1.1.1 Locating CGScholar

CGScholar, or Common Ground Scholar, is a social knowledge platform that you can find on the web at cgscholar.com. It has been developed by Common Ground, a not-for-profit public benefit corporation located in the Research Park at the University of Illinois.

Funding for the research and development work behind CGScholar has come both to Common Ground and the University of Illinois from the Institute of Educational Sciences in the US Department of Education, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the National Science Foundation.

For more information about the research and development work in the development of CGScholar, visit our research page. The content of this learning module can also be found in the Help area in the top right of the CGScholar screen.

1.1.1 CGScholar Apps

CGScholar consists of six working spaces, or apps.

• Community: A space for discussion between peers and among community members. Community is a cross between a social media feed, a blog, and a personal and community profile page.
• Creator: A place for creating and peer reviewing multimodal works, including text, image, video, audio, dataset, and many other options. Your works can become PDFs or web pages.
• Publisher: This is where you can design and manage peer-reviewed projects, from draft, to feedback, to revision and publication phases.
• Analytics: Data-mining CGScholar, tracking the knowledge creation process and providing rich “learning analytics” data. (This tab won't be visible until you become a member of a community that has enabled this setting.)
• Event: Upcoming academic conferences hosted by Common Ground.
• Bookstore: An area for the publication and distribution of journals, books, and learning modules.

1.1.3 CGScholar Access

Community, Creator, and many Bookstore items are available to any user at no charge—just set up an account. Access to Publisher, Analytics and available at no charge on a trial basis, then for a per-user annual charge. Event and Bookstore are available to conference organizers and publishers for a modest percentage of sales. Please contact us at <support@cgscholar.com> to discuss your licensing needs. Income supports maintenance and ongoing development based on not-for-profit sustainability principles.

1.1.4 Roles in CGScholar

CGScholar helps organize knowledge communities with a number of different roles:

• Peers: People who join together peer to peer to share ideas in the Community space. When a scholar makes an update from their personal profile page, the update goes to their peers.
• Community Members: People who belong to a community. Whenever an update is made in the community, members are notified.
• Community Admins: The person or group of people who coordinate a community.
• Creators: People who create textual or multimodal works in the Creator space.
• Feedback Contributors: People who offer feedback to peers’ works—including reviews, annotations, or publication recommendations.
• Publishing Admins: People who create and manage projects, including deadlines, peer feedback assignments, and publication of the finished work. They can also access detailed assessment data in the Analytics area.
• Organization Admins: People who manage accounts for closed communities, such as schools.

Comment: If you have a question about CGScholar, ask it in the comments box below this update. Another community member is likely to know the answer!

1.2.1 Top Gray Navigation Bar

• Notifications: Work requests, peer review requests, publication notifications, dialogue connected with peer reviewed works, etc.
• Messages: From peers and admins.
• Library: Items from the Bookstore that you have selected to keep in a personal library.
• Logged in as... : Behind this you will find a pull-down menu where you can manage your account settings, your orders, and log out. If you are an Organization Admin, you will also be able to manage your organization’s accounts from here.
• Help: CGScholar tutorials and online support.
• Cart: For purchases and subscriptions in the Bookstore.

1.2.2 Main App Tabs

In the main menu across the top of the screen, access the principal CGScholar apps:

• Community
• Creator
• Publisher
• Analytics (only visible in communities that have activated this option)
• Event
• Bookstore

Also: Search Peers and Communities.

1.2.3 Left-Hand Column, Community

• Your Name: A pull-down menu behind your name allows you to navigate to your Activity Stream, Updates, your About page, Interests, Peers, Communities, My Events, Submissions, Shares with Admins, Shares with Peers, Settings, and Wallet for Event registrations and Bookstore purchases.
• Your Communities: The communities to which you belong, and a search to find communities that you might join.
• Your Peers: These are only people with whom you have made a one-on-one connection. This does not include scholars who are members of your communities. Updates from your personal profile page only go to peers, not to the members of your communities.
• Your Students: Users under the age of 18 must be members of a private organization—this only appears if you are an admin in a school where members are children.
• Your Interests

More about Community in later tutorials.

1.2.4 Middle Column, Community

In the middle column, the content varies depending on whether you have selected from the pull-down menu behind your name:

• Activity Stream: A summary of activity in your CGScholar universe, with options to filter by activity type, updates that have been starred, communities, or peers.
• Updates: Where you can make an update that is sent to all of your peers, with the option to filter by admins only.
• About: Information about yourself and linked resume.
• Interests: Words and phrases describing your interests.
• Peers: A listing of your peers and a place to invite other scholars to be your peer.
• Shares with Admins: A document or link that you want to share privately with admins.
• Shares with Peers: Documents, links, and other items that you want to share with peers.
• Settings: Where you can select the level of privacy you would prefer, and feed your update to Facebook and Twitter.
• Wallet: For Event registrations and Bookstore purchases.

More about Community in later tutorials.

1.2.5 Right Hand Column, Community

• Your Activity: Lists your recent activity in CGScholar.
• Your Publications: Peer reviewed publications.
• Your Shares with Admins: Documents, links another items that you want to share with admins. These are not visible to anyone except admins.
• Your Shares with Peers: Works and links you want to have visible on your personal profile page.

1.2.6 The Foot of the Page

• Conditions of Use
• Support Link

1.3.1 Scholar Access

Access CGScholar via your web browser at http://cgscholar.com. We recommend recent versions of Firefox, Chrome, or Safari. Because there is a lot happening on many screens, we recommend not using phones. If you are wanting to navigate CGScholar in a language other than English, you should set your browser to your language of choice.

Access CGScholar in one of the following ways:

• If you are a student and an account has already been created for you, enter the username and password that your teacher or organization admin has given you.
• If your account has been migrated from CGPublisher, an older Common Ground software system, enter your email address and select “Forgot your password?”
• If you are over 18 and have never had a CGScholar account or if your account has not been created for you by a teacher, click the [Sign Up] link, and this will lead to the following screen.

1.3.2 Creating an Account

• We need to know your date of birth in order to be sure you are over 18. If you are under 18, your teacher/organization admin will create an account for you and will give you a username and password. Students who forget their username and password will have to ask their teacher/organization admin to create new ones for them.
• After you press the Create Account box, you will be taken to a security page where you have to promise you are not a robot.

• Next, you will receive a confirmation email. Click the link in that email to start using your account. If you do not receive an email within a few minutes, check your spam filter.

1.3.3 CGScholar Account Types

CGScholar has a number of different types of accounts, each with different roles and responsibilities.

• Regular accounts are for people who are over 18 years of age. Access to Community and Creator is free. Just login at cgscholar.com and create your account.
• Student accounts are required for people under 18 years of age, and are also available for students who are over 18. These accounts must be in organizations (such as schools, colleges or universities), where they are strictly walled off from other CGScholar users. Students will be provided usernames and passwords by their teachers or admins.
• Publisher accounts are available on request, allowing full access to the Publisher app in order to manage publishing projects, including drafting, peer feedback, revision and publication. Full access to the Analytics app is possible with a Publisher account.
• Organization Admin accounts are for authorized members of walled off organizations (such as schools with under-18 users) and allow account creation, one by one, or in bulk.

2.1.1 Introduction to the Community App

Community is a social media space within CGScholar with some important differences. In fact, rather than “social media,” we call this a “social knowledge” technology because it is designed for knowledge interactions, rather than connections between “friends” or participation by “followers.” Instead, in CGScholar, we have “peers” and community “members.”

