Participate

Welcome to I-Open Education, an online collaborative community.

We are using the Near-Time platform to build our knowledge, share news, upload documents, and stay connected between our face-to-face programs and meetings. By working together online, we can accelerate our efforts to build new enterprise opportunities.

Here's how you can participate right away:

TABS

Welcome - you can view live broadcasts and archived educational sessions, and listen and learn from shared stories by members of the I-Open Education network. Each story describes lessons learned and shares the insights of civic leaders, economic development practitioners, and business leaders about their perspectives on learning .

Your next step: make an appointment for your first interview to share what you are passionate most about. E-mail

News - this is a weblog tool and a place for you to post articles you think are of interest to civic leaders in business, family, government, education, academics, and all walks of life.

Your next step: create a "New Article," directing readers to the most recent article you read, and be sure to include your perspective.

Home - this section contains all document pages for the web space. It has two ways of presenting information: one, the default view, presents information in categories of information - as the pages have been categorized as they are posted - and second, as a Home page that outlines the value proposition of the online community.

Your next step: create a new page to capture something you have learned and would like to share with others - an item of knowledge that would be helpful to others to remember.

Forums - provide a place for us to continue our face-to-face conversations, or start new conversations online to engage a wider participation, share ideas, and learn from diverse perspectives. Forums can focus on exploring solutions to questions, or gather knowledge around specific topics of interest.

Your next step: Post a question to the Forum page that you would like to understand more about, or feel you could benefit from a larger suggestion pool.

Calendar - the calendar helps us to stay on track with programs, sessions, and workshops that may be of interest. Once you are a Member of the I-Open Education network space, you can post events, programs, and gatherings you think would be of interest to the community.

Your next step: Look at this month's calendar of programs. Post an event of interest.

Library - the Library is a place for us to upload documents, reports, and papers of interest. Items can be uploaded and downloaded to your desktop. The Library also allows for editing documents in the library on your desktop, and then re-uploading the edited version back into the Library. This is handy when partners or teams work virtually on documents.

Your next step: Upload a PDF report to the Library.

Members - this lists everyone who is a Member of the I-Open Education network online community. The Member list on the side bar and quickly tells you who is a Member of the space and their most recent date of activity. Your individual Member pagehttp://womens-enterprise-network.near-time.net/user/show carefully documents your activity on the site and presents the information in an easy to read style. You can also get a message to other Members individually or as a group.

Your next step: Upload your picture and biographical information to your Member page.

Broadcast - This Tab will link you directly to the Mogulus internet television channel for the I-Open Education network. The channel will broadcast Live Shows, archive stories and act as a repository for knowledge. This page is provided by Mogulus.com, a technology company based in New York City. This is the same internet television channel as what is posted on the Welcome page here.

Your next step: Explore the internet television "player" by randomly clicking on different areas of the page to learn how the tool works and to experience this sophisticated interactive knowledge tool.

SIDEBAR

When you create your space, talk through what your intent is, what you hope to accomplish, and what value your combined activities bring to community and regional economic development. Sum this up in a sentance or two under "About." You can change "About" to "Welcome,"  "Mission" to other directions about the space that you want co-creators to know.

Be sure to leverage the Sidebar in every way. Often, we forget to scroll down a web page, and tend to rely on the dimensions of the page before us. Near-Time enables multiple tools, categories and tags for searching visually and in folders, revolving updates, bookmarks of note, and widgets to tweek the customization of information details.

About the Near-Time platform: This sophisticated integrated set of Web 2.0 tools will amplify our efforts to build new enterprise opportunities for all members. The online platform is supported by The Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open), a not-for-profit organization based in Northeast Ohio with a national reach. I-Open deploys new practices and tools for Open Source Economic Development, a method for building networked communities and regions to accelerate enterprise development.