Membership

The COMPASS Network is a community for anyone—at any career stage and in any profession—who has attended a COMPASS event and is interested in continuing to build their science communication skills in community with others who are committed to working together to build a future where people and nature both thrive. 

You must be a member to log in, view, and post to the COMPASS Network Platform. The COMPASS Network does not have membership fees. 

After attending any COMPASS event and sharing your email address (either at registration or during the event, if in-person) you will receive a link to sign up for the COMPASS Network. 

Once you have answered some brief questions and submitted your request to join, the COMPASS Network Hosts will approve your request and you’ll be able to log in. You can create a unique login or use an existing login (Mighty Networks, the platform for the COMPASS Network, supports Google, Facebook and other logins). 

If you have colleagues who would also like to join the COMPASS Network and have not yet attended a COMPASS event, please share the public event registration page with them so that they can register for and attend an upcoming event. We’ll be excited to meet them!

Creating a Profile

After answering the registration questions and receiving access to log in, you’ll need to create your profile.

In addition to your name and an image, you can share a mini bio, a full bio, personal links, your timezone and location. Members can start one-to-one chats with other members as a way to connect. You are not required to supply your email or other contact info, but you may choose to in your bio, so that people can reach you more easily outside of chat (if you don’t plan to log in to the Network often and would rather connect via email). The more information we each provide, the more useful the Member Directory will be (but please also do what is comfortable and safe for you).

Home

The Home Page shows everything in one place, as well as an Activity Feed. You can customize your Activity Feed in a variety of ways. For more on using and customizing your feed, click here.

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Discovery

The Discovery Page includes the Welcome Checklist, Top Posts, Upcoming Events, Members Near You, and Circles Near You (see below for more about Members and Circles). The layout of the Discovery Page is static, though content will update with new posts. There is no ‘feed’ on the Discovery Page.

Members

This is the Member Directory, where you can search members by location or keywords. You can also search for the COMPASS Network Hosts by clicking the ‘Host’ button.

About

This section of the platform has more information about the why behind the COMPASS Network.

Topics

While the main focus of the COMPASS Network is fostering and supporting real-time connections, both in-person and online, asynchronous communication is valuable, too. The ‘Topics’ section functions as a repository for written communication with the full Network.

Current Topics are:

• Network Commons
• Offers
• Asks
• Resources
• COMPASS Conversations
• Random

If you would like to see a topic added, please contact a Network Host with more detail about the topic and the need it would meet. If you are interested in having asynchronous conversations with a subset of the Network, please take a look at the Circles section. Click here for more on customizing how you view Topics.

Events

Events are the main activity of the COMPASS Network, and they take a variety of forms, from informal chats to formal workshops. Some events on the Network Events page will be open to the larger public, while others will be members-only. 

As the Network grows, we’d like to explore together the ways that members could host their own more formal workshops on the Network to share what they’ve learned with each other. In the meantime, any Network member can create informal events to bring together Network members.  Network members can also share outside events that are relevant to the Network as a whole. Events can be created within Circles as well, and you can choose whether to share the event only within the Circle or to the broader Network too. 

To add an Event, go to the ‘Events’ section in either the COMPASS Network (for Network-wide events) or within the Circle you want to share the event with (for Circle-specific events). Then, you will need to fill out the following information: 

Event Title

Posted by: 

Topic Tag:

Date: 

Start: 

End: 

Event Type: Online or Local

RSVPS: On/Off

Header Image/Video Link:

Description: (only the first 800 characters will be visible if someone copies to their own calendar. We suggest you share the ‘so what’ here for the people you hope will attend!)

NOTE: If you select ‘Zoom meeting’ for your event type, only the host can make edits to the Event listing. You can work around this by selecting ‘Online’ and ‘Meeting’ for the event type, then adding a Zoom link in the URL window if your event will be on a Zoom line.

Circles

Circles are subgroups within the Network, based around a shared interest or purpose (similar to Channels within Slack or Groups in Facebook). You can browse existing Public and Private Circles, or create new ones of your own. Circles can be made Public (open to all Network members), Private (open to Network members who are invited to the Circle, or request to join), or Secret (open only to invited Network members) but please note that Network Hosts have access to all Circles. Circle members can create posts and events within the Circle, and these posts are shared only with other members of that Circle (though they will show up in your Activity Feed within the broader Network if you are a member of that Circle.

Anyone can opt to join a Public Circle; Circle members for any Circle (public, private, or secret) can invite others to join the Circle, though if the invitee is not already a member of the COMPASS Network, they’ll need to register to join the Network first.

Courses

Courses are where you can see suggested paths for attending COMPASS workshops based on your goals and interests (public), and also where cohort-based content and materials can be found (private). 

COMPASS Paths within the Courses section lay out the progression of workshops to attend in order to build a specific skill set or work towards a specific goal. They provide an overview and may include relevant materials,  but don’t replace the workshops themselves.

Chat

The COMPASS Network Chat is an all-member chat room. You can have private chats with other members by going to their member profile and clicking the ‘Chat’ button. You can see your Chats by clicking on the speech bubble icons in the upper right corner of the Network window, which will open your chat history. You can start group chats with up to 9 other members. Click here to learn more about the Chat function.

Updates

We’ll keep refining this document as the Network grows and we adapt and learn together. If you have noticed anything in this guidance that needs to be addressed, please contact us at network@compassscicomm.org.