SCoPE is an open online community launched in 2005 for sharing knowledge and facilitating discussions. It uses Moodle and has over 2,500 members from 63 countries participating in forums, seminars, and special interest groups. Key aspects of the site include customizing Moodle tools to meet community needs, integrating additional tools, and communicating with members through various channels like newsletters and Twitter. The document discusses activities on the site and opportunities for future work to continue advancing the community.

1. …an open, online community for people like you SCoPE 2009 Moodle Moot Edmonton, Alberta Sylvia Currie, BCcampus

2. Today Overview Activities Site - customization and integration Communication with members Work that is needed

3. About SCoPE Launch fall, 2005 Free, open to the public Volunteers! Encourage the use of SCoPE for research on online communities

4. Why Moodle? We want to: Allow people to follow and enter discussions easily Move things around Have a sense of place See people!

5. Starting Point Essential communication tools Careful not to “over design” before launch Began with discussion about the community Core activity: monthly seminar discussions Designed for busy people No obligations No guilt allowed!

6. Participation 2,593 members 63 countries 40 Special Interest Groups (SIGS) have been created Over 70 members have volunteered to facilitate 10,491 posts 1,757,091 guest views

7. Activities Seminars Special Interest Groups Conferences

8. Archives available forever All facilitators are volunteers Forums, wikis, polls, etc clustered together by topic

9. Upcoming seminars Co-constructed wiki

10. RSS feed from relevant discussions Access to other tools like Elluminate

11. Full online conference… in a course: 226 delegates

12. The Site Using tools in different ways Customizations Integration

13. Freeform highlight section ideal for quick overview See at a glance who has been active lately Random glossary used for profiles Twitter helps to get information out about events

14. Replace words and phrases associated with a course management system

15. Personalize messages automatically generated from the site Add tips in context based on feedback from members

16. Make people feel more at home!

17. These folks are presenting right now in the next room :-)

18. Marginalia annotation tool integrated into SCoPE forums Excellent tool for moderators for identifying themes, tracking items for follow up, etc

19. Provide as much information as possible without requiring login. Visitors become members at the point they see value in joining Allow visitors to the site to see who SCoPE members are and who is frequenting the iste Let Google in! SCoPE profiles and forum posts show up in searches

20. Communication With Members Newsletter RSS All forums sitewide feed all seminar discussions into a single feed Messaging Welcome new members Help Twitter

21. Forum tool works well for a newsletter Several options for readers to subscribe: RSS, email, Web

22. The work that is needed Sort and view forum posts in different ways (like all posts chronologically) Casual conversations Management of resources generated through participation Integration with Learn Together Collaboratory Continue to advance our work together Celebrate our accomplishments

23. Join us! http://scope.bccampus.ca Participate in the Moodle Moot forum thread