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Introduction

Private Groups are a great way for classrooms to collect and maintain a separate library of documents, tags and annotation materials for study and discussion.
This tutorial covers all the essential features and functions of Private Groups.

• How to Create a Private Group
• How to Add and Remove Members from a Private Group
• How to Edit or Delete a Private Group
• How to Create Private Group Annotations
• How to Create Private Group Discussions
• How to Create Private Group Library Folders

What is the difference between public and private groups?

Private Groups allow Posen Digital Library (PDL) members to share annotations, tags, discussions, and documents. Only members who have been invited to participate in a particular Private Group will have access to that group’s shared information.

Public Groups allow anyone using the Posen Digital Library to participate in discussions and scholarship around a shared set of content. All tags, annotations and discussions will be visible to anyone using the digital library. Public Groups are a great way to find people who share your interests within the PDL community. Private Groups, on the other hand, are limited only to those members who have been invited to join.

How to create a private group

1. Log in to your My PDL account by clicking on the “Log in” link in the top.
2. right corner of the screen and entering your username and password.
3. In the My PDL area, go to Private Groups in the lefthand panel, and click on the “Create New Group” button.
4. Enter the name and description of the Private Group in the resulting dialog box.
5. Indicate what level of folder access you would like to offer to members of the group. “Read Only” means that members will only be able to view documents already added to the group folder by the group’s owner; “Read/Write” allows for the same privileges as “Read,” but also lets members add and remove documents from the group folder.
6. Click “Next” to invite members to the group.
7. Type the email of the individual(s) that you would like to invite to your Private Group. Please separate each address with a comma. NOTE: You can only invite users who have already registered to the Posen Digital Library to join a Private Group.
8. Click “Submit”. Your Private Group is now available!

Joining a private group

1. Log in to your My PDL account.
2. On the My PDL home page, click on Private Groups in the lefthand panel, and then click on the “Accept” button in the Options column.
3. Once you have accepted membership to a Private Group, you will have access to that group’s contents. NOTE: You can only join Private Groups to which you have been invited.

Adding and removing members of a private group

1. Log in to your My PDL account, and go to the Private Group’s home page.
2. Click on the “Add/Remove Group Member(s)” button on the right side of the screen.
3. Click on “Add members,” and enter the email addresses of the people you would like to invite to the Private Group. NOTE: All invited users must already have a My PDL account.
4. To remove members, select the member name from the list and click “Remove.”

Editing or removing a private group

At some point, you may want to modify your Private Group’s information. You can edit the name or description of your group, add additional “owners” of the private group who will have Read/Write access to the group folder, or change the access level for all members of the group.

1. Log in to your My PDL account, and go to the Private Group’s homepage.
2. Click on the “Edit” button at the top of the screen to initiate an Edit dialog box.
3. You can add new owners by entering the email addresses of members already affiliated with the private group.
4. You can also edit the name or description of the Private Group.
5. Click “Update” to save your changes. If you wish to remove this group, click “Delete Group”.

Private group tags and annotations

My PDL users can also share tags and annotations with other members of a Private Group.

To create a Private Group Tag:

1. Open a document in the document viewer (e.g. via the Explore page).
2. Select a section of text or an image from within the open document.
3. Click on the “Tag” icon at the top of the respective viewer panel.
4. Enter the tag information. Please note that a tag must be limited to one word.
5. Select “Private” and choose the group with which to associate the tag.
6. Click “Save”.

What is a tag?

A tag is a user-generated finding aid. You can assign one or more tags to a document so that the document is easier to find within the library. To make the best use of tags, use the same tag for multiple documents. Other PDL users can also assign the same tag to documents they find in the library, making the work of finding new materials related to your search even easier!

To create a Private Group Annotation:

1. Open a document.
2. Select a section of text or an image.
3. Click on the “Annotation” icon at the top of the respective viewer panel.
4. Enter the annotation information. An annotation can be multiple sentences long and can include hyperlinks.
5. Select “Private” and choose the group with which to associate the annotation.
6. Click “Save”.

To export Private Group Annotations:

1. Go to My PDL>Library> Private Group Folders
2. Select the relevant Private Group Folder.
3. Open the folder and select the documents for which you would like to export the private group annotations.
4. Click the “Export Annotation” button.
5. Select citation type and export format. We recommend “Print to Screen,” which will allow you to copy the text from the screen to a Word file.
6. Click “Export.”

Private group discussions

Every Private Group member has access to a forum associated with that Private Group.

To access that forum:

1. Go to My PDL>Discussion Forums> Private Group Discussions
2. Select the relevant Private Group forum.
3. In the Private Group forum, click “Start a New Topic.”
4. Provide a Topic title and post a description to encourage members to participate in the discussion.
5. Click “Link to File” if you would like to have a discussion about a specific document within your Private Group folder.
6. Click “Post” to start the discussion.

You can also start a discussion from within the Viewer.

1. Open a document.
2. In the information panel at the right of the screen, go to the Discussions section at the bottom of the panel.
3. Click “Start Discussion on Document” to open a new topic that will link to the document.
4. Select which Private Group forum you would like to associate the topic.
5. Provide the appropriate topic title and discussion questions.
6. The linked document will appear below the post’s description text field.
7. Click “Post” to start the discussion.

Private group library folders

Each member of a Private Group has access to a common folder in which she can view and share documents associated with that group.

If you are the owener of the group, or if you have appropriate permissions, you can share documents with the group via the following:

1. Log in to your My PDL account.
2. Go to the search or explore page.
3. Select the checkboxes next to the documents which you would like to save to the Private Group folder.
4. Click on the “Save” button and select the relevant Private Group folder.
5. Go to My PDL and click on Private Groups Folders in the lefthand panel.
6. Click on the name of the relevant Private Group to see all of the documents shared with that Private Group.