About This Site

To access the Discussion Forums you will need to register.  Your registration will also give you access to the Document LIbrary. After entering your registration information, you will receive an ‘activation email’ to finalize the registration process.  If you have registered for the Discussion Forum, you automatically also have access to the Documents Library.

The Discussion Forum is broken down into forums (major topics areas for discussion), topics (individual questions within a forum), and replies (individual responses on topics).

To see a topic and the replies, first choose the forum you are interested in. Then choose the topic you want to read.

To reply on a topic, simply click the reply button.

To start a new topic, click the new topic link within a forum.

Finally, you can search for specific topics and forums to find a topic of interest. Click the search link on the navigation bar and enter the keyword(s) in the space provided. You can search across all forums or choose a specific forum to search.

How to Get the Most Out of the Discussion Forum

The Discussion Forum has many new features! Click on the navigation bar’s FAQ link for answers to many questions. You can also send an email to soc@communityscience.com with questions.

Register. To register, click on the “register” link in the green box on the left side of the website.  As a registered member, you can set up a profile that can include your email address, website, instant messenger addresses, and a small virtual avatar and signature. Registered members can post replies to other users, or start a topic in an existing board for a topic not currently being discussed. Members can also send email-like Private Messages to other members if you don’t want to share your comment with the whole topic. Unregistered guests may read posts but cannot post themselves. Just click on the User CP link for many other profile options.

Keep up to date on what’s happening. In your Profile control panel, under Edit Options, there are a number of options you can use to stay on top of what’s happening. If you want to know what’s been posted in a topic of interest, for example, you can Subscribe to the topic and choose to receive email updates of topic postings. You can choose how often you are notified of new postings. We will be sending periodic updates to all registered users of the forum so you can learn about interesting topics and new additions to the SOC library.

Be Nice and Helpful. Remember to be civil. The perceived anonymity of the internet means that tempers can flare quickly, especially since the text of a post doesn’t convey tone of voice. Members who flame (i.e. insult others, start arguments) will be contacted by the site sponsor. Users who are repeatedly disrespectful will be banned. If banned members try to register with a different email address, their IP will be blocked.

Respect privacy. Community Science, as sponsor of this site, is committed to protecting the privacy of all who register for this forum. Personal information that you provide us (e.g. your e-mail address) will only be used to provide information regarding this site. If you don’t want other members to see your email address, or see when you are on the forum, you can hide that information in your Profile control panel, under Edit Options.

No commercial use. Members cannot use this forum to promote products or services for direct financial benefit except if they are in direct response to another member’s question. All financial interest in recommendations should be disclosed. Community Science reserves the right to restrict the use of this site by any individual violating this policy. Community Science retains the right to restrict access to anyone not acting in the spirit of this site.

Help us improve it! Like many forums, active and involved members are crucial in keeping the board going. Please post any suggestions on how to improve either the forum or the Sense of Community site in the discussion forum “Getting Started and Suggestions”.

If you have registered for the Documents Library, you automatically also have access to the Discussion Forum.

Register. Unregistered guests can see the titles of the documents available, but cannot download or upload documents or files. If you are not yet registered, you must sign up for a free account before you can upload. Click on the Register link in the left bar of the website and fill out your e-mail address and name.  You will be conditionally registered until Sense of Community approves your account.  Once approved you can upload and download documents from the library.

When you enter the SOC Library, you have three choices: keyword search, browse documents, and upload files.

Keyword search allows you to enter specific words or phrases on which to search through the site’s documents. You can search all of your words, any of your words, or the exact phrase. When you have performed a search, the website will display a list of all search results, each of which will be clickable to the document you found.

Browse Documents is how you will navigate through the site’s categories and subcategories to find the documents or files you wish to find. In this section, you will see a list of all of the existing document categories and subcategories along with the number of documents in each. Click on a category or subcategory to see a list of documents. Then click on the document to view it.

Community Science is pleased to share these two indices with other organizations and individuals free of charge. The indices are available in multiple languages including French, Spanish, Japanese, and Portuguese, by request. However, no changes may be made to instruments, for use in either print or electronic form, without the written permission of Community Science. We are committed to maintaining the scientific integrity of these instruments. Substantive changes such as changing key words (such as “community”), response sets, or eliminating certain items will not be permitted under any circumstances.

We require that any person wanting to administer these instruments to complete our Request Form. The information provided in this form will help us address with you any changes to the instrument you are considering, provide any advice or resources that we have, and obtain your legal agreement regarding the uses of and changes to these instruments. We also ask users to participate in our benchmarking study so that we can help researchers and practitioners understand how their SCI-2 scores compare to those of comparable organization or settings.