Check out the AS&E forums!

Objectives

ITS offers web based forums for departmental web sites within the School of Arts and Sciences at Tufts University. The web development team at ITS, including qualified students, will assist you in the setup, customization, and maintenance of these forums based upon the needs of your department and the guidelines imposed by ITS.

Benefits

Web based forums offer an effective way for a large and potentially geographically distributed group of people to communicate in an asynchronous fashion. Using the forums hosted on the Arts & Sciences web server, setup and use of such a forum is easy and, basically, free of cost. In addition to providing the basic forums service, ITS will work with departments (for a nominal fee) to design a more "specific look" for a given departmental forum.

Guidelines

Departmental Responsibilities:

Each forum is expected to have a moderator who is responsible for the content of any message in the forum. Due to the sometimes specific subject nature of forums, ITS staff members will not act as a moderator for any forum hosted on the Arts & Sciences web server. Thus, ITS is not responsible for the content of the posts by individuals participating in the forum. Despite the fact that forums can be configured to be "private" (i.e. not accessible by anonymous users) there is no way to make your forum truly secure. Do not post any potentially sensitive messages! You may also wish to delete sensitive messages posted by forum visitors. All moderators must be familiar with the "Moderating your ASE Forum" document to insure that the forum is properly maintained.

ITS Services:

Any department may make use of the "standard" Tufts forum configuration free of charge. If you wish to have a "customized look" for your site, you may commission ITS to assist you in a design of a new style template for your site. Please note that this style template will become available for general use by other forum users after its creation. If it is absolutely necessary for your forum to be a "private" forum, ITS will, for a nominal fee, assist in the registration of forum participants. All of the requested forum participants must already be registered (i.e. have created accounts) to use the Arts & Sciences forum. Private forum membership may only have a maximum of 50 participants and the addition/modification of these participants is subject to a five business day turnaround time.

Fees

Forums making use of the "standard" Tufts style template and not set up to act as "private" forums are available to any Arts & Sciences department or Center free of charge. The set up of such a forum is subject to a five business day turnaround time. Departments wishing to create there own style template may contract ITS at a rate of $25/hour for the design and development of the style template. Departments that want to have a "private" forum may contract with ITS to assist in the registration of the forum participants. The initial registration of the private forum will cost $50 and then any changes in forum membership will cost $25 for each 5 participants. All of the requested forum participants must already be registered to use the Arts & Sciences forum and the total number of participants may not exceed 50. Finally, additions/modifications to the participant list is subject to a five business day turnaround time.
**Fees subject to change as needed.

Contact

To enroll in the ITS Web Based Forums Plan, please send an email to the ITS Web Development Team at forums@ase.tufts.edu.