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Help / FAQ
If you have questions about the functions or are experiencing problems working with the Virtual Research Environment, the Help Page is your first port of call. Please help us to continually improve this page by sending us your feedback!
General Questions
What is Edumeres.net?
The online portal Edumeres.net belongs to the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research. Edumeres is a place of exchange and co-operative knowledge generation for school media researchers and practitioners. For this reason, Edumeres’ most important function is to enable specific information searches and provide access to relevant sources such as contents, research data and services.
As well as the traditional information and research access, Edumeres provides a user oriented work and research environment within which research questions can be discussed and published in collaboration. Registered members of Edumeres receive a quarterly newsletter which provides information on school media and Edumeres.net. The comment function enables discussions and an exchange of ideas. A further feature of the online portal is that the users are allowed to chose their own keywords for the contributions and therefore create a clear and concise collection of keywords.
How do I become an active Edumeres.net user?
You have to register to use Edumeres.net in its entirety. To do this, click on Create an account under personal account (top right hand corner of the website). You will then see a form in which we collect the basic data for your account. All information will be treated confidentially and will not be passed on to third parties. Once you have filled out the required fields (indicated with *) looked over the data you have provided and given confirmation, we will send you a confirmation message to your specified email address. As soon as you activate the link in the email you can log into your personal account with your user name and password.
I’ve forgotten my password!
If you have forgotten your password you can have your password sent to your email address. The appropriate link Forgot your password? can be found in your personal account. After confirming the link, enter the email address with which you registered with the VRE. Your new password will then be sent to your email address. After logging in with your new password, you can change it under ‘Profile’ in your personal account.
How do I use the comment function?
As soon as you have registered and logged in you can use the comment function in various areas in Edumeres. A text field is provided at the bottom of a contribution in which you can write your comments. The comment itself is shown as well as its author (the author’s email address is hidden) and the time the comment was made. .
Is my information safe at Edumeres.net?
All information produced in the VRE is saved only on the servers belonging to the Eckert Institute. Neither personal nor project relevant information is used for commercial purposes or passed on to third parties. For more detailed information please read the Privacy Policy.
Whom can I ask if I still have questions?
Our team can be contacted at admin[at]edumeres[dot]net if you still have problems after consulting ‘help’ and the FAQ list. Please give a detailed description of you problem, if necessary specifying the technical details and error messages.
Please feel free to contact our editorial team should you have questions pertaining to contextual topics or publications on Edumeres.net. Please use our web form for this, or write to news[at]edumeres[dot]net.
Information Areas
Information
Edumeres.net, the virtual network for international school media research, provides a user oriented work and research environment as well a more traditional access to information, research and publications. This approach allows new research questions to be generated and discussed in collaboration with others. Afterwards the results can be saved lastingly as an Open Access publication which can then be cited.
Publications
The area publications contains contributions, dossiers on various topics and conference documentations as well as textbook reviews and analyses, some of which were written in the context of projects developed in the virtual work and research environment of Edumeres.net. Furthermore, the Eckert Institute’s two print publications are available as Open Access PDF files (The Book Series; Journal) 12 and 18 months after their first publication.
Topics
Topically, spatially and chronologically sorted entry points, as well as editorial and user key word searches for educational media research are provided under Topics’.
Virtual Research Environment (VRE)
The ‘virtual research environment’ makes it possible for academics and practitioners to discuss research questions within the context of self-defined projects and to then publish the results in the portal.
Collaborative tools such as a forum, a blog and a comment function are at the users’ disposal, as well as a word processing system and a tool for differentiated file management.
Forschungsumgebung
How do I create a new Project?
The ‘Project Area’ is on the left hand side of the virtual research environment. The link ‘Create a new Project’ is here. Clicking the link will open a form in which you can give your project its first shape. Your chosen project title should be informative, but it can be changed later if absolutely necessary, as can the subtitle and the short description of the project. The short description could be on the project’s motivation, its contents and aims, the current stage in which the project is or the people/institutions involved. Your chosen visibility determines who can see and/or join your project. But don’t worry, even if your project is public you are the project manager and you decide who may join. Finally, the project status shows in which project phase you currently are and can be adjusted in the course of the project. The project phase is visible is in the left column of the project information. Once you have confirmed your changes your project will be created and you can access it in the VRE menu under ‘My Projects’.
How do I delete a Project?In the menu ‘Project Area/My Projects’ there is a list of all projects in which you participate. You can only delete projects of which you are project manager. To do this, use the link on the right hand side.
What are ‘Visibility Levels’ and what Privacy Settings are there in the Projects?
When you create a project you can chose between three settings: public, restricted and private.
In a public project all users registered in the VRE can be commentators and therefore read everything without you, the project manager, having to confirm this. In a restricted project you have to confirm commentators. A private project is also unlisted and cannot be found using the search function. Project participants working on the project, who can therefore change files and documents, have to be confirmed by the project manager at all visibility levels.
How can I become a Project Member?
If you have been invited to participate in a project you just click on the link in the invitation email. If you have found a project you find interesting in the project area, you can become a member by clicking on ‘join’. However, your membership must first be confirmed by the project manager.
How can I find out more about the Projects Without Becoming a Member?
First of all you can look for information on the information page which can be reached via the project list. You can find out more if the project team publishes their progress in a project blog. Last but not least, you can send the project manager a message and ask for more information, or ask if you can join his/her project as an observer.
Where do I Create a Text Document and work on it with Project Members?
As soon as you are in a project you will be able to see the ‘Project Tools’ menu on the left hand side. Chose ‘Project Documents’ and click on ‘Create New Document’ in the main window. This will provide you with an interface, similar to commercial word processing programmes, with which you can write your texts and see other project members change the document in real time. The single passages are divided into areas on which only one person at a time can work. This prevents simultaneous editing of one passage.
If you wish to confer with your colleagues you can use the built in chat. You can activate the chat by clicking on the speech bubble in the bottom right hand corner.
PERSONAL ACCOUNT