Basic Instructions

1 - Register and inform your moderator of your username
2 - Login.
3 - Click on your forum. If you can't access your forum, you are not in the correct usergroup. See your moderator.
4 - Read the other messages and either reply or start a new topic
5 - You can post attachments, but see below for the limitations

Safety of the CHE BBS system:

1 - On-line safety
2 - Registered users
3 - Private, closed and hidden
4 - Role of moderator
5 - Personal contact between users

1) Clearly on-line safety is an issue. The CHE BBS system is run by CHE under our own domain name, which is hosted by Claranet. Each forum is private by default and can be hidden, and so can only be accessed by the usergroups, which themselves are closed or hidden, attached to that forum. CHE staff are the only ones who can set up forums and usergroups. Usually there is one forum for the pair of schools involved in the exchange and a usergroup for each school - hence two usergroups for each forum. A teacher from each school is expected to be moderator of their usergroup and also the forum.

2) A user must be registered (they can register themselves) before they can even start to use the CHE BBS system. They have to supply
• A username (which can be anything)
• A password (which only they will have access to)
• A valid e-mail address (which has to be validated before they are registered - i.e. an e-mail is sent by the BBS system to that e-mail address supplied, and they have to click on the link to activate their registration)
• All other information in the registration process is optional.
This means that in theory anyone in the world could register for our BBS - hence the closed/hidden forum, only accessible by closed/hidden usergroups. This is the basic process by which all other secure BBS systems work.

3) Private, closed and hidden:
3.1) A private forum is one that a registered user has to be invited to join. Any user can see the name of the forum on the CHE BBS index page, but only those allowed to enter the forum can actually get into the forum itself. All others are denied access. All CHE forums (apart from our general one) are private by default and can only be accessed by the associated usergroups.

3.2) A private (hidden) forum is one that does not even appear on the main CHE BBS index page unless the logged in user is registered to use that forum. If you want your forum to be hidden, please contact CHE, but it is probably unnecessary to hide it.

3.3) A closed usergroup is one where users may not request membership to the group, but can only be added by the group moderator. All users may see the group and group members, via the {usergroup list} button near the top of every page.

3.4) A hidden usergroup is one where the group and its members are not visible to normal users. Like a closed usergroup, users must be added to the usergroup by the group moderator.

3.5) An open usergroup is one which is visible to all users via the {usergroup list} button, and one which the user can themselves request membership to.

CHE will by default make a private (not hidden) forum with two hidden usergroups for each Japanese/UK school partnership. This provides enough protection provided the forum and usergroups are moderated correctly. Moderators can ask CHE to make the forum hidden (but remember this is a joint forum with another school!). Moderators can change their own usergroup status to closed or open.

4) Role of the Moderator
4.1) Usergroup moderator: Each school is expected to designate a teacher as moderator for their usergroup. This teacher will then become responsible for:
• Allocating their own school students into their usergroup (a one off event for each user)
• Changing any settings for the usergroup (e.g. hidden to closed)

4.2) Forum moderator: Once the teacher is designated a usergroup moderator, CHE will make this teacher a moderator of the forum. Unlike the usergroups, there can be as many forum moderators as required (but CHE will have to allocate these), so there should be at least two - one for each of the schools involved - but there can be more depending on how the schools want to run the BBS system (See Section 3). Forum moderators are responsible for:
• Monitoring or moderating the content of their forum (this requires access to the internet/e-mail dependent on how busy the forum is, but can be set to automatically update you of new posts)
• Asking CHE for changes to the settings on their forums (e.g. allowing or banning polls)

5) Personal contact between users:
5.1) There is a private messaging system (i.e. you get a message from another user when you log on) but it has been disabled for the whole CHE BBS system.
5.2) Under a person's personal profile, which is filled in on registration, the given E-mail address can be set to be displayed and other personal/contact information can be added. Currently, that profile is available to others to access via the {memberlist} button on the top of every page. CHE recommend that E-mail is not displayed (this should be the default setting) and that no other information is added to the blank fields in each person's personal profile. Following this advice means there is no possible way for a user who is not in the same usergroup or forum to contact another directly, except by means of post on the forum itself. CHE would recommend that a usergroup moderator check what information their students are displaying when they add them to their respective usergroup.

Attachments

You can post attachments to each topic in each forum. The only files that can be posted are picture files like .jpeg and .gif (but not .bmp) and archive files like .zip. However picture files have a maximum size of 300x700 pixels (WxH) or 256Kb. Please note that the more attachments there are to a topic, the slower it will load.