We're Up and Running!

Figure 4 Excerpt from the first MicroSCoPE newsletter October 17, 2005

1. Welcome Message

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Welcome to SCoPE and the first issue of MicroSCoPE! From the minute SCoPE was up and running on a production server 8 weeks ago, we opened the doors, people wandered in, and together we began testing and designing. The front page of SCoPE displays this message: "We are still organizing the community site, so expect surprises". We plan to change this to "We are *always* organizing the community site, so expect surprises!" A vibrant community is always evolving and responding to needs as they emerge. We are only just beginning to get the word out, but already SCoPE is a direct response to members' feedback generated through participation. We look forward to your future involvement in shaping our community environment and activities!

SCoPE discussions about SCoPE

SCoPE began in fall, 2005 with a “Next Steps” discussion on the development server. (In retrospect it should have been called “First Steps”!). The purpose of this discussion was to brainstorm initial activities and directions for the community. This 3-week seminar yielded excellent suggestions, many of which continue to be realized. Through a “community interior decorating text chat session” and our forum discussion, we made decisions about the initial site layout and the organization of resources and activities. Also, we identified several seminar topics and activities, and some members even offered to facilitate discussions that early on.

We also held a vote on the name SCoPE for the community, and it was decided once and for all that the name would remain. It was becoming urgent because we needed to establish a domain name. Until that point there had been many internal discussions about a name for the community. A wiki page was set up to solicit ideas, as shown in figure 5.

Figure 5 Brainstorming names for the community

This Next Steps seminar proved to be a very effective way to begin shaping the community environment and decide on topics for discussion. Following this discussion we moved to a production server.

Ongoing discussions about the community are encouraged in the “SCoPE Suggestion Box”, and as mentioned throughout this report, this has provided a good opportunity for feedback and ideas for improving our community experiences. Also, feedback and suggestions often more naturally belong within the context of other activities.