In Community, you can view and make updates, comment on updates, and star updates. If you make these in your profile page, the update feeds to your peers. If you make these in a community (you can only create an update there if that community is unrestricted), the update feeds to all the members of that community

You can also provide information about yourself, your interests, and your knowledge experiences. If you are over 18 and not a student, you can choose from a range of privacy settings including full visibility of your knowledge profile on the web, including feeds to Facebook and Twitter.

2.1.2 Profile Creation, Steps 1 and 2

• If this is the first time you have logged into CGScholar, you will be prompted to create a profile. A “blip” is a short statement about yourself that will appear below your avatar. This can be edited later in the “About” page (see Tutorial 2.3). Then click the [Next Step] button at the bottom of the screen. It is also possible that you may have already been added to a community by an admin. In this case, go directly to the “About” page and bring your information up to date.
• Next, in Step 2, connect with peers and communities. CGScholar will make some suggestions, or you can search for people or communities. You can also go on with [Next Step] at the foot of the screen and connect with communities later. All CGScholar users over 18 are automatically made members of the community “CGScholar User Group,” for development and other informational updates.

2.1.3 Profile Creation, Step 3

Now you may create your first update. This is an optional suggestion at this point.

• Tutorial 2.2 has more information about creating updates.
• We recommend strongly that you put more information in your profile as soon as you can, as described in Tutorial 2.3.

2.2.1 The Activity Stream

Your activity stream lists all the updates made by your peers and by members in communities to which you belong, as well as their other activities. To see updates only, take the filter option in the dark blue bar, and show: Updates. For a full view of an update, click on the name of that update in the activity stream.

2.2.2 The Updates Menu

When you take the Updates menu behind the community name, this opens a middle column on your screen that shows updates only. If this is a longer update, will just a summary of here—click on the update title or the "more..." link at the end to see the whole update.

2.2.3 Where to Make an Update

To create an update, go to the drop-down menu above our picture, or if you are in a community, that community’s avatar.

• If you are on your personal profile page, your update will go only to peers (but not to all members of your communities).
• If you are a community member or admin and you make an update in a community, this will go to all community members and admins (but not your peers, unless they happen also to be a community member).
• If you are a community member, you will only be able to make updates in communities that admins have made “unrestricted.”
• Put your cursor in the Title field, and a full edit screen will open.

2.2.4 How to Make an Update

To create an update:

• Create a title.
• Add content by typing in text. You can also do the following (going through the icons in the toolbar. From left to right:

1. Emphasized text
2. Numbered list
3. Dot point list
4. A quotation
5. A footnote
6. A superscript character or subscript character
7. A special character
8. Mathematical notation (using TeX), or use an app which converts handwritten math to TeX
9. Link and unlink
10. Upload an image
11. Upload video
12. Upload audio
13. Upload any other file (Word, PDF, dataset, etc.)
14. Embed media (YouTube, Flickr, Qik, Vimeo, Hulu, Viddler, MyOpera, etc.)
15. Copy/paste

• When you [Add Update] from your personal profile page, it will appear in the activity streams of your peers only. This update will not go to the other members of the communities to which you belong.
• When you [Add Update] from a community page, it will appear in the activity streams of this community and all its members. This update will not go to your peers.
• You can also choose to feed a notification to as Facebook post or tweet in Twitter. These will link back to your update. Go to the Settings menu behind your name to link to your Facebook and Twitter accounts. If you want your updates to be visible to Facebook or Twitter users who do not have CGScholar accounts, you choose the “Public” setting in the settings menu.

2.2.5 Responding to an Update

• To join a discussion, go to the bottom of the update and add a comment.
• If you want to speak to a particular person, start your comment with @, then select a name from those already involved in the discussion.

• Star a comment if you want to come back to it or if you want to let your peers know that you think it is notable.

• You can filter activities in the dark blue bar at the top of the middle column, including starred items in your activity stream and updates listing.
• When you are in a community, and you just want to see admin updates, take the Updates menu behind the community name, and the From: Admins filter option.

2.3.1 Your Profile Picture

To create or change your avatar or profile picture, hover over the image. You will see a small edit pencil in the top right corner.

• Click [Upload an Image].
• Select the image to upload from your computer.
• Select the area of the image you wish to use.
• Click [Save and Apply].

2.3.2 Your Profile

To add information about yourself, select “About” in the pull down menu behind your name. On your “About” page, you can:

• Upload or link to your résumé (link in the dark blue bar at the top).
• Edit your blip, which also appears beneath your avatar on your profile page—hover over this section and choose the edit pencil.
• Write a longer, narrative bionote of up to 500 words.
• List your employment and other experience.
• List your education.
• Add links to other websites.
• Provide contact information.
• Add an ORCID ID, a unique identifier for academic writers. Visit here for information about ORCID ID, and here to register and create your ID.

2.3.3 Identify Your Interests

• Create an interests list for those who may wish to search for scholars with similar interests.

2.3.4 Create Settings for Your Page

In Settings:

• Link to your Facebook and Twitter feeds.
• Determine your privacy preferences. (These can be changed at any time) While you are active in a community, we recommend against the “Private” setting because people won’t able to see your profile in full or published works.
• Users under 18 are only allowed the “Private” setting and cannot connect to other social media.

2.4.1 Your Publications

Publications have are works that have been through the peer review process in the Creator app and vetted by a publishing admin. These may be published in Community to your personal profile page, and/or into a community or communities, and/or the Bookstore. Your publishing admin determines whether and where your works will be published.

2.4.2 Your Shares With Admins

Shares with Admins are private shares, only visible to admins.

• Select the community with whom you wish to share.
• Include title, description, and a file or link, then [Submit].

2.4.2 Your Shares With Peers and in Communities

Share files and links in the Shares area.

• Shares with Peers are visible to peers, and also (depending on your privacy settings), other people viewing your profile page.
• Shares can be also be made in communities, by admins at any time, and by members also in the case of “unrestricted” communities (a setting created by community admins).
• Include title, description, and a file or link, then [Add Share].

2.4.2 Sharing Unpublished Works from Creator

Unpublished works developed in Creator can be shared on personal profile pages, in communities where you admin, or with community admins where you are a member.

• Go to Creator => About This Work => Info => Share
• These will appear in the Shares area.

2.5.1 Your Peers

• To view your full peers list and filter for different organizations, click the Peers link in the pull-down menu behind your name.

• Search and add peers. This will generate a peer request that your peer will need to accept before you can receive their updates and other information about their activity, such as new publications. Once they have accepted your invitation, they will also receive information about your activity in their activity stream.

2.5.2 Your Communities

• To view all of your communities, select the “Communities” link from the pull-down menu behind your name.

• To become a member of a new community, search for that community, and select the option to join.
• Public communities are open, anyone can find them on the web, and anyone can create a CGScholar account to join without having to seek admin permission. When you select [Join Community] you immediately become a member.
• Open communities are not visible on the web, but anyone with a CGScholar account can see them and join without having to obtain admin permission. When you select [Join Community] you immediately become a member.
• Closed communities are only visible to people with CGScholar accounts, however new members are not admitted without an admin accepting a membership request. When you select [Request to Join], you do not become a member until approved by an admin.
• Private communities are by invitation only and are invisible to those who have not been invited to join. Private communities cannot be found by searching on this page. Private is the only setting allowed for users under the age of 18. If you are currently working in a community, we recommend you do not use this setting because other community members will not be able to see your profile, publications or other activity.
• An admin may also send you an invitation to join a community. You will receive a request in the notifications area, mirrored in an email.

2.5.3 Community Access

A community might be a class of students, a group with a shared interest, or a publisher relating to authors and readers of a journal or a book series.

