Office Hours has proven to be an effective way of engaging with scholars, and we plan to continue it. There are now two requests in my inbox for scholars to invite. That is great news! I wanted to explain the process, so we can start sharing the load on this:
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Reach out to me and ask if the scholar is a good person to invite. In general, try and explain why their perspective could be helpful to us. At this point, I will decide yes or no.
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One of us will reach out to the scholar, to explain how office hours work. What are Office Hours?. I’ll be expanding this link put out some more the rationale for guests, so they know what to expect.
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Find a 2 to 3 day period that both can commit to being available on forum and engaging questions. Make sure it does not overlap another scheduled office hours.
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Write up a conversation prompt and announcement. Give it to me to post in the OH category. I (or a moderator) will close topic and set it to open automatically 8am of the start day.
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Send a link to prompt and adjust scope as scholar sees fit. Encourage scholar to share in their networks, and to sign up for the forum early.
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I will also make a side comment thread and leave it open.
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When day comes, engage with scholar and encourage others to do the same. Push off topic or bad comments to the side comment thread. Set topic to auto close at 8pm of last day.
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After topic closes, we can temporarily open for final comments.
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Thank scholar for joining us privately and encourage them to share it again in their networks.
That is the basic procedure. I’m hoping for help on this in the future:
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Some tasks require @moderators, of course, and they can help with tasks as they can.
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Many of the tasks are more about communication. Especially if you are suggesting someone to include here, please be part of hosting them here.
Please also ask any questions here to clarify.