Discovering Communities

There are three ways to join Communities in Yellowdig:

1. LTI-launch from your course, i.e., through a direct link in your learning management system (Blackboard, Canvas, etc.)
2. Direct invitation from the Community Owner or Facilitator
3. Discovery

All Communities are joinable via direct invitation, and all Communities associated with an LMS course are joinable via LTI-launch. In general, students should join their course's Yellowdig Community via LTI-launch, and external guests should join Yellowdig Communities via direct invitation. But there are cases where a Community Owner might want to make their Community discoverable to Members of their Network. For example:

• A faculty advisor might want students within the university to find and join a Community for their reading group.
• A student might want peers to find and join a Community for their intramural sports league.
• A student life administrator might want students to find and join a Community that advertises campus events.

Communities can be discovered from the Discover page, which is linked in the upper banner (just to the right of Communities). All discoverable Communities within your current Network and its Subnetworks will appear here. To discover Communities in a different Network of which you are a Member, you must first switch Networks.

Joining Communities

There are two different ways to join a discoverable Community, depending on the permission level of the Community. Public Communities can be explored by clicking on the corresponding block in the Discover page. If, after exploring the Community, you decide that you want to join the Community, click the Join Community button at the bottom of the left-hand menu. Some private Communities can be discovered on the Discover page, but they cannot be freely explored. To join a private Community, you must request access by clicking on the corresponding block, which (unlike public Communities) will have a lock icon. [Private Community "request to join" feature is temporarily unavailable.]

Making Your Community Discoverable

When you create Communities through Yellowdig, you are required to specify the Community Permission Level. By definition, public Communities can be discovered, explored, and freely joined by Members of your Network. If you set your Community's permission level to private, you can decide whether your Community will appear in the Discover page. If you set the discovery toggle to ✓, your Community will be discoverable by Members of your Network, but they will not be able to explore or join your Community without your approval.

Community Permissions Across the Network

The table below summarizes discovery, exploration, and joining privileges by Community permission level and Network Role: