Lounge

Hi, A.T. I think we might be getting wires crossed again--more due, probably, to the fact that I was in a hurry and didn't explain myself well when I posed the idea of putting links in forum directions for new users, particularly a link to the seeking help in forums tips that Tim Kellers put together.

It may or may not help at all to have those links strategically placed in the directions of forums that might attract newbies, but mostly I'm trying to account for the many ways a person can end up in a forum. There are so many entry points. The way you enter forums (as do I most of the time) would bypass the directions completely, but I was thinking that perhaps new people who are exploring the course for the first time might pop in and out of forums to view the directions and see what each is about. Hopefully they do also see the "Welcome" resource at the top of the course, which is very helpful. It's been my experience, though, that some participants in our trainings don't necessarily navigate from top down in a course as would be expected, so I'm trying to account for that by putting the occasional redirection for new users back to the top of the course/to the docs/back to the welcome resources or whatever.

I completely agree that there is much in the docs that we have as ready resources. We've found in our trainings, though, that we need to prod people a little bit to go there--provide as many opportunities as we can to give them links and access points in the wiki to get them comfortable with using it. Does this make more sense?

I don't think forum adoption is a viable solution, either, but I don't think that's what Frances had in mind. I could be wrong...