When you invite colleagues or students to join the Commons, there are a number of options that can save you a bunch of time. Listed below are the basic scenarios, and how you can combine what you want to do into one process.

Inviting Someone to Join the Commons
This is the basic scenario – you want to invite a CUNY colleague to join the Commons. Any member of the Commons can send a customized email invitation, and the recipient can simply click on a hyperlink to begin the registration process. (The person you invite needs to have an email that ends in “cuny.edu” or “cuny.tv”. )

Go to your Commons Profile page and click on “Send Invites” circled in red on the right. You can also simply hover over your avatar in the top right corner of your browser screen, and scroll down to the “Send Invites” option.

When you click on Send Invites, you’ll see a screen like below. Fill in your colleague’s email addresses, one per line, in the box highlighted in red. You can customize the subject line and the text of the invitation.

Inviting Someone to Join the Commons and Your Group(s)
If you want to invite someone to join the Commons, and to join one or more of your groups, follow the same procedure as above, but in the optional section 4, click on one of the checkboxes of the groups you’d like the new member to consider joining. When he or she completes the registration process, an invitation to the group(s) will be waiting for acceptance.

This is particularly effective if you are using the Commons to teach a graduate class. Make sure you create your class group first, and then, when you send out invitations to class members, check your class group’s box. Then your students will receive an invitation to join the Commons, and once they registered, will automatically receive a request to join the class group.

Inviting Someone to Join the Commons, Your Group, and Your Group Blog
The final scenario pertains if you have a group blog. (For more information about group blogs and their uses, see Groups and Group Blogs, and Bringing Content Together.) If you don’t have a group blog and want to create one, click on the tab circled below to get the process going:

If you already have a group blog, go to the Group Admin screen and click on the “Group Blog” hyperlink to configure the privileges new members of your group will be automatically assigned. For this, scroll down to Member Options, circled in red. Make sure that the “Enable Member Blog Posting” is checked. Then assign the appropriate role under the “Default Member Role.” Every new member of your group will be granted this role.

For more information about WordPress member roles, see: