Star Café Rooms -- Recommended Reading & Viewing

A. Summary:

As you first enter the Star Café Rooms, there are several rooms you will want to visit first and some documents to read that will help you get oriented.

B. Key Points:

· This document is in Star Point format

· The Introductory Community Room has short explanations and samples of tools you will encounter

· The How to Navigate in the Star Café flash movie briefly explains how to get around

· There is a User’s Intro document, which explains some basics of the Star Café Rooms

· There is a Glossary of Star Café terms

· The Star Academy is a reference and educational materials room

· For corrections, updates, or clarifications on this Star Point, please email Harold Pugh, Jr.

C. Details:

Star Points, such as this document, are used throughout the Star Café to provide information and instructions. A Star Point is a formatted communication on a specific subject and it has 3 sections: Summary, Key Points, and Details. The same structured format is used in every Star Point to enable the reader to quickly find the information they need.

The purpose of this Star Point is to highlight several rooms and documents which should aid you in getting started in the Star Café Rooms.

Introductory Community Room

To help new members of the Star Café Rooms community get comfortable with the Microsoft SharePoint collaborative software environment, there is an Introductory Community Room, with examples of “room furnishings”. You will find short explanations and samples of tools you will encounter while exploring the Star Café Rooms.

Among the items to be found are links to other informational rooms, a directory of visitor-friendly community rooms, and a flash movie about navigation within a room. There is also a Star Point formatted statement of purpose for the whole Star Café suite of tools, a collection of introductory explanations, and a threaded discussion and calendar to try out.

Basic Navigation

On the main page of the Introductory Community Room there is a flash movie entitled How to Navigate in the Star Café, under the heading “Paths”. By clicking on a link you will start a short animation that will help you journey from “unsure about the new system” to “comfortably hanging out in the Star Café”. This Path to Navigating in the Star Café is well worth the minute of viewing time to help you get started.

Introductory Document

There is a User’s Intro document, which provides a more comprehensive overview of the Star Café Rooms environment. Topics covered include how to manage your account, the purpose and organization of the Star Café rooms, and brief descriptions of some of the tools and web parts which make up the “furnishings” in a room. The second page has an “FAQ Index”, with links to quick answers for “frequently asked questions’”.

Glossary

If you happen to meet with an unfamiliar term as you explore the Star Café, you can refer to the Glossary of terms, which is accessible from the Star Café Rooms lobby. This glossary is intended to be a comprehensive, growing, alphabetical vocabulary list for all Star Café tools. There are both definitions and hyperlinks to associated information included in this convenient reference.

Star Academy

The Star Academy is an educational tool of the Star Cafe. One of the main sections in the Star Academy consists of Star Points, which are short, descriptive posts with information on a single subject. These Star Points are indexed in a hierarchical structure by topic and you can use a Search box for easy look-up. The Star Academy will help you learn how to use all the other collaborative tools provided by Star Café and will help to educate groups on technology, procedures and job-related tasks.