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Using NCOA’s Crossroads The National Council on Aging (NCOA) hosts several online communities for its grantees, and professionals and advocates within the aging and disability networks. All of these are hosted on our online platform at www.ncoacrossroads.org.

Getting Started

If you’d like to join a listserv/community, you’ll need to sign up at www.ncoacrossroads.org. Go to the homepage and click on the Join button, either using the button at the top right side of the page, or in the right-hand margin.

When joining, you’ll be asked to provide an email address, create a password, and what you’d like your user display name to be (with optional fields for your organization and location). An NCOA administrator will approve your registration, so be sure to look for an email from NCOA Crossroads (from alerts@hoop.la) and add this email domain to your “safe” list so you can continue to receive correspondence from the community. (If you do not know how to add this domain to your safe list, contact your IT Department.)

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Joining a Group

Once you’ve signed up, you can join a group based on your interest area. Select from any groups listed on the site’s homepage. The Senior Center Group is open to all. There are two other groups that may be of interest to you: Chronic Disease Self-Management Education Group, if you are currently offering evidence based programs and Falls Prevention Group, if you are participating in Falls Prevention at the national, state or local level. There are also a few groups that are private and open only to specific grantees (e.g., currently funded Benefits Enrollment Centers). If you would like admission to a group you do not see, you must ask for an invitation from your NCOA Project Manager.

Visiting Your Group’s Homepage

Each group has its own homepage with recent group activity posted. You can access this group homepage using the link www.ncoacrossroads.org/g/NAMEOFGROUP. For example, the senior center group page is at www.ncoacrossroads.org/g/SeniorCenters.

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Finding Your Control Menu

Depending on your browser, your control menu may appear differently. It may be found at the top of the page:

Or hidden in the three bar icon.

Press the three bar icon and the control menu will appear:

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On your group’s homepage, you’ll see recent posts and replies, get more information about the group (including an option, if available, to invite others to join), and will be able to download attachments. You can also use the menu at the top of the page to find members, search the library, add content to the library, view recent activity, and search for content.

Posting to a Group

If you want to share content, questions, or comments with your group, you can do so two ways:

1. By sending an email to GROUPNAME@ncoacrossroads.org (e.g., SeniorCenters@ncoacrossroads.org) from your email account.

2. By logging on to your group’s homepage at www.ncoacrossroads.org and using the green Post button in the right margin.

You will not receive an email with your posting, but the other group members will. You can check the group’s homepage under Topics to be sure that your message was sent.

Note: You must be a member of a group to be able to email that group, and you must send your email from the email address that you used to join NCOA Crossroads. Content may be moderated.

Sharing Hyperlinks

If your message includes a hyperlink, please do not add any punctuation after the link, or else the link will not work correctly.

Yes! www.ncoa.org/ncboewebinars

No! www.ncoa.org/resources.

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Replying to a Message

You can reply to messages/posts in two ways:

1. By responding directly to the email you get from Crossroads. 2. By logging onto the group homepage, selecting the Topic, and adding your reply to the

bottom of the page.

Please be aware that the default is to reply all, so all group members will receive your response. If you wish to respond only to the sender, please email that person separately or from the Crossroads platform, click on your name in the top right corner, and select Private Messages from the menu.

Reading Replies to Messages

You will receive all group replies to posts in your email, unless you change your notification settings (see Changing Your Email Settings below for more information). If you’d like to read all the replies to a particular post, find the post topic on the group’s homepage. Below the topic description, you’ll see the number of replies. Click on this to be directed to a page with all replies consolidated.

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Sharing/Viewing Attachments

You can attach a file to your email or post when you address the group. Note, however, that if you email the group a file, it will not transmit as an attachment in the email. Instead, the group will receive your message with an indication that there is a file accompanying the email, as shown below.

To view the attachment, you will need to click on the View This Topic button at the bottom of the email to go into NCOA Crossroads. Then you will be able to view/download the attachment.