• Admins control community identity and membership.
• If the community is Restricted, members will only be able to comment on updates made by admins.
• If the community is Unrestricted, members will also be able to make updates and shares.

2.6.1 The Logic of Community

Communities are places where knowledge and interests are shared. Communities may be research networks, publishers, online courses, or classes with in-person attendance.

• Admins create and co-ordinate communities—teachers, publishers, conference organizers, initiators of communities of common interest.
• Members participate in a cross between a social media feed and a blog.

2.6.2 The Community Activity Stream

• The Activity Stream is a listing of all recent events in the community including updates, shares, and publications.
• You can filter for different types of activity and starred items by taking the [Filter Activity] option in the dark blue bar.

2.6.3 Making an Update for a Community

To create an update, select Updates in the pull-down menu behind the community name.

• If you are a community admin and you make an update in a community, this will go to all community members and other admins (but not your peers unless they are part of that community).
• If you are a community member, you will only be able to make updates in communities that admins have set to Unrestricted. These updates will go to all community members and admins (but not your peers unless they are part of that community).

To make an update:

• Create a title. When you begin to enter the title in the title field, the editor will open up.
• Add content by typing in text. You can also do the following (going through the icons in the toolbar from left to right):

1. Emphasized text
2. Numbered list
3. Dot point list
4. A quotation
5. A footnote
6. A superscript character and subscript character
7. A special character
8. Mathematical notation (using TeX), or use an app which converts handwritten math to TeX.
9. Link and unlink
10. Upload an image
11. Upload video
12. Upload audio
13. Upload any other file (Word, PDF, dataset, etc.)
14. Embed media (YouTube, Flickr, Qik, Vimeo, Hulu, Viddler, MyOpera, etc.)
15. Copy/paste

• When you [Add Update], a notification will go to the other members of this community, and it will appear in their activity streams. This update will not go to your peers. If you want to communicate with peers, go to your personal profile page and make an update there.
• You can also choose to feed a notification to as a post to a Facebook group or tweet in Twitter. These will link back to your update. Go to the Settings menu behind the name of the community to link to your Facebook and Twitter accounts. If you want your updates to be visible to Facebook or Twitter users who do not have CGScholar accounts, you choose the “Public” setting in the settings menu.

2.6.4 Posting Updates from a Learning Module

You can also post updates from Learning Modules that have been published and made available:

• In the CGScholar Bookstore.
• In a scholar’s personal profile in community.
• In a community.

• Enter the Learning Module and select [Post Left-Side Content to Community].
• Select a community—only communities in which you are an admin will appear here.

• After selecting the desired community, [Continue]. This will post the content on the left side of the screen to all the members of the community, both into their personal activity stream and the community’s activity stream.

• As an admin, you will be able to edit the text posted from the learning module until the first member has commented on it or starred it. Hover over the title of the update and select the edit pencil.

3.1.1 Why Creator?

Creator is:

1. A multimodal writing space where you can write text as well as include images, videos, audio, datasets, and external web media within that text.
2. Creator is social, with different kinds of feedback (reviews against a rubric, annotations, recommendations), feedback-on-feedback, and self-review.
3. Creator is smart, using data mining processes to and artificial intelligence to track progress in knowledge development and learning.
4. Creator is semantic, built strictly on the latest principles of web development. Every design element has a meaning, as distinct from (just) and a different way of presenting the same meaning. Its focus is on the architecture of meaning. This also means that it is minimalist and simple—an extremely powerful editor in just one bar of icons.

Or to put this question another way, why not Word or Google Docs?

1. Word and Google Docs are not genuinely multimodal, with limited capacities to embed external media, and presentational elements that are irrelevant to meaning.
2. Word with its messy changes tracking and Google Docs with its chaotic jumping cursor are not sensitively social in the way Creator is. Creator offers a range of feedback mechanisms, keeping a careful record of pre- and post-feedback versions.
3. Unlike Word and Google Docs, Creator is backed by the latest natural language processing, big data, and artificial intelligence technologies to offer feedback, track knowledge development, and assess learning.
4. Word and Google Docs are designed for presentation, not meaning.

3.1.2 Works and Projects in Creator

In CGScholar, creators develop works as parts of projects.

• Work: A piece of multimodal writing that you develop in the Creator workspace.
• Project: The phases a work goes through: 1) drafting; 2) feedback; 3) feedback on feedback; 4) revision; 5) self-review and change note; 6) publication.

3.1.3 Roles in Creator
Creator is a social writing space where you can work with others in the following roles:

• Creator: One or more people who are responsible for making a work, and is credited for its creation beside the title.
• Feedback Contributor: A person who offers feedback on a work, including one or more of peer reviews, annotations, and publication recommendations.
• Publishing Admin: A person who designs and manages designs a publishing project, sets deadlines, arranges feedback, and publishes revised works.

3.1.4 Starting a Work

There are no documents or files in Creator—instead there are “Works.”

• Works are listed behind the yellow toolbar on the right side of the Creator screen. When you have a large number of works the Show and Order filters help you to find them.
• You can also use tags to help you find works.
• Listed works include works that you are creating, and read-only versions of works you have been asked to review.
• Creators can start works at any time by taking the [New] option in the yellow toolbar, but if they do, they will not be connected to a project for peer feedback.

3.1.5 Connecting to a Project
There are two ways to connect to a publishing project:

1. A publisher-initiated project: A publishing admin sends you a work request in your notifications area. Take the link in this work request to a new, blank work called “Untitled.” Go to About This Work => Info to give the work a Title. Do not start a new work if an admin is going to set up a project for you.
2. A creator-initiated project: (If you are in a group or class, ask your admin whether they want you to take this option. It creates more work for them!) The creator asks a publishing admin to set up a project for them. Go to Creator => About This Work => Publish to locate a publisher and make this request. Before you send your request, go to About This Work => Info to give the work a Title and write an Abstract. If the publishing admin agrees to work and create a project, you will receive a notification. When you receive this notification, click the option [Use a Work You Have Already Started.]

3.1.6 More Than One Creator
 

• If a work is to have multiple creators, go to Creator => About This Work => Creators and invite additional creators.
• You can arrange the order in which the creators need to be credited by hovering over the name of a creator and selecting the Reorder icon.
• Some admin-initiated publishing projects may not allow coauthors.

3.1.7 Sharing an Unpublished Work

• Whether a work is in a publishing project or not, you can share it in the Shares area of your personal profile page or a community where you are an admin.
• To share your unpublished work, go to: About This Work => Info => Share.

3.2.1 The Ideas Behind Creator

The CGScholar development team has created a unique technology for writing to the web, technically called a "semantic editor." (You can read a long and technical version of this story by the designers of CGScholar in their book, Towards a Semantic Web.) The nice thing about this technology is that it has none of the clutter of a word processor—the hundreds of fonts and thousands of formatting options. Creator has just one simple toolbar. And it is much more powerful than a word processor—you can embed all kinds of media inline, including sound, video or dataset.

One of the innovative aspects of the Creator technology is that there are no documents or files. Instead, there are "works" which are constantly being composed and recomposed from a huge database. Moving away from documents and files produces some significant advantages. One is that Creator can reformat your work in a whole lot of ways—you'll see two already when you use the little print icon in the dark blue title bar: either a web page or a PDF. These are generated on-the-fly and at the time of use, capturing the latest version at the moment of access.

The other big advantage is that the software can scan and data mine your work. The Block Quote icon tells us that the piece of text that has been selected is not yours and therefore that it has not been plagiarized. The Emphasis icon tells us which terms are important to you or different from the rest of the text. Students and teachers can also call up detailed assessment data, using CGScholar's powerful Analytics tool.

The screen is designed around a left/light division, with a curtain that can be pulled from side to side to expand or minimize one side or the other. Working in Creator is a recursive process where, across the multiple phases of a publishing project, scholars shunt backward and forward between the left and right sides in a process with might be considered dialogical or dialectical:

3.2.2 Information About Your Work

Enter information about your work (or metadata) at About This Work => Info => Work, hover over to select the edit pencil, and enter the following:

• Work Type: This has been selected by you when you create a new work, or by your publishing admin when the create a project. You can’t change the Work Type at this stage. Options include: Paper, Learning Module, Journal Article.
• Work Icon: Upload an image here to represent your work.
• Title: Change from “Untitled.” Use title case, capitalizing all main words.
• Subtitle: Use title case, capitalizing all main words.
• Abstract: A short summary of this work.
• Keywords: Words or phrases describing your work, separated by commas.

3.2.3 The Creator Toolbar

Mouseover each icon to see a description of what it is for. Add content by typing in text. You can also do the following (going through the icons in the toolbar from left to right):

• Emphasized text (Do not use this for headings or subheadings—use the Structure tool for this, as described Tutorial 3.3.)
• Numbered list
• Dot point list
• A quotation
• A footnote
• A superscript character or subscript character
• A special character
• Mathematical notation (using TeX), or use an app which converts handwritten math to TeX.
• Link and unlink
• Upload an image
• Upload video
• Upload audio
• Upload any other file (Word, PDF, dataset, etc.)
• Embed media (YouTube, Flickr, Qik, Vimeo, Hulu, Viddler, MyOpera, etc.)
• Copy/paste
• Find/replace
• Undo/Redo
• Expand to fill screen

Some icons will open dialogue boxes to upload content. For practical reasons, CGScholar has to set limits on uploaded files. In the case of large video files, it is best to upload to YouTube or Vimeo, and use embedded media function in the Creator toolbar.

Here are two things about the Creator working space that you may find unusual at first:

• You cannot create more than one space at a time using the space bar. Being a semantic editor, one space means “new word.” Two or more spaces would be meaningless. We want everything you do in CGScholar to be meaningful. Also, you cannot type more than one space because when CGScholar does the web and page design, and additional spaces would negatively affect its flexible design options.
• You cannot create more than one line spaces using the carriage return. One carriage return in Creator means “new paragraph.” You cannot enter two, because that would be meaningless. Nor can you indent paragraphs using spaces in the Creator text entry space—line space means paragraph. Some typesetting options will interpret this as an indent, whereas the web output will space paragraphs, without indents.

3.3.4 Working in a Publishing Project

When you are involved in a publishing project, before you start your work you should look carefully at project information:

• Status: where your work is up to in the project, at About This Work => Project => Status.
• Timeline: at About This Work => Project => Timeline. This shows when things are due, from draft, to feedback, to revision, and finally to publication. All dates are advisory, which means you can still submit drafts, feedback and revisions after the deadline. A red dot serves as a warning that you are late, and a record that you were late is kept in the timeline.
• Description: A prompt outlining what the members of the project have been asked to do, at About This Work => Project => Description.
• Dialogue: at About This Work => Project => Description, where you can communicate with your publishing admin at any time. This is a better place to connect with your publishing admin than the messages area in the top bar, because it is a special message about this work that is kept with this work.

• The other very important thing to do before you start work in a project is to look at the peer review rubric at Feedback => Reviews => Rubric. This is how your work is going to be evaluated, by other members (peers), or your publishing admin, or by yourself in a self-review.

See Tutorial 3.1.5 for how to connect to a publishing project.

3.3.5 Saving and Versions

Creator autosaves continually, so there is no need to ever to use the [Save] button.

• You can create a new version of a work at any time by hovering over the [Save] button. However, do not do this unless there is something you really want to keep in an older version.
• New versions are automatically created when a work is sent out for feedback, because we need to keep the version that was reviewed, before you make further changes and submit a revised version.
• When you hover over an old version of a work, you can choose to revert (make this older version the current version) or duplicate to create a new work. The new work will not be part of a publishing project unless you ask a publisher to connect with it (see Tutorial 3.1.5.

3.3.1 Creating Elements in the Structure Tool

A work in Creator consists of a series of movable chunks, called Elements. There are three kinds of Element:

• Section
• References
• Appendix

To create an Element, go to About this Work => Structure => [Add New]

• Enter the heading.
• Select the Element Type.
• Decide whether you want the heading to be visible, or just as a mental reminder in your draft which will not be visible to reviewers or in the published version. To make a heading invisible, uncheck [Display heading in View/Output]. You may want to do this when planning a story, for instance.
   

3.3.2 Creating a Structure for Your Work

Use the Structure tool to organize your work into elements. This helps plan your work thoughtfully as well as to make the organization of your work clear to reviewers in draft and readers when it is published.

• Planning: You may decide to plan out your whole work in the Structure tool with section heads before you start, or you might add sections as you go.
• Navigating: The Element heading highlighted in blue indicates what you are currently viewing and working on in the edit screen on the left. To navigate to another element, click on the heading in the Structure tool. To move backwards and forwards through a work, use the arrows in the dark blue bar.
• Moving Sections: When you hover over an element heading in the Structure tool, a + icon will become visible. This allows you to rearrange sections by dragging them up or down the list. Wait for each change to save (the spinner, followed by a green check/tick) before you make the next change.
• Creating Subsections: Hover over the element heading, then drag the + to the right to create subsections, and again for sub-subsections. Drag it to the left to reverse this. Wait for the change to save before proceeding.
• Edit a Heading: Hover over the element heading, the select the edit pencil to change the text of the heading or subheading.
• Delete: Hover over the element heading, the select the red x to delete both the heading and the contents of this element.
• Multiple Creators: More than one creator can work in a shared work at the same time, but not in the same Element. If another creator is already in an Element, a little padlock will appear beside its heading in the Structure tool.
• Viewing: To view a work with headings, either click on the eye icon in the dark blue bar, or the print icon to select PDF or Web views.

3.4.1 The Checker Tool

As you get ready to submit, be sure to go over your work with the Checker tool, at Feedback => Checker. Unlike spelling or grammar checkers which sometimes tell you something is wrong when it is not, Creator's checker only makes change suggestions, and these include synonyms, in case you may wish to change a word.

• Hover over the suggested change in the Checker tab on the left side, and the changeable item will also be highlighted in the edit screen on the left.
• Open the small blue arrow at the end of the suggested change, and you will see a suggestion type and a suggestion. In this case above, Checker is saying that “hustory” may require a spelling change.
• If you agree with Checker’s suggestion, select the green check mark/tick to make the change.
• If you have finished considering this change suggestion, you may choose to delete the suggestion.
• In the case of works where the Creator has used the structure tool to create multiple elements, Checker scans one element or section in the work at a time.

3.4.2 Messages and Dialogue

• CGScholar has a message service in the top, gray bar. Use this for general conversations with admins and peers. However, if you want to speak with an admin about a particular work, use the Dialogue tool in Creator at About This Work => Project => Dialogue. This way, you and the admin will have a running record of discussions about that work as it evolves.
• New dialogue can be accessed (and responded to) through the Notifications area at the top of the screen.

3.4.3 Submitting a Finished Draft

Once you are satisfied with your draft, it is time to submit your work. Do not submit incomplete works, because you will not get the full benefit of your reviewers’ comments and suggestions. The draft you submit should your best work and most complete attempt to address the objectives of the project.

