As a Yellowdig user, you can create a Community to start sharing thoughts, ideas, and content with your community. Only Network Administrators, Community Owners/Facilitators, and Community Members can create Communities within a host network. Here, we'll guide you through the process of creating new Communities from within your LMS and from outside your LMS. For instructions on how to integrate Yellowdig with your LMS and configure grade passback, see the LMS documentation.

Creating a Community (from within your LMS)

1. Click on the link to Yellowdig in the Assignments tab of your Learning Management System (or wherever you placed the graded assignment link to Yellowdig during LTI integration).
2. In the "Community Title" field, give a name to your Community. Your Community Title need not match the title of your LMS course.
3. On the first "Create New Community" screen, select a Community from which to copy Community settings (if desired).
   • You will only see Communities of which you are a Member in the drop-down selector.*
   • Community settings include point settings, the participation reset deadline, and topics with point values. Community settings do not include the board start and end date or the grading start and end date.
   • If you choose not to copy settings, your new Community will inherit the default settings of your Network's default Community. If your Network does not have a default Community, and if no parents of your Network have default Communities, your new Community will inherit Yellowdig's defaults.
4. On the second "Create New Community" screen, select a Community from which to copy Posts and Comments (if desired).
   • You will only see Communities of which you are a Member in the drop-down selector.*
   • Only Posts and Comments from Community Owners and Facilitators will be copied, and you will assume ownership of those Posts and Comments upon content copying.
   • If you choose not to copy content, your new Community will inherit the default posts of your Network's default Community. If your Network does not have a default Community, and if no parents of your Network have default Communities, your new Community will inherit Yellowdig's default "Welcome to Yellowdig" posts, which feature how-to guides.
5. On the third "Create New Community" screen, place your Community in the appropriate network within your organization. If, for example, you are creating a philosophy course, and if your institution has a Philosophy Department network, you should select "Philosophy Department" as your Community Organization. For administrative and data-quality purposes, it is important that you place your Community in the most appropriate network.
6. On the next screen, be sure that your settings are accurate, and click SUBMIT. You're ready to set up your new course!

* If you are a Network Administrator, you can become a member of any Community in your Network by navigating to Network Settings (gear icon) → Edit Organization Settings → Communities. Then, search for and select the Community you'd like to join. Inside that Community, click the Join Community button near the bottom of the left-hand navigation. That will make you a Member of that Community. Upon LTI-creation, you should now see the Community you've joined as an option for steps (3) and (4) above.

Creating a Community (from outside your LMS)

1. Click on Communities in the banner at the top of the page.
2. Click the CREATE COMMUNITY button on the upper-left hand side of the Communities page.
3. Set the Community Permission level.
   1. Private Communities are accessible only by users you invite or by students enrolled in your class.
   2. Public Communities are accessible by anyone in your Network. They are not accessible by anyone outside your institutional Network.
4. Indicate whether your Community is discoverable (i.e., searchable by all Members of your Institutional Network) from within the Discovery page.
5. Assign your Community to one of the Networks of which you are a Member.
6. Create a Community title.
7. Click the SUBMIT button.

From there, you can invite Yellowdig users to your Community, create new Posts, edit Community settings, and so on.