Posting to the Library

Note, too, that any file you attach to an email/topic post will not be automatically included in the Attachments Library on the group homepage. Instead post a file to your group’s library, log onto the (Senior Center) Group, click the green Post at the top of your group’s page. Choose Topic (to post an email) or Library File to post a photo, video, audio or content file up to 100 MB. Any time you upload an attachment, an email will be sent to the group alerting them to the new file.

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Choose the file from your computer, add relevant tags and choose a Set (file folder) to store your attachment, so that others can easily find the information.

To find items in the Library, click on Library, look for the appropriate Library Sets (file folder) and review documents found in the set (file folder).

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Changing Your Email Settings

Getting too many messages from your groups? You can change the way you receive them in your personal settings. At the top right corner of any page, click on your name, and you’ll get a drop-down menu. Click on Notifications/Notifications for This Group.

Once on the Notifications page, press the blue Primary Notifications button, you will see a button that says Suspend All Email Notifications. If you check this box, you will no longer receive any email from the listserv/Crossroads. You can still go online at any time to read recent topics, but you will not receive any alerts when new content is posted.

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Also on this page, you can select the types of notifications you’d like to receive, such as replies to posts, and when someone uploads a new file.

You have the option to receive emails individually, daily, or in a weekly digest—as well as the option to include or disregard replies. To select these options, click on the Group Notifications box at the top of the Notifications Settings page (under the text that says Suspend All Email Notifications). Scroll down to where it says Forums and select your preferred email frequency.

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Terms of Service The NCOA Crossroads community aspires to be a safe and comfortable environment through which members can connect, as a useful and productive tool for working and learning together. We ask all members to agree to the following as a condition for participation:

• I will behave responsibly and respectfully towards all members of this Community, respecting their values and viewpoints as well as their rights and feelings and embracing diversity.

• I will not use the community to sell my products and services to my fellow members. This includes, but is not limited to, posting items promoting my products and services in any community library or email and contacting members directly with sales messages.

• Acknowledging that differences of opinion and conflict will undoubtedly occur, I agree to resolve conflict constructively.

• If I repeatedly and willfully violate this agreement, my rights to participate in this community can be suspended or terminated. Privacy Policy Legal Notices About this Web Site Copyright and Use of Materials © 2012 National Council on Aging, Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use prohibited. National Council on Aging (NCOA) copyright materials may not be reproduced in whole or in part by persons, organizations or corporations other than NCOA, its affiliates, divisions and units without the prior written permission of an authorized officer of NCOA. Information Warranty Disclaimer THE MATERIALS ON THIS WEB SITE ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTY OF ANY KIND INCLUDING WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, NONINFRINGEMENT OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, OR FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE OWNER OF THIS SITE DOES NOT WARRANT ACCURACY OR QUALITY OF THE CONTENTS OF THIS WEB SITE. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE OWNER OF THIS SITE BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF THIS WEB SITE. Linking Parties may link to this web site, provided that

1. (a) the appearance, content and other aspects of the link do not damage or dilute the goodwill associated with NCOA’s name, servicemarks and trademarks, as determined by NCOA in its sole discretion

2. (b) the link and/or website that is being linked does not violate or infringe NCOA’s or any third party’s intellectual property rights,

3. (c) no aspect of the link, including the appearance and position of the link, may create the appearance that a party is associated with or sponsored by NCOA when such association or sponsorship does not exist,

4. (d) no aspect of the link, including the appearance and position of the link, may create the appearance that NCOA endorses any product or service of any party,

5. (e) the link, when activated by a user, must display the NCOA web page in its entirety and not within a "frame" on the linked website, and

6. (f) NCOA reserves the right to revoke its consent to the link at any time in its sole discretion. User Agreement Use of this site requires approval of the user agreement.

Other Questions

If you have other questions about using NCOA Crossroads, please contact your group administrator or write to Maureen O’Leary at Maureen.oleary@ncoa.org.