• When you have finished a draft of your work and it is ready for feedback, you may submit by selecting the [Submit Draft] button below the work. Once you select this button, the work will go to peer review.
• Until the first reviewer has begun to look at your work to submit feedback, you will see an [Unsubmit] button on the submitted version. You can still make changes.
• As soon as the first person has begun to look at your work, the [Unsubmit] button will disappear and you cannot make any further changes to the version reviewers will see. You can, however, continue to work on the current version.

3.5.1 Kinds of Feedback in Creator

One of the most powerful features of Creator is that more than one person can give and receive feedback at the same time, or at any time. There's no having to pass files backwards and forwards so one person can comment on the work one at a time as is the case with Word files. Nor is there the confusing “jumping cursor” of Google Docs. In Creator, the feedback is clearly structured and neatly organized.

• Depending on the project settings made by your publishing admin, reviews may be anonymous or with names of either or both creators and reviewers visible.
• When giving feedback you may be asked to work on one or more of these areas, depending on the settings your admin has created for this particular project:

1. Reviews: Ratings and general comments against review criteria in a rubric.
2. Annotations: Specific comments and suggestions made about a highlighted section of texts.
3. Recommendation: Whether you believe the work is nearly ready for publication or requires extensive revision.

3.5.2 Receiving a Feedback Request

• Review Requests: When it is time for you to give feedback on another creator’s work, you will receive a notification. You will see an alert in the notifications area in the top bar, and this will be mirrored in an email. Click on the notification, and you will be taken directly to the work requiring your feedback.
• Number of Reviews: You may receive slightly fewer or slightly more review requests than the expected number depending on the submissions of other members of your publishing community. If you have not received as many reviews as you expected or the reviews are not sufficient to revise, contact our publishing admin so they can assign new reviewers.
• Time Priorities: If you happen to be running late in a project, please prioritize review requests ahead of completing your own work.
• Late Requests: You may receive late requests if another creator is running behind time. Please respond to these requests as soon as you can, to give them a chance to catch up.

3.5.3 Writing Reviews

There are two aspects to Reviews: 1) a qualitative judgment expressed on a numbered scale; and 2) an open-ended explanation of this rating.

• First, read the Rubric carefully. You will find this at Feedback => Reviews => Rubric.
• Then take the 'Review Work' tab at Feedback => Reviews => Review Work. Pull the slider to give the work a number rating on each criterion. You can check the rating level descriptions here by opening the little orange triangle.
• You must write at least something in every explanation box. Then go to the bottom of this panel and save (if you are not finished and want to come back later) or submit (if you have finished all feedback requirements). Once you have submitted you cannot make further changes to a review.
• Be kind to peers in your reviews! Be as helpful as you can, offering them constructive suggestions. Feedback should be unique (not copy/pasted) and be directly relevant to the work under review section.

3.5.4 Annotating the Text

As well as giving feedback through a review, you may be required to annotate the work. An annotation is a comment or a suggested change about a specific part of a work.

• To make an annotation go to Feedback => Annotations.
• Then highlight the text you wish to annotate, and click “Create Annotation.”
• Select whether you want to make a comment or suggest a change. If you are suggesting a change, indicate the type of change you would like to suggest.

• To view annotations, hover over the annotated text in the Annotations tab on the right side of the screen, and it will be highlighted at the same time in the body of the text to the left.
• The creator can discuss a particular comment here with the person who has made the feedback—that contributor will be anonymous or named, depending on the project settings created by the admin.

3.5.5 Submitting Feedback

When you have finished your review of a peer’s work, make sure you have completed any other requirements such as “Annotations” and a “Publication Recommendation.”

• Submit your feedback at About This Work => Project => Status.
• If your publishing admin has requested you to offer more than one of these kinds of feedback, you will only be able to submit your feedback when all of their feedback requirements have been completed.
• It is a good idea to do Annotations (specific comments) before Reviews (more general comments), because ideas will come to you
• Wait until you have completed all pending reviews before submitting. More ideas might come to you while you review another work.

3.5.6 Additional Feedback Cycles

If you, the creator, or your admin believe you should go through another feedback cycle:

• Go to About This Work => Structure => hover over the version to be duplicated => select the Duplicate icon.
• Go to About This Work => Publish and request your admin to create a new publishing project.

3.6.1 Revising Your Work

When feedback is ready, you will receive a notification. Click on the notification link and you will be taken directly to the correct work. The next phase of a project is revision. Study carefully the feedback that you have received. Depending on the kinds of feedback that the publishing admin requested, you may see one or more of:

1. Reviews: Read the overall score and individual scores and explanations at About This Work => Feedback => Reviews => Results. Be sure to look at the rubric again to remind you what the reviewers were looking for.
2. Annotations: Go to the version of your work that was annotated at About This Work => Versions. Open the Annotations tab at Feedback => Annotations. Here you will see a list of the text areas that were annotated. Mouse over each item and you will be taken to that point in the text. Open the annotation to see what has been said. Even if the person giving you this feedback is anonymous, you can discuss the comment or suggestion with that person here.
3. Recommendation: No matter what the person offering the feedback recommends, the decision to publish is entirely up to the publishing admin. If you are disappointed by a recommendation, it is up to you to improve your work in the revision phase and convince the publishing admin that the new version is worthy of publication.

3.6.2 Writing a Self-Review

After you have revised your work, but before submitting it to your admin for possible publication, write a self-review. This should be a reflection on the feedback you have received, and the ways you have changed your work ready for submission of a new, revised version. In traditional peer review, this is called a “change note.

• Go to About This Work => Structure => Current version.
• Then go to Feedback => Reviews => Review Work to write your self-review.

Here are some of the things you might address in your self-review:

• On each criterion in the rubric, which reviewer comments or suggestions have you taken on board?
• Which reviewer comments or suggestions do you disagree with, and why?
• What changes have you decided to make that did not come up in feedback and why? Perhaps you have done further investigation on an issue, or have learned more about the rubric by reviewing others' works.
• How did your thinking evolve from version to version?
• What rating would you now give yourself for the revised version on each criterion?

3.6.3 Offering Feedback on Feedback

Creators can dialogue with reviewers in two ways:

1. By responding with comments.
2. By rating and commenting on the quality of the review.

Creators and reviewers will be named or anonymous depending on the project settings created by the admin.

3.6.4 Submitting Your Work for Publication

The last phase of a project in Creator is publication, or a decision by the publishing admin not to publish your work at this time.

• Once you have incorporated the feedback (reviews and annotations) from your peers, it is time to submit your revised work. Click [Submit Revision] below the work.
• This is the version of your work that will be sent to your admin for publication.
• If accepted, it will be published by your admin either to your personal profile page in Community and/or to a community of their choosing, and/or the CGScholar bookstore. Alternatively, your admin will return your work to you for further revision before publication.
• As soon as your work is published, you will receive a notification. It becomes part of a portfolio of your published works that can be shared with your peers, with community, or beyond on the web.

3.6.5 Republishing Previously Published Works

If you wish to make further changes to your work after it has been published, make changes in the Current version, then send a request to republish through About This Work => Project => Dialogue.

4.1.1 The Idea of Learning Analytics or Knowledge Community Analytics

In CGScholar, the Analytics app is visualization tool that tracks progress in knowledge and learning communities, for the whole community, as well as for individual members of the community. It is built using cutting edge “big data” and “artificial intelligence” technologies. Every member can see their own progress towards objectives that have been set by admins.

In the context of students learning in a unit of work or a course, the intended outcomes of the Analytics app are:

1. To increase learner responsibility for learning progress and growth of self-efficacy by making learning expectations explicit, along with an always-available data visualization of progress towards meeting these expectations.
2. To support a range of types of continuous formative assessment: item-based assessment; rubric-based reviews (peers, self, teacher); online discussion contributions etc.
3. To support adaptive and personalized instruction, by offering the possibility of re-taking quizzes, revising work, extending contributions to online discussions etc., until the teacher or curriculum designer’s objectives are met.
4. To improve on-time meeting of learning objectives with clear time objectives and “focus” credits which indicate the degree of effort so far expended by the student, compared to the degree of effort expected.
5. To encourage via “help” credits, collaborative or peer learning.
6. To support teachers by providing them clear visualizations of student activity, per student, as well as class progress towards meeting intended learning outcomes. It is possible to “drill down” into all the constituent datapoints. Because the basis of the analysis is a very large number of datapoints for every student, at any moment in time during a unit of work, teachers is able to see a detailed progress record for every learner, based on data that was in previously, in a practical sense, largely invisible.
7. To support differentiated instruction, whereby learners can work at their own pace towards curriculum goals.
8. To provide an extensive supporting evidence for summative assessments made by the teacher. This reduces the grading burden for teachers, supporting their judgments with comprehensive learning progress data.

4.1.2 Getting Started in Analytics

A scholar does not see the Analytics tab in CGScholar until they become a member of a community where the admin has selected that option.

Before a course or unit of work commences, the teacher will have specified:

1. The timeframe for the task.
2. Task expectations.
3. The relative weighting of each task.

The main visualization in Analytics is an “aster plot.” An aster is a flower that has flat petals radiating outwards. Each petal of the aster plot displays progress of one metric associated with an individual’s activity or ratings received within CGScholar. For example, this may include the number of updates you have posted to the community, or the average word count of your works assigned in Creator.

The admin chooses which metrics to include in the plot, their weight towards the overall score, and the target values. The target value is the metric value that represents a 100% score.
The metric score is capped at 100%. For example, if the target value for average words per work assigned is 1,000 then a value of 900 average words per work would yield a score of 90%, and a value of 1,300 would yield a score of 100% (scores are capped at 100%).

During the unit of work, admins (e.g. teachers) and members (e.g. students) is able to access ever member’s progress visualization, including the capacity to dig deep into areas requiring additional attention by an individual participant. This makes visible deficiencies which might otherwise pass unnoticed.

Data for the Analytics app has been pre-processed, which means that it often a few hours old. Check the time your analytics data was last processed beneath your name and photograph.

4.1.3 Interpreting the Aster Plot

• The width of the petal is the weighting given by the teacher to this aspect of the work. The length of the petal is the amount of achievement of the learner to this point.
• θ is progress towards instructional objectives. 100 learning credits represents achievement of those objectives. We use the positive concept of earning “credits,” to get away from the frequently negative and judgmental notion of a “mark” or a “score.” All members can increase their learning credits and meet learning objectives by doing more work, for instance revising their projects, adding more comments to the class discussions or re-taking knowledge surveys.
• Each petal in the aster plot is active, so clicking on it brings up more detailed information about the data used to generate the conclusion about learning represented by each petal.
• The visualization is divided into three major segments, each labelled by an imperative verb and a symbol representing that variable: "φ Focus" or perseverance measures variables such as time on task and amount of work produced. "ε Knowledge" measures knowledge via data elements such as quizzes or knowledge surveys and peer review ratings against rubrics. "β Help" measures community contributions and collaborations, such as the extent and quality of comments on others’ posts and peer reviews.

4.2.1 Average Text Quality Score Per Work

This metric is calculated as the average text quality score on the last version of your works in the Community/Publisher space (as a percentage of the target value, max is 100%). The text quality (or "text structural complexity") measure is computed as an average of three methods: Flesch-Kincaid, Coleman-Liau, and Automated Readability Index. The scores produced by these methods are an approximate representation of the US school grade level needed to comprehend the target text. This metric score is the percentage of this value relative to the target value capped at 100%.

4.2.2 Average Peer Review Percentage Score Received

This metric score is calculated as the average over all of percent scores received on reviews of your works by your peers (as a percentage of the target value, max is 100%). The percent score for a peer review is the total of points you received from the reviewer for all rubric items as a percentage of the maximum possible.

4.2.3 Average Self Review Percentage Score Received

This metric score is calculated as the average over all of percent scores received on self-reviews of your works (as a percentage of the target value, max is 100%). The percent score for a self-review is the total of points you received from the reviewer (you) for all rubric items as a percentage of the maximum possible.

4.2.4 Average Instructor Review Percentage Score Received

This metric score is calculated as the average over all of percent scores received on instructor (administrator) reviews of your works (as a percentage of the target value, max is 100%). The percent score for an instructor review is the total of points you received from the reviewer for all rubric items as a percentage of the maximum possible.

4.2.5 Knowledge Survey Percentage Correct Score

There could be multiple occurrences of these petals, one for each survey created and deployed from CGScholar’s Survey app. Knowledge surveys are scored like quizzes. Each survey item has a correct answer and your total score is the percentage of correct answers. The percentage of this total score relative to the target value of the metric will produces the score for this metric.

4.2.6 Custom Metrics

Custom metrics are petals that are added by an administrator. They can appear in any section of the aster plot. Administrators are responsible for hand coding the scores for these petals (or they can be imported from external applications). Administrators can also provide feedback to each student along with their scores. These metrics are used primarily for activities external to CGScholar, or to link with external applications.

4.3.1 Number of Comments You Have Made on Instructor Updates

The total number of comments that the student made on updates that were authored by a Community/Publisher administrator (as a percentage of the target value, max is 100%).

4.3.2 Number of Updates You Have Made in the Community

The total number of updates the student has authored in the Community space (as a percentage of the target value, max is 100%).

4.3.3 Average Word Length of Your Updates

The average word length of updates the student has made in the Community space (as a percentage of the target value, max is 100%).

4.3.4 Percent of Community Projects You Have Started

The number of projects that the student has started in the Creator measured as a percentage of the target value (max is 100%). A project is a Work in Scholar that is part of a Publisher Project. A student may be expected to complete a certain number of assignments during the course of a class. Assignments are not available to students until created and assigned by a Publisher administrator, and so this metric starts at 0 and increases as projects are assigned and the student begins work on those projects.

4.3.5 Average Word Length of Your Works

The average word length of works the student has created in Creator (as a percentage of the target value, max is 100%). As new works are started this metric will sometimes decrease because it is an average over all of the student's works. For example, if you have one work with 1,200 words and the target is 1,000 words your score will be 100% (you cannot exceed 100%). If you then start a second work your score will immediately drop to 60% because 1,200 words plus 0 words divided by two projects is 600 words on average with a target of 1,000. As you accumulate more words in your second project the metric will increase towards 100%.

4.3.6 Average Percent Change in Revisions to Your Works

To produce this score, for each work the average percent edited between all versions is computed, then those values are averaged across all works a student has created in Creator space (as a percentage of the target value, max is 100%). As new works are started this metric will sometimes decrease because it is an average over all of the student's works.

4.3.7 Average Number of Multimedia Elements in Your Works

For each final version of a student's work in the Creator space the number of embedded multimedia elements is counted and averaged. The percentage of this averaged value relative to the target value for this metric yields the score for this metric (max is 100%). For example, if you have an average of 10 multimedia elements embedded in the final version of your works and the target value for this metric is that you should have at least 20, then your score would be 50%. As new works are started this metric will sometimes decrease because it is an average overall of the student's works.

