New AMICAL Connect forum just launched

We’ve migrated AMICAL Connect to a new platform!

Improving communication across the consortium emerged as one of the primary challenges that members brought up during AMICAL 2015. The previous version of AMICAL Connect was a full-blown social network for all our members. An ambitious initiative, to be sure. But in trying to address the consortium’s multiple needs, it ended up being rather complicated to use.

The AMICAL website has already taken on some of the content we previously kept in Connect, including event information and public announcements in the form of our blog. Its role is planned to expand in the future even more.

For this reason, and after talking with AMICAL members about their needs, we decided to narrow down the purpose of our main communication tool. The new version of Connect is laser-focused on doing only one thing: providing a great discussion forum.

We envision the role of AMICAL Connect as a bridge between AMICAL members across institutional, geographic and professional boundaries. A place where you can share your accomplishments, discuss your interests, find answers to your questions, collaborate on projects and pursue common goals. A place where you can inspire your peers and be inspired in return.

It’s a place, in short, for community.

And like any community, it’s a work-in-progress. There’s some structure in place to hold the content we moved from the previous site. But we’ve kept things simple. There are no complicated groups or teams to join. Only AMICAL members have access to the forum, but once logged in, any member can see and reply to any post.

We want you to join us in shaping this community so that it becomes a useful part of your professional toolkit.

To participate, just log in and start a discussion about libraries, teaching, ed tech, IT or any other topic that may be of interest to other AMICAL members.

Connect is also geared to allow you to continue discussions or plan projects that arise out of AMICAL events, such as the upcoming Digital Pedagogy Lab Cairo or AMICAL 2016.

Reactivate your account

Your existing AMICAL Connect account has been migrated to the new platform. To log in you will first need to reset your password at this link:
http://connect.amicalnet.org/password-reset

Make sure to use your institutional email address – the one this email was sent to. If you run into trouble, contact me at armstrong@amicalnet.org .

I look forward to seeing you in our new forum.

P.S. Your AMICAL Connect account is separate from your account on the main AMICAL site. We needed to keep the two systems distinct during the migration, but we will eventually combine them.

Originally sent to AMICAL members as an email. Posted here in the interest of publicly documenting AMICAL’s development of online community resources.