A space is a Web micro-site with one or more owners who can manage the content,
presentation, and distribution with an easy-to-use interface. Spaces usually combine
multiple ways to create or collaborate on content such as blogs, forums, wikis, file-sharing, video sharing, and so on. They may also provide ways to distribute the content via Web feeds such as Atom, or RSS.
Much more than a home page, a space allows the owners to communicate and connect with
others. Each space is a potential community of its own: a following around an expert, a
community of interest around a topic, a software project community, a user group community, and so on, based upon the wishes of its members.
Spaces can be implemented in a variety of ways. In developerWorks, each space is dynamically displayed through WebSphere Portal Server, with a number of portlets that contain different types of information.
developerWorks is providing a framework that enables users to create their own communities and integrate multiple collaboration and social networking tools into each one. Each community is put in the charge of its owners who can decide what content and what social networking tools they would like their community to use. Rather than focus on individual tools, we are looking at the holistic picture of enabling and growing communities. In our view, we are providing a way to encourage new communities and new leaders of such communities. We then support them with the tools that they need to connect, learn, and share with other members of the community. These new communities can embrace members from any combination of our worldwide population of over 5 million developers, who may share their views and interests. In addition, this new framework allows you to start with a single place for your community before your members divert to different forms of interaction and collaboration. Thus, on the same page, you can present information from many content and social networking tools: blogs, forums, articles, wikis, Web feeds, and so on.
This framework allows community leaders to add the particular social networking tools they want to use. developerWorks already provides a range of such tools including blogs, forums, wikis, chat rooms, exchange, and Web feeds. We recognize that communities evolve in many different ways and have many different models for how they operate. We therefore want to put these choices in the hands of the community and its own leadership. The leadership of each space can thus choose according to how it thinks its community will interact and can change or evolve its community tool set as appropriate to the community's ongoing needs. In addition to having diverse social networking tools, you can even pick and choose smaller units of information within these tools (for example, a single blog entry rather than the entire blog), as well as export the information to your space in the form of Web feeds so that other users, communities, and Web sites can benefit. We treat each space as its own potential community, all within the overall developerWorks community. Each space can start small, gain membership over time, and grow into a sizeable community.
Expert spaces allow experts in a certain field to share
their favorite links to blogs, forums, podcasts, and more
with the community. Your personal profile, including
biography and area of expertise will appear on the page as a
way to let users know about you. Group spaces focus on a specific technical topic and may be led by multiple
administrators and editors. You can set your group space to
be private or public. As administrator of a group space,
you'll be responsible for managing users to your site:
accepting and rejecting requests for membership, removing
members as requested, and assigning administrators and editors to your space. Your group space identity portlet will appear on the page, including a description, objective, the date your space was founded, and a members list. Group spaces may also include a message board for collaboration among members.
Public group spaces are visible to all users and will appear in the directory list on the spaces landing page. Visitors can request membership to any public group space, and accepting or rejecting these requests is at the discretion of the space administrator. Private group spaces will only be visible to the members of that space. Nonmembers will not see it in the directory list on the spaces landing page, and they will receive an error message if they attempt to access the URL. The administrator of a private group space can add members to the space at his or her discretion. Private group spaces might be useful for teams working with confidential information, or on products or projects whose contents should not be pre-released.
The features for developerWorks spaces will be spread
across several releases. In the first release (April 2007),
we offered community leaders the ability to create and
maintain topic-focused spaces (called "community topics"). A
space can be owned by two or more registered developerWorks
members, who collaboratively maintain the content and layout
of the space. They decide on the content they would like to
include, and, using a variety of portlets, present this
information in a layout of their choosing. They can aggregate content from any combination of sources: developerWorks, IBM, or the Web. Additionally, they can create content in blogs, forums, wikis, and more. Each social networking tool is presented inside a portlet that can be placed or moved around the layout of a space. A space owner can edit the space from any Web browser. To start, owners drag and drop portlets from a palette onto the page itself. They can then edit the contents of each portlet.
In the second release (August 2007), we added the following features to our spaces:
Group spaces
Visitors to a space can request to join a space, either as a Member or as an Editor.
A new Group identity portlet displays information about the group, including the names of Members, Editors, and Administrator(s).
Expert spaces
The owner is the key focus of the space and can talk about whatever topics he/she
chooses.
