Community

Welcome

Welcome to the Members-Only section of the CIOCAN Website

The Members-Only section is designed to encourage and improve your interaction with CIOCAN colleagues from across the country. We’re just getting started in the area of social networks as Phase II of the Website Development Project gets underway, but it will be worth your while to familiarize yourself with the features that already exist.

Please use the Beta Review Blog on the home page to make comments and suggestions for improving the site.

Action Items - See Below for More Information

1. Complete your member profile

2. Review the guidelines for blogging and discussion groups

3. Explore the extended navigation bar available to members only

4. Volunteer for something!

Benefits of the Members-Only Site

You can create communities based on areas of mutual interest.

Communities can be short-term – to solve specific problems or answer specific questions - or they can be longer-term, to address an ongoing issue. You can take the initiative and start an e-group, or join one already in existence.

If you’re on a committee or a board, you will have access to documents exclusive to that group.

Access is controlled by a central master list, so you don’t need to worry about your confidential documents going public. The central housing and maintenance of committee documents should minimize the need for endless e-mails with attachments, as well as ensuring only the most current versions of documents are in circulation.

While all members have access to a wide range of CIOCAN publications, only committee members and boards will have access to their working documents, meeting minutes and agenda as a matter of course. If you would like to see a document that you are currently ineligible to access, please contact the committee chairperson.

You’ll have access to an extensive library of CIOCAN member documents and publications for reference.

The library is still under construction so check back often to see new additions.

1. Complete Your Member Profile

Your profile is the key to making optimum use of your membership benefits. Profile information is available only to members. The more “open” you are about your organization and your range of professional expertise and pursuits, the better able other members will be to contact you on points of mutual interest. Please note, if there are confidentiality issues associated with some of the information fields as they relate to your organization, there is no need to fill them in.

2. A Few Guidelines for Blogging and Discussion Groups

Our aim is that the CIOCAN website be a valued resource for members, and that it provide an atmosphere of professionalism, collegiality and mutual respect.

There are several conventions and rules of etiquette associated with on-line communication. These are a few basics.

Include a signature tag on all messages.
Include your name, affiliation, location.
State concisely and clearly the topic of your comments in the subject line. This allows members to respond more appropriately to your posting and makes it easier for members to search the archives by subject.
Include only the relevant portions of the original message in your reply. Delete any header information, and put your response before the original posting.
Only send a message to the entire list when it contains information that everyone can benefit from.
Send messages such as "thanks for the information" or "me, too" to individuals--not to the entire list. Do this by using the "Reply to Sender" link to the left of every message.
Do not send administrative messages, such as “remove me from the list” through the EGroup. Instead, use the Web interface to change your settings or to remove yourself from a list.
If you are changing e-mail addresses, you do not need to remove yourself from the list and rejoin under your new e-mail address. Simply change your settings.
Warn other list subscribers of lengthy messages either in the subject line or at the beginning of the message body with a line that says "Long Message."

3. Explore the Extended Navigation Bar Available to Members

You will find that the members-only site has considerable depth and scope for growth within its navigation bar and sub-tabs. Please take a few moments to browse through these to get a sense of the site’s capabilities.

4. Volunteer for Something!

The CIO Association needs your expertise and energy. We are still a relatively small association, but we have ambitious goals that cannot be achieved without the participation and dedication of our members. Our new website is designed to be dynamic and interactive - and it requires regular input. We need bloggers and writers on a variety of topics, for both members-only and public audiences (we can provide editorial services as necessary). We need volunteers to “cover” the live and on-line events they attend for posting on the web. Photos for posting would be a great addition if you have talent in that area.