Calendars
From [[http://cpsquare.org CPsquare]], the community of practice on communities of practice.
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Definition
Calendaring tool allows communities to keep individual and group schedule of events. They can be stand alone applications, or applications that integrate with individual users' tools such as Outlook. (NEED BETTER TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION)
Uses in communities of practice
Calendaring helps plan when to do events and not overlap when that might be an issue.Most communities that hold synchronous events seem to want to have a calendar where these events are visible at a glance.
Polarities
- Together/apart, Synch/Asynch: Calendars serve to bring communities together, to synchronize activities.
- Participation/Reification: Although calendars serve to coordinate participation, usually they are used to represent the schedule after it has been agreed upon.
- Individual/group: a group calendar is usually distinct from an individual's personal calendar.
Key features
Personalization to members and groups
- Time zone. Time for events appear automatically in a member's time zone.
- Very nice feature when members are not in the same time zone. Avoids lots of misunderstandings.
- Time zone of other members. Indicates the time zone of other members, or shows the current time for other people, in their own time (i.e., it's 4 pm in New York now) applies to directory, profile, or ??? Where should it be.
- Knowing the local time of other people helps with impromptu interaction.
- Multiple views. The calendar offers multiple view, typically month, week, day.
- Looking at a schedule at different levels of detail or time horizons is almost always needed.
Coordination with other calendars
- Coordination with personal calendar. The community calendar can be coordinated with members' own calendar (e.g., MS-Outlook).
- Always a plus to make community information visible in software that people use regularly
- Nested calendars. Each community can have its own local calendar which can be viewed independently or compiled with different views depending on access privileges. Conversely, events on local calendars can be published to other calendars. Useful when there are many local communities or subgroups with their own agendas and schedules and members of one group may want to see what is happening in the larger context or advertise their activities to a larger audience.
Event description
- Scheduling Repeated Events. Can add events that happen on some regular basis with only one entry. Some calendars support exceptions to repeated events. Saves time when planning for regular meetings
- Event Type, Organizer, Speaker, and Description.. The calendar displays significant indicators of value, relevance, and accessibility, such as the type, location, organizer, speaker or description. Some of these are captured automatically, all of them should be searchable or easily displayed. If there are numerous distinct types of events, it is useful to have a "list" view that focuses on a specifiable type of event. Events are organized by many different members with different interests or styles. It is often useful to be able to contact the organizer of an event.
Treatment of past events
- Scheduling Event expiration or archiving. Events can be given an expiration dates after which they will no longer be displayed or are moved to an archive. Expiration date can mean deletion or move to an archive. Unclutters the calendar. Archiving is desirable if one can include notes and other attachments, so that the archive becomes a history.
Registration and participation
- Event registration. Members can register to attend an event right in the calendar. Useful when events require RSVP's which can be recorded directly on the calendar, to limit or forecast attendance or to generate a transaction of some sort.
- Subscriptions and reminders. Members can receive notices when certain entries into the calendar occur or are about to take place. When communities include large numbers of peripheral participants who do not visit the site often, automating notices and reminders permits people to decide when they want to participate.
- Scheduling Event participant list. Members can see who has registered to attend an event. Useful in connection with registration so people see who else will be there, e.g., when "who will be there" matters as far as the value of the event is concerned. Also helpful after an event to contact someone who was there.
- Attach supporting material. An event record can store supporting material like agendas, readings, or, afterwards, minutes and handouts. Establishing the convention that all materials needed to participate are located in one place can make participation easier for more members and can help insure that everyone who attends has the same supporting materials.
Related tools
See also:
- Doodle in general and a Calendar synch app in particular
- http://whenisgood.net/ - finding a time that works for a group of people can take endless rounds of email.
Resources
- Useful list of features and examples (should probably be incorporated into this page) from a session at the Recent Changes Camp: http://2006.recentchangescamp.org/CommunityCalendars
