RRN Q&A - What's This?

Almost everything on the RRN website is tagged - researcher profiles, research interests, resources in the online library, job postings, program listings, etc. Tagging makes it easy to search for specific information on the site, and it also makes it easy for online search engines to harvest information. The larger the font size in the Popular Tags, the more often a particular tag is being used.

A Node location is a nifty little application that gives you a snapshot of the physical location of current and upcoming events, calls for papers, job postings and researcher profiles. By clicking on the link at the left of the page, a Google map opens up where you can zoom in on individual people or events.

A User location is an application that, when the link at the left of the page is selected, opens up a Google map with the locations of everyone who has registered as a user on the RRN site. It's useful in that it can give you an idea of the geographical spread of the users as well as allowing you to view their public profiles.

A page, similar in form to a story, is a simple method for creating and displaying information that rarely changes, such as an "About us" section of a website. By default, a page entry does not allow visitor comments, does not show the name of the author, and is not featured on the site's initial home page.

Most of the time, you will probably be creating Stories. A story, similar in form to a page, is ideal for creating and displaying content that informs or engages website visitors. Press releases, site announcements, and informal blog-like entries may all be created with a story entry. By default, a story entry is automatically featured on the site's initial home page, and provides the ability to post comments.

As you can imagine, this is not as easy to define as one thinks. We are in the process of developing some very general guidelines addressing issues such as:

• How is a Research Cluster created on the RRN site?
• How many people need to be involved?
• Determining themes and priorities
• Roles and responsibilities
• Access to RRN resources
• How long should a Cluster last?

... and many more

A committee is currently working on a draft, which will be put out to the general community for comment and feedback. We expect to have something ready by the end of Summer 2010.

In the case of the Refugee Research Network, it's a community of people around the world who have common interest in research leading to study and improvement of the plight of refugees and people subject to any kind of forced migration. The RRN website is being designed expressly to provide a home, a forum and a resource library to support this community.
The RRN site hosts special areas for "Partner Networks",  groups within this community that share specific interests and goals. At the present time the RRN is creating private areas on this website for the following Partner Networks:

• International and Regional
• New Scholars
• NGO / Grassroots
• Refugee Policy
• Research Centres of Forced Migration
• Refugee Scholars