An "identity" portlet displays information from the expert's profile, including
biographical information, professional expertise, and a photograph.
Spaces directory
Group and expert spaces will automatically be included in the spaces directory once published.
The directory is sortable by name, date created, and date last updated.
Editable space properties
Space administrators can edit their own space properties, including meta information and space title.
Space administrators can add Editors and Members to a group space.
Tabbed layout
Add a tab option lets editors organize information
across multiple pages.
Space editors can choose different column layouts for
each tab.
Automated space creation
Space requests (Group and Expert) will still go through a developerWorks review process, but once approved the creation of the space is automatic and immediate.
And in more recent releases, we've added the following enhancements:
A Message board portlet
A message board is a private forum only accessible to a space's members. In addition to e-mail updates (see below), the message board is a good way space owners can communicate with members. Members can view, post, reply to, and watch the threads on the message board. To add a message board to your space, drag the Message board portlet from the left nav Edit menu and drop it onto your page.
Mechanism for sending and receiving e-mail updates to a space
Administrators and Editors of a space can send e-mail updates to subscribed users, all space members, or their own list of recipients. To send an e-mail update, go to Manage space --> Send E-mail updates in the top menu bar. Visitors to a space can subscribe to receive e-mail updates by clicking E-mail me updates at the bottom of the space.
Google gadget icons for adding spaces content to personalized home pages
Users can add the contents of a portlet to their own personalized Google, MY YAHOO!, netvibes, or Facebook page. Click the orange plus sign in the bottom corner of portlets to access this feature. Administrators and editors can "Show" or "Hide" the Google gadget icon per portlet. In Edit mode, click the down arrow in the upper left corner of the portlet to see the Portlet menu. Click Show/Hide 'Add content' icon. The Image, Group/Expert space, and Message board portlets do not include the Google gadget option.
Broader support for graphics
The following portlets support graphics: Blogs, Image, Featured content, and List. You may enter your own width and height attributes for each graphic. Choose graphics from our graphics library (Dimensions: 110x73 pixels).
Help documentation accessible from the spaces interface
Access these FAQs and other documentation directly while you edit your space by clicking Help in the top menu bar.
A streamlined process and interface for managing space members
If you own a public group space, visitors may request to join your space as Regular members, Editors, or Administrators. You may choose how you want to process these membership requests: Manually review each one, or automatically approve all. See "How do I add members to my space?" for more information on processing membership requests.
The biggest benefit to users is the ability to create their
own communities and share with our worldwide membership. This
comes in the form of intuitive and easy-to-use tools that do
not require technical knowledge and are supported by our own staff.
The spaces concept includes four categories of users:
End users have view-only capabilities. End users can sign up to receive e-mail updates to a space by clicking E-mail me updates at the bottom of the space.
Regular members to group spaces have their screen names listed in the members list, have access to the space's message board (if applicable), and may receive e-mails pertinent to the space. They have no editing privileges.
Editors can edit and publish the space. Their screen name appears in the members list, they have access to the spaces message board (if applicable), and they may send and receive e-mails pertinent to the space.
Administrators have the same privileges as editors but can also approve and reject members to the space, grant editor privileges to members, and change the space's meta information.
A portlet is a container of information that can be presented on a Web page as a single unit. It is typically seen as a box of information. Portlets are typically preprogrammed to a particular function or contain a specific set of information. In developerWorks spaces, we have many different types of portlets each designed to present a specific type of content, or present it in a specific format.
A Web feed allows you to package content from a Web site and distribute it over the Internet, such that it can be embedded or incorporated into other sites. The feed may be static or, more typically, dynamically updated from its source. This allows each person to syndicate his or her content. For example, you can add the feed from a news site to your space so that you can have a constantly updated list of news stories. In developerWorks spaces, the space owner can add any text Web feed from the Web as another portlet on the space.
Each space has at least one administrator, who can also be
considered the owner of the space, or the key point of
contact for the developerWorks team. In addition, each space
can have multiple editors who can define, change, and manage the content in the space. The administrator can add or remove editors from the space. Essentially, they work as a group to manage and keep the content in their space relevant. The administrator or editor can see the Edit view of the space where they can add, remove, or move portlets around, and define the content in each portlet. When they are done editing the space, they can publish it, whereupon the public can see the updated space.