4.3.8 Average Word Length of Your Feedback on Peer Reviews

This metric is calculated as the average word length of your feedback on reviews that you have received from others (as a percentage of the target value, max is 100%). This is not the word count of reviews you have authored. That metric is in the “help” section of the aster plot.

4.3.9 Information Survey Percent Completed

There could be multiple occurrences of these petals, one for each survey. This metric does not just reflect that you took a survey or not, but rather it is the percentage of questions that you answered on the survey relative to the target value. Any questions left unanswered may result in a score less than 100%. For example, if the target value is 100% and you answered 90% of the questions then you will receive a score of 90%. If the target value had been 90% then you would have received a 100% score.

4.3.10 Custom Metrics

Custom metrics are petals that are added by an administrator. They can appear in any section of the aster plot. Administrators are responsible for hand coding the scores for these petals (or they can be imported from external applications). Administrators can also provide feedback to each student along with their scores. These metrics are used primarily for activities external to CGScholar, or to link with external applications.

4.4.1 Average Number of Views of Your Updates

This metric is calculated as the average number of views of updates that you posted to this Community space (as a percentage of the target value, max is 100%).

4.4.2 Number of Reviews Completed

This metric is the number of reviews that you have completed within this Community/Publisher space (as a percentage of the target value, max is 100%).

4.4.3 Average Number of Words Per Reviews You Authored

This metric is the average of the number of words you produced across all reviews you have authored in the Community/Publisher space (as a percentage of the target value, max is 100%).

4.4.4 Number of Comments You Have Posted

: This metric is the number of comments that you have made on updates not posted by and administrator in the Community/Publisher space (as a percentage of the target value, max is 100%).

4.4.5 Average Number of Annotations on Peer Works

This metric is an average of the number of annotations that you have provided on reviews of peer works in the Community/Publisher space (as a percentage of the target value, max is 100%).

4.4.6 Average Rating Percentage Score from Peers for Your Reviews

This metric is the average of the percent score you received from your peers for the peer reviews you authored (as a percentage of the target value, max is 100%).

4.4.7 Custom Metrics

Custom metrics are petals that are added by an administrator. They can appear in any section of the aster plot. Administrators are responsible for hand coding the scores for these petals (or they can be imported from external applications). Administrators can also provide feedback to each student along with their scores. These metrics are used primarily for activities external to CGScholar, or to link with external applications.

5.1.1 The Ideas Behind the Learning Module

The CGScholar development team has created the Learning Module as an alternative to the traditional educational artifacts of textbook, syllabus, and lesson plan. The learning module is also quite different from the digital versions of these—the e-textbook and the learning management system. These are essentially digital reproductions of old learning architectures, based on content delivery and transmission pedagogy. The underlying principle of the Learning Module is “reflexive pedagogy.”

As a pedagogical design, the Learning Module is not a textbook. It is not a syllabus. It is not a lesson plan. And it is all of these things, or it does the job of all of these things, but does all these things differently.

• A textbook summarizes the world, transmitting content to learners in the monologue of the textbook writer. It summarizes the world. It “talks at” learners. The Learning Module curates the world—web links to textual content, videos and other embedded media. It is multimodal. It uses a variety of sources, requiring students to think critically, not just to memorize content that has been pre-digested and delivered to them. It puts the onus on learners to interact with knowledge, and contribute the knowledge they have created. Instead of learners being knowledge consumers, they become knowledge producers
• A syllabus outlines content and topics to be covered. A Learning Module prompts dialogue—an update prompts class discussion; a project sets in train a peer reviewed work; a survey elicits a student response. It is a medium to facilitate active and collaborative learning, rather than individualized content acquisition.
• A lesson plan is the teacher’s private activity outline. The Learning Module can be shared with the class, and optionally published to the web, within a school or beyond, for other teachers to use, so building a teacher-created pedagogical knowledge bank. For professional collaboration and learning, a Learning Module can be jointly written and also peer reviewed before publication.

5.1.2 Learning Module Architecture

Learning Modules have a two-column format: a “for the member” side on the left where the teacher speaks directly to the student, and a “for the admin” side where the teacher speaks the professional discourse of education, articulating learning aims, curriculum standards and teaching tips. Members can be named any way the Learning Module designer chooses: “student,” “participant,” “member,” etc., and admins can be named “teacher,” “instructor,” “coordinator,” “admin,” etc. The name is less important than the difference in the discourse.

A Learning Module offers three modes of interaction with and between students:

1. Updates that can be pushed into the learner’s activity stream in the CGScholar’s Community app, including a wide range of multimedia formats. Each Update prompts comments from learners and class discussion. Learners can also contribute content and initiate discussion by making their own Updates.
2. Projects in CGScholar’s Creator app, where learners create works and offer feedback against a rubric for peer, self and/or teacher review.
3. Surveys, including knowledge surveys that anticipate right and wrong answers, and information surveys that do not have right or wrong answers (such as an opinion survey).

The Learning Module is a work type within CGScholar’s Creator app, so you if you want to want to design one but have not used Creator before, we recommend you familiarize yourself with Section 3 of these tutorials.

5.1.3 Finding Learning Modules

The CGScholar Bookstore contains many types of items including journal articles and books. One special kind of work available in the bookstore is the Learning Module.

• In the CGScholar Bookstore, different kinds of works are organized into “Collections,” including collections of Learning Modules.
• You can peruse these Learning Modules for ideas, deliver Updates, Projects and Surveys directly into classes where students have CGScholar accounts. Chunks of content on the left or member side of the screen can be delivered separately and in any order.
• Within a “Collection,” Works are organized into “Series” such as according to topic, text type and/or learning level.

• To open a Learning Module, select the “Collection”, then the “Series” and [Scholar Web Work].
• Learning Modules can also be published or shared to communities in the Community app in CGScholar.

5.1.4 Using Learning Modules

A Learning Module is a series of activities, including curated material such as weblinks, videos and other audio-visual material and prompts that initiate productive admin-member and member-member dialogue. It may also include a writing project and rubric, and knowledge or information surveys.

• The admin (as teacher or instructor) posts chunks of content and surveys into the activity streams of a community, as well as every member of that community.
• The Right (Admin) Side content includes more information about the activities, including its purpose and teaching tips. It also identifies the specific curriculum objectives or standards that are being addressed in the activity.

• Post Left-Side Content to a Community] pushes Update content and prompts to respond in the activity streams of members. Select a community where you admin and [Continue]. This content can be adapted or revised in the community until the first comment is made or the Update is starred.
• [Distribute Survey] posts an information or knowledge survey into the activity stream.
• Learners open the link in the Community activity stream, complete activities and add comments, dialogue with each other, and if also prompted to make an Update, actively build knowledge and share ideas.

• The Learning Module may also contain a writing project in the Creator app that includes a prompt, a rubric and deadlines for the feedback, revision, and publication phases of the writing project. When the admin selects [Start Project], they will be taken to the wizard in the Publisher app of CGScholar in order to set due dates for your project, edit a copy of the rubric if they wish, then finalize the project. For further details, see Section 3 of these tutorials.
• CGScholar’s Analytics app can analyze individual learner and whole group progress meeting Learning Module objectives. For further details, see Section 4 of these tutorials.

5.2.1 Before You Start

A Learning Module is a hybrid work which crosses the legacy educational practices of lesson plan, syllabus and textbook. Unlike a lesson plan which is mainly written for a teacher’s design purposes, a learning module has both teacher and learner sides.

• On the left side of the screen you speak to learners in “classroom discourse,” however in the case of the learning module, in a dialogical mode, rather like social media.
• On the right side of the screen, you speak to other teachers in the professional discourse of the curriculum and pedagogy.

Unlike a syllabus, a learning module contains content as well as an outline of coverage. And unlike a textbook which typically summarizes and transmits content for learners to remember, a learning module curates a variety of digital media and web content (links, embedded media etc.). It establishes a dialogue with and between learners, positioning them as active seekers and producers of knowledge.

The Learning Module architecture is agnostic about pedagogy. You could create in the same design as conventional learning management systems or MOOCs. You could, for instance, deliver video lectures as Updates into learners’ activity streams in the Community app, then check what students have remembered with CGScholar Knowledge Surveys.

However, this would be to squander the affordances of CGScholar as a social learning space, and the potentials of “reflexive pedagogy.” In an ideal Learning Module, you will create some or all of:

1. Admin Updates in the Community app, with textual, image, video and other content, prompting learner response and interaction with each other in the comments area below the post.
2. Learner Updates in the Community app, where learners share content knowledge that they have researched in a “jigsaw” fashion (adding and piecing together different pieces of an intellectual puzzle). Learners can also be expected to comment on each other’s updates.
3. Peer-reviewed Projects in the Creator app, with prompts for multimodal writing and assessment rubrics.
4. Information Surveys which solicit opinions.
5. Knowledge Surveys in the form of quizzes or item-based texts which solicit answers that are potentially right or wrong.
6. Learning Objectives or in the abstract of the Learning Module, and intended learning level. Keywords describing content.
7. Pedagogical Rationales for activities, how-to-instructions, teaching suggestions, standards mapping, and supplementary resources for the right (admin) side of the screen.
8. Assessment Strategies in the form of settings created for the intended learning community in the admin area of the Analytics app.

For examples of Learning Modules, visit the CGScholar Bookstore:

• The Literacies series. Take this link for more on the theory and practice of Literacies.
• The Learning by Design series. If you chose to use the Learning by Design pedagogy it is described here. Cut/paste the Learning by Design icons to be found here.
• The Higher Education series.
• The Learning Design and Leadership series.

5.2.2 Starting a New Learning Module

There are three ways to start to create a Learning Module:

1. You can start to create a new Learning Module at Works => New. You might decide to Share this directly to your personal profile page or a community where you admin at About This Work => Info => Share.

2. You might look for Publisher who will either publish it directly or arrange a peer-reviewed project for you. Go to About This Work => Publish.
3. If you are part of a publishing project where participants are creating Learning Modules, you will receive a request from an admin via the CGScholar notifications and email to create a peer-reviewed Learning Module. Take the link in the request and you will reach a blank Learning Module.

5.2.3 Formatting a Learning Module

Go to About This Work => Structure. When you go to create a new element, you will find the following different kinds of element that are possible in a Learning Module:

• Full Width Section: creates a heading followed by a section that crosses both columns.
• Two-sided Section: creates a heading for a two-column section.
• Left (Member) Side of a Two-sided Section: for content that a teacher can post to learners.
• Right (Admin) Side of a Two-sided Section: contains curriculum objectives, standards or advice to other teachers.

How to use the Structure tool to create a learning module:

1. Create a new element by selecting [Add New] at the bottom of the Structure tab.
2. Use the pencil tool to rename the “Untitled Element.”
3. Select the Element Type. Two-sided sections must begin with a Two-sided Section. They should then be followed, first by a Left Side Element, then a Right-Side Element. Name these according to the roles for members (e.g. For the Student) or admin (e.g. For the Teacher). Then use the drag + tool to pull these to the right, as illustrated in the screenshots above.
4. Drag and drop sections as your learning design evolves. Wait until the spinner stops and a green check/tick mark appears to be sure you have saved before you make another move.
5. Add Abstract, Keywords and Work Icon at About This Work => Info => Work.
6. Regularly take the Export icon in the dark blue bar above the edit screen, selecting [View in Browser] to check that all is presenting the way you expect.

Some recommendations when writing Updates:

• If at all possible include media for students to make your Update interesting (such as an image or a video). One measure of potential engagement of an update should be, “how interesting would this update feel in social media?”
• End the Update with a prompt or request for learners to comment or discuss. Updates are not (just) about delivering content. They should nurture dialogue! Suggest that learners talk among themselves, starting their comment with @Name as they address others already in the conversation.
• If your learners are working in an unrestricted community, suggest the kind of update that you would like them to make. (Restricted communities only allow admins to make updates. Unrestricted communities allow any community member to make an update.) In this way, learners become co-designers of the learning and co-contributors to course content.
• Have learners read and discuss peer-reviewed Works when they are published to the community page. In this way as well, students are contributing learning content in a culture of collaborative knowledge creation

5.3.1 Getting Started with a Survey in CGScholar

• Open the CGScholar Survey tool from Publisher => Tools => Survey. You need a publishing admin account to reach this page.

• Select [Design Your Survey]

5.3.2 Creating a Survey

Fill out information about your survey. Select Knowledge or Information Survey.

• Knowledge Surveys have right or wrong answers (e.g. quizzes or item-based tests).
• Information Surveys do not presuppose any particular answer among the alternatives offered (e.g. opinion surveys).

5.3.3 Creating Survey Items

• Give the Survey Item a Title.
• Decide on the item type.
• Respond to information requirements of this item type.
• [Save] the item.

5.3.4 Navigating and Arranging Items

• View, edit, and rearrange the order of items
• You can also add section headers to organize your survey.
• Make sure you do a final save of the whole survey before closing.

5.3.5 Sharing and Adapting Surveys

• Use the search tool to find existing items from other surveys.
• You can preview items in “view” before selecting them.
• Duplicate a survey if you want to keep the old version before you adapt.

5.4.1 Creating a Project for a Learning Module

Before adding a Project to a Learning Module, you need to create that Project. To do that, you need admin access to the Publisher app within CGScholar.

• If you don’t have a community and publisher already or you would like a new place to store this project, create one. Take the “Synced Publisher” option in the settings of an existing or newly created Publisher. See the admin side of CGScholar Tutorial 2.6.
• Now, go to this publisher and create a publishing project with a rubric. See the admin side of CGScholar Tutorial 3.1.
• Even if you don’t plan to use this project with this community, you will need to invite as many members as you wish to be feedback contributors for this project. Set up the project, go all the way to the last step, but there is no need to set the project running.
• Just enter hypothetical dates for deadlines. Anyone who uses this project, whether that is you or a different teacher will be asked to edit the dates and other project settings—so don’t worry too much about what dates you enter. The most important things at this stage are the project description and the rubric.
• When you get to the last step, your project will be saved here so you can connect it into your Learning Module. Remember, there is no need to start the project for all the settings to be saved. You just have to reach the last step in the project setup wizard.

5.4.2 Adding a Project and a Survey

Go to the Right (admin) Side element in the Learning Module where you want the Project and/or the Survey to be.

• Hover over the element and select the edit pencil.
• Locate the Publisher in which the Project has been saved. Select the Project by the name you have given it, and attach. We recommend that you take screenshots of your Rubric and include these in the Learning Module so peer reviewers can see it, and other teachers before they decide to go ahead with the Project.
• Locate a Survey you have created or that has been shared with you, and attach. See CGScholar Tutorial 5.3 for how to design a Survey. There is no need to include screenshots of the Survey because peer reviewers and potential users of the Learning Module will be able to view the Survey when they select the [Preview Survey] option.

Surveys are delivered into your activity stream. Just open the link, complete the survey, and submit. 

Surveys are delivered into your activity stream. Just open the link, complete the survey, and submit.