear in search results. Example: a search for "network" will also turn up "networks" and "networked"

• How can I be notified of new instructional materials or discussions that are in my field of interest?

OPOSSEM mainly accomplishes this using RSS. RSS is a broad application that is used to aggregate content from different web sites. (If you'd like more background information, we have an FAQ on RSS.) To create your notification, first create a search that matches your interests. Maybe that involves a simple free text search on "market rate surveys" or maybe it's a more complex search of "subsidies" with the addition of a filter by state for "Illinois." If you just want a general notification of anything new, you can click on the search box without entering any terms. This lists all of our resources. Once you're constructed your search, look in the righthand column of the search results page for a section titled "Subscribe via RSS." At this point you have a few options: basic RSS, Google Reader, or Yahoo Alerts. If you want to receive email notification, use Yahoo! Alerts (for studies). If you'd rather receive notification through traditional RSS, you can use any of the first three options listed below. 1. Basic RSS 2. Basic RSS is like bookmarking a typical Web page. You won't recieve an email telling you that new resources have been added, but every time you visit that bookmark, you'll see a list of only those resources that have been added since you were last here. 3. Google Reader 4. If you wish to use Google's RSS utilities, you'll need to have a Google account and you will be presented with two choices: add to Google homepage or add to Google Reader. The Google homepage is a portal page that might include news headlines, weather, links to Gmail, and other Google-related services. 5. The Google Reader is strictly focused on RSS feeds, and is all about compiling raw information from a variety of sources. It provides a column on the left listing your information sources, and lists the headlines on the right. 6. Yahoo! Alerts 7. Yahoo! Alerts enables you to receive notification via email, Yahoo! Messenger, or directly to your mobile device. You can received alerts as they happen, or once a day at most. You will need a Yahoo account to take advantage of this service. Please note this is only available for studies.

• How can I be notified of new resources/studies that are in my field of interest?

ICPSR accomplishes this using RSS. RSS is a broad application that is used to aggregate content from different web sites. (If you'd like more background information, we have an FAQ on RSS.) To create your notification, first create a search that matches your interests. Maybe that involves a simple free text search on "market rate surveys" or maybe it's a more complex search of "subsidies" with the addition of a filter by state for "Illinois." If you just want a general notification of anything new, you can click on the search box without entering any terms. This lists all of our resources. Once you're constructed your search, look in the righthand column of the search results page for a section titled "Subscribe via RSS." At this point you have a few options: basic RSS, Google Reader, or Yahoo Alerts. If you want to receive email notification, use Yahoo! Alerts (for studies). If you'd rather receive notification through traditional RSS, you can use any of the first three options listed below. 1. Basic RSS Basic RSS is like bookmarking a typical Web page. You won't recieve an email telling you that new resources have been added, but every time you visit that bookmark, you'll see a list of only those resources that have been added since you were last here. 2. Google Reader If you wish to use Google's RSS utilities, you'll need to have a Google account and you will be presented with two choices: add to Google homepage or add to Google Reader. The Google homepage is a portal page that might include news headlines, weather, links to Gmail, and other Google-related services. The Google Reader is strictly focused on RSS feeds, and is all about compiling raw information from a variety of sources. It provides a column on the left listing your information sources, and lists the headlines on the right. 3. Yahoo! Alerts Yahoo! Alerts enables you to receive notification via email, Yahoo! Messenger, or directly to your mobile device. You can received alerts as they happen, or once a day at most. You will need a Yahoo account to take advantage of this service. Please note this is only available for studies.

• How do I report a problem with your Web site?

If you are experiencing a problem with the Web site, please email admin@opossem.org. Please be prepared to provide the following information: ● An exact description of the problem, including the URL where it occurs ● Information on which Web browser and version you are using ● Details about your computer (operating system, connection speed) ● Information on whether the problem is unique to your computer, or occurs on a number of computers at your institution (if you know) Please understand that without a detailed explanation of the problem, it is unlikely that we will be able to resolve the matter.

• What are OPOSSEM’s account terms of use?

Our terms of use are posted here: http://opossem.org/account-terms. When you create a user account on OPOSSEM, you will be required to agree to the terms of use prior to account creation.

• What is OPOSSEM?

OPOSSEM, the Online Portal of Social Science Education in Methodology, is an online portal to facilitate sharing of various resources for teaching social science research methods (particularly statistical methods) among educators in secondary, undergraduate, and postgraduate settings.

• Why is the text so small on your Web site?

The default font size varies from browser to browser. We design our sites so that the user can control the font size. By doing this, we guarantee that users with low vision can access our content. See "How to Increase the Font Size on My Browser" for assistance resizing the text in your preferred browser.

• What is OPOSSEM`s Comment Policy?

OPOSSEM is meant to be an online community of engaged instructors and actively encourages discussion in the forums and commenting on content throughout the site. We hope to maintain a respectful arena for discussion of various methodological and pedagogical issues. If your comments consistently or intentionally make this community a less civil and enjoyable place to be, you and your comments will be excluded from it. OPOSSEM does not tolerate direct or indirect attacks, name-calling or insults, nor does it tolerate intentional attempts to derail, hijack, troll or bait others into an emotional response. These types of comments will be removed from the community where warranted. To help ensure that discussion and commenting remains civil, most OPOSSEM pages include a “Flag as offensive” link, which users can use to notify site editors that a particular page or discussion is inappropriate. Once a page receives 3 “flags” from users, it is automatically taken offline (though the content is not deleted) until the site editors can review the content.

• On several pages, I see a “Flag as offensive” link. What does that link do?

To help ensure that discussion and commenting remains civil, most OPOSSEM pages include a “Flag as offensive” link, which users can use to notify site editors that a particular page or discussion is inappropriate. Once a page receives 3 “flags” from users, it is automatically taken offline (though the content is not deleted) until the site editors can review the content.

• Can I include HTML in my comments?

Yes. Below the comment box and above the Preview button, you will see a tab “Input format” which can be used to change the formatting settings of your comment. There is a comment that I find insulting and in violation of your policy. What can I do? You can flag the comment as abusive by pressing the Flag As Offensive link on the below the comment. This alerts our editors. After “flags” from 3 different users, comments are automatically removed from the page..

• What does the little “thumbs up” icon do?

In the discussion forums, if you think a topic or a comment is particularly great, you can give it a “thumbs up” vote. This will help other users identify the advice that is found to be most useful in response to a topic. Can I follow all the activities of any particular OPOSSEM user? Absolutely. Each registered OPOSSEM user has their own profile page. At the bottom of their profile page is an RSS icon that will enable you to subscribe via RSS to any activity by that user.

• Can I change my profile picture?

Yes, you can always make changes to your profile picture. On your profile page (http://opossem.org/user/), choose the Edit tab. You will see an area labeled "Picture." In this area you can upload a photo from your computer. The image should be in .gif, .jpg, or .png format. [Michael: Is this accurate?]

FAQs batch 3

• What are OPOSSEM Badges? Badges are a way to recognize OPOSSEM users, especially those who are particularly active within the community. So far, we're focusing on three key areas of user activity on the site: connecting with others, engaging with our content, and moderating our comments. We're highlighting these three areas and recognizing the top users in them. OPOSSEM Badges are awesome! How do I earn a higher level on my Badges? Users attain higher Badges based on their activity on the site. Users earn points for posting instructional materials, new discussion topics, and commenting on existing instructional materials and discussion topics. I hate OPOSSEM Badges! How do I get rid of these things?