We ask that administrators/editors check their space at
least weekly (to make sure that content is relevant and
getting updated), that they sign up for a minimum six-month
time period, and that they select a topic that will be of
interest to the development community. Ideally, editors will
also create their own content through a blog or wiki. See
the spaces editor tips for more information.
Each space can only be edited by the specified members
recognized as editors or by the space administrator. Every
space has at least one administrator (initially, this is the person who submits the space application). Administrators of group spaces can grant editor privileges to others at his or her discretion. Only the administrator can edit expert spaces. Administrators and editors are the leaders or catalysts for the space and they decide how the space is governed. Other members who visit these spaces do not have edit access to the contents. To them, the space appears as a portal to different content types relevant to the space's topic. Some of these allow others to participate through social networking tools such as forums and wikis. However, users cannot change what the tools are, or edit the layout of the portlets or their content.
We ask that you refresh your space weekly. Many of the portlets update themselves through RSS feeds,
so no manual updates are required for those (although we do
request that you check these feeds weekly to make sure the content
is getting updated and is appropriate). The Featured content portlet, Image portlet, and List portlet do not support dynamic feeds, and therefore we ask that you manually update these portlets each week. In addition, several portlets support graphics -- Featured content, Blogs, Image, and List. If you use graphics in these portlets, we request that you update them weekly to keep the space fresh and enticing to visitors.
This varies greatly depending on the ratio of dynamic content to static content on your page and how much the dynamic content is getting updated. It will also vary depending on how much original content you want to create. At the very minimum, plan on devoting an hour a week to your space.
Yes. Each of the blog, wiki, or forum portlets allows you to feed in content from a service running outside of developerWorks, and anywhere on the Internet. These services need to provide their content through an Atom or RSS feed to integrate into the respective portlet. Thus, you can have a space with blogs from multiple sites all talking about the main topic of the space, or even a combination of blogs, forums, and wikis.
You can create content of your own in a wiki or a blog. However, the developerWorks article or tutorial is a specific format reserved for content created through our own editorial process, and is tied to a number of internal tools and processes. Your content can still be available on the Net, just not in the particular format of a developerWorks article or tutorial, as you are used to seeing on our zones.
You can link to your blog entries, but to post into your blog, you need to navigate to the blog and create your entry on the blog application itself. The entry will automatically appear in the blog and in the space once posted.
You can link to a podcast in your space that can be played through the podcast portlet. However, developerWorks currently does not provide a means to upload and store podcasts on our site.
The edit controls for spaces are currently in English, but you can certainly have content within the portlets in other languages. We'd certainly like to see some non-English space sites too! Eventually, we will have full localization to non-English languages for our environment.
Yes, the space itself can be accessed through accessibility-assisted browsers for the visually impaired. However, although the contents in the portlets are still dynamically drawn, the controls are not so.
Click E-mail me updates at the bottom of the space page. You will receive a confirmation e-mail in which we will ask you to confirm that you want to receive the updates. After we receive your confirmation, we will subscribe your e-mail address to the list you requested. You can request to stop receiving updates at any time.
The orange plus signs are Google gadget icons for adding spaces content to your personalized pages. Click on the icon to add the contents of a portlet to your Google, MY YAHOO!, netvibes, or Facebook page.
Yes. A space's message board is only accessible to the space's members. If you are not a member, click Join space on the space page to apply. Members can post threads, reply to threads, view all threads, and watch the message board.
Make sure you are logged in to developerWorks. If you are successfully logged in, you will see "Welcome [your user name]" in the top right corner of your space. If you are not logged in, you will see "Welcome guest." Click Sign in and enter your developerWorks ID and password. Note: IBM employees, this is different from your intranet ID and password. If you have forgotten your ID or password, click Forgot your IBM ID? or Forgot your password? on the right side of the sign in page. After you are successfully logged in, you will see a link to the Edit mode of your space at the top left of the space page.
When you first request a space, you should also suggest a
URL that you would like to use. We will check to determine
if the URL is available and can be supported. Once assigned,
you can use the URL. Please note that until you fill your
space with content and publish it, users will not see
anything at this URL.
In our May 2008 release, we added a Portlet menu to every portlet. Click the down arrow in the upper right corner of each portlet in Edit mode to access the menu. Your Edit and Delete options are there, as well as the option to Show or Hide the 'Add content' icon. (See "What does 'Show/Hide 'Add content' icon' mean?" for more information on this icon.) Note: The Show/Hide option is not available on the Image, Group/Expert space, and Message board portlets.
You can have as many portlets as you want on the page. You can also have multiple portlets of the same type. However, as a suggestion, more is not always better.
Yes, you can have as many different instances of each
portlet on the page as you'd like. For example, you can have three different blog portlets, each showing entries from a different blog. For group spaces, the Message board portlet is a special case. You may display multiple instances of the message board on your space (please limit to one instance per tabbed page), but the content of each will be identical. Note that the display settings you select for each instance will be specific to that instance. For example, you can display five messages in one instance and ten in another.
Yes. Space editors can choose between two- and three-column
layouts for their space and this can vary from tab to tab. Click
Choose layout on the tab's down-down menu while in Edit
mode.
The portlets will resize automatically to fill the page width.
The portlets dynamically adjust their height to fit their displayed content. Some
portlets have expand- & collapse-controls which can increase or reduce their size, respectively. However, you cannot adjust the width of the portlets.
No, the portlets are currently limited to the defined width of the columns. They cannot span two or more columns, nor can they be sized somewhere in between.
Click and drag the portlet by its title to another position within the column or to a different column. A red box should appear as a suggested drop-in position for the portlet. Simply let go of the portlet over the box and it should drop in place.
Changes to your space take effect and can be seen by others only when you click on the Publish button. If you do not click Publish, your changes will not take effect for others, but they will be saved in the Edit mode for the next time you edit your space.
You can Publish your page as many times as you'd like.
You do not have to Publish your space to save your changes. Just make sure you Save/Submit your changes in each portlet before closing the portlet window and all of your changes will be saved in Edit mode for when you return.
Yes. The Themes provide a predefined collection of color
choices you can pick from. To choose a theme for your page,
click Manage space --> Choose theme in Edit mode. Unfortunately, you cannot define a color theme of your own at this time. We will work on expanding the choices and the controls for this element.
The portlets follow the colors of the chosen theme (please see the related question, "Can I change the colors of my space?" above). However, you cannot change the color of the individual portlets themselves at this point.
The 'Add content' icon is the orange plus sign in the bottom right corner of portlets. Users can click it to add the contents of a portlet to their own personalized Google, MY YAHOO!, netvibes, or Facebook page. Administrators and editors can "Show" or "Hide" the Google gadget icon per portlet. In Edit mode, click the down arrow in the upper left corner of the portlet to see the Portlet menu. Click Show/Hide 'Add content' icon. The Image, Group/Expert space, and Message board portlets do not include the Google gadget option.
Administrators and editors can send e-mail updates to subscribed users, all space members, or their own list of recipients. To send an e-mail update, go to Manage space --> Send E-mail updates in the top menu bar. Users can subscribe to these updates by clicking E-mail me updates at the bottom of the space.
Group space owners can also communicate with space members by adding a message board to their space. The message board acts as a private forum for the space, accessible only to the space's members. Members can view, post, reply to, and watch the threads on the message board. To add a message board to your space, drag and drop the Message board portlet onto your page.
Subscription list: Visitors to your space can sign up to receive e-mail notifications when your space is updated. On the form, to send an e-mail to only these recipients, select "Subscription list" in the "To" field. Member list: To send an e-mail to all the members of your space, select "Member list" in the "To" field of the form. Please remember that some of these users may not have signed up to receive updates, so you should limit your use of this option.
The message board was unsuccessfully added to the space. This happens when you drag the Message board portlet onto the page from the left Edit menu and Close the window instead of saving it. The creation of the message board forum does not complete, and therefore you get an error when you try to post a message. To fix: Delete the message board from the space and add a new one. Save the portlet when you have finished editing the settings.
The Message board portlet is only available for Group spaces. If you do not see the Message board as an option in your left nav Edit panel, you own either an Expert or Landing page space.
If you own a public group space, visitors may request to join your space as Regular members, Editors, or Administrators. You may choose how you want to process these membership requests: Manually review each one, or automatically approve all. The default selection is to manually review each request. To update this setting, go to Manage members --> Manage requests.
If you manually review each request, you'll receive e-mail notifications when users request to join your space, and the user's screen name will appear in your Review requests queue (Manage members --> Manage requests). Click on each request to review it and approve or reject it.
If you choose to automatically approve all membership requests, each user will be added to your space as a Regular member. Requests for Administrator and Editor member types will remain in your queue until you manually process them.
You may also add members to your space without receiving a Join request from them. Go to Manage members --> Add members. Enter the user's screen name and assign a member type: Administrators can edit and publish the space and manage its members. Editors can edit and publish the space, but cannot manage members. Regular members have no edit capabilities, but will have their name listed in the members list and have access to the space's message board (if applicable).
E-mail notifications will automatically be sent informing users they have been added to your space. This e-mail will include the member type and associated privileges assigned to each user.
Your space can have as many members as you'd like.
If you own a private group space, you will not receive Join requests. To add members to your space, go to Manage members --> Add members. E-mail notifications will be sent informing users they have been added to your space.
Expert spaces cannot have members.
To update the meta information for your space (HTML title tag, keywords,
and abstract), go to Manage space --> Edit properties in the top menu bar of
your space when in Edit mode. Only administrators can update the meta
information.
Follow these general guidelines when creating the HTML
title for your space:
Ensure each title contains keywords and is a meaningful, concise description of the content.
Remember to use sentence-style capitalization in titles. The first word will be capitalized and all words following will be lower-cased.
Make sure that the most important information and keywords are at the beginning of the title. Some search engines truncate titles.
Our guidelines suggest that titles should be shorter than 75 characters. In most cases, Google limits title tags to 63 characters or less (Yahoo will display up to 112 characters and MSN up to 70).
Limit titles to only your most important keywords while remembering that, typically,
pages rank better when there is more than one keyword within the <title> tag.
Your title should specifically indicate what is on the page. For example, rather than
giving the title, WebSphere Portal Server for a page focused on support, say "WebSphere Portal Server support."
For all spaces particular to a product with a version number, include the version number in the title with a "V" preceding the version number. There should be a space between V and the version number.
For keywords, follow these guidelines:
In general, keywords listed for any page must actually occur in the content of that page.
Include acronyms, synonyms, and variations in spelling. Also, include singular and plural variations of terms.
Avoid overusing keywords in the meta data; this may be considered spam. Our standards recommend no more than 10 mentions.
Separate keywords, or keyword phrases, by commas.
Meta keywords should be a focused list of specific terms included in the document. Avoid listing general keywords such as 'java' for specific Java content.
Avoid listing specific keywords for general content.
The keywords should also identify whether the content on the space includes a demo, tool, tutorial, webcast, offer, specification, and so on. Spaces containing code samples should have the following keywords: sample, samples, example, examples.
Use IBM brand names if they are featured on the page, but not the brand names or trademarks of other companies. (Using keywords that violate third party intellectual property rights, such as trademarks and service marks, is strictly prohibited.)
Include operating systems.
Include author or blogger names listed by last name and first name plus last name; for example, ruby, sam ruby
Include variations of task keywords such as: migrate, migration, migrating.
Include product names.
Include version numbers in the following format: V6.0 and 6.0.
We will initially offer portlets to connect to our blogs, wikis, and forums. Each of these content service applications are already available through developerWorks as separate micro-sites, and even when integrated into a site, they will continue to exist separately as well. The benefit of spaces in relation to this is the ability to aggregate the content from each of these different applications onto a single page.
Blogs let you share your insights, thoughts, and
random musings with the community. We ask that you keep the
developerWorks community
guidelines in mind as you're blogging. For examples, see all developerWorks blogs. Forums offer a great way for you to add to and benefit from
the collective expertise of the community. Instead of
struggling to locate that one last problematic line of code
or that setting that will let you finish an install, why not
put it in front of a group of people with experience with
the same tools and technologies? Before requesting a forum,
we encourage you to take a look at the Forums help and Forums etiquette pages. They'll not only help you with the basics of using developerWorks forums, they'll also show you how to do it nicely. For examples, see all developerWorks forums. Wikis let you collaborate with other members of the community to develop content related to a specific interest area. We ask that you keep the developerWorks community guidelines in mind as you update your wiki. For examples, see all developerWorks wikis.
