Appendix: FAQ

Answers to the most frequently asked questions about the CPS-VO

What is the CPS-VO Portal?

The CPS-VO Portal content is created and managed by the CPS Community. The Portal technical infrastructure is integrated and expanded by the CPS-VO Portal Team of the Institute for Software Integrated Systems (ISIS) at Vanderbilt University.

The CPS-VO Portal provides services and content for : 

  1. facilitating interaction and information exchange among CPS researchers across a broad range of institutions, programs and disciplines
  2. sharing knowledge generated by CPS research with the broader engineering and scientific communities, sharing and integrating experimental tools, platforms and simulators among researchers and stakeholders,
  3. fostering collaboration and information exchange between CPS researchers and industry
  4. helping international collaboration. The Portal is built on DRUPAL, a widely used free and open source content management system (CMS) that is used as a back-end for at least 1% of all websites worldwide

What is the CPS Community?

The Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) community is a broad community of interest for CPS researchers and developers. The CPS-VO includes institutions from academy and industry, and people who work on a wide range of related disciplines with different approaches, methods, tools and experimental platforms. These entities are all interconnected and evolve driven by a shared goal, to advance our knowledge in the science and engineering of CPS.

What is the CPS Community Forum?

An annual CPS-VO community-building event at CPSWeek, where Federal Agencies, Academic and Industry organizations discuss status of the CPS research and applications. Community Forum archives can be found here: 2009, 2010, 2011

What are repositories? What services are offered by repositories?

At this point, the CPS-VO Portal supports a File Repository for managing information created by the CPS Community. Content in the File Repository is characterized by site-wide and group-wide taxonomies that enables taxonomic search, taxonomy-driven access control, and taxonomy-driven visibility control. Future releases of the CPS-VO Portal will extend the repository suite to education material, challenge problems and solutions, tools and models.

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How will CPS-VO activities and accomplishments be reported?

CPS-VO activities will be reported at the CPS Community Forum each year. A copy of the annual report will be made available in the CPS File Repository.

How do I interact within the CPS-VO?

See full tutorial instructions at http://cps-vo.org/tutorial/collaborate-with-colleagues

There are several ways to interact within the CPS-VO:

  • Seek out Colleagues
  • Contribute to Forum Discussions
  • Create a Global Forum Announcement
  • Create a Calendar Event
  • Create Event Invitations
  • Participate in Online Meetings
  • Upload a File
  • Activity Messaging
  • Use the Chat Feature
  • Create a News Item
  • Create a Group Project
  • Post a Video
  • Create and Edit Wiki Pages

Who can join the CPS-VO? How do I join?

See full tutorial instructions at http://cps-vo.org/tutorial/get-an-account

Anyone with a valid email address can become a member of the CPS-VO.

At the top of the portal home page click on the "Click here to register" link and follow the instructions.

I forgot my username/password, what do I do?

At the top of the portal home page (when you are logged out) click on the "Forgot username or password?" link and follow the instructions to receive an email with a one-time login link.

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Who can form groups? How are groups formed? 

Any VO community member may apply to form a group. A request to form a group may be sent by completing and submitting the request form located at http://cps-vo.org/tutorial/form-manage-group/SIG-request

How do I join a group? Can I belong to more than one group?

See full tutorial instructions at http://cps-vo.org/tutorial/groups/join-a-group

VO community members may belong to multiple groups.

Step 1: Go to the publicly listed groups by selecting "Groups" from the "Browse" tab in the global menu at the top of the CPS-VO home page.

A "Join" link is displayed to the right of groups that are open for membership. Other groups require you to "Request Membership". Still other groups are "Invitation Only" or "Closed" indicating that membership is controlled by the group manager (either by inviting you to their group or adding you).

Step 2: To join an available group, click on the link listed in the "Join Link" column to the right hand side of their description.

How do I leave a group?

See full tutorial instructions at http://cps-vo.org/tutorial/groups/leave-a-group

Step 1: Click on the "My Groups" menu link at the top of the CPS-VO home page to show your group list.

Step 2: Navigate to the group you want to leave and click on "Edit membership".

Step 3: The resulting group page will have a link called "Leave this group". Click on this to end your membership of the group.

How do I post content to a group? Who can see the content posted in a group?

Navigate to the group in which you want to post content. There are multiple types of content listed in the "Collaborate" toggle menu (located beneath the left sidebar menu in your group).

Use the "Groups" selector (located in the area beneath the rich text editor) to choose which groups you want your file to publish to and whether you want it to be publicly available in the CPS-VO Repository.

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How do I find the content I have posted?

Most groups have an "activity stream" page where you can access the most recent content. You can also go to your account page and select the "contributions" tab to see all the content you have posted.

Where do I post community announcements, CfP’s, events?

See full tutorial instructions at http://cps-vo.org/tutorial/collaborate-with-colleagues/forum-announcement

Select "Announce on Forums" in the "Collaborate" menu at the top of the CPS-VO home page. You will be taken to a form where you can add the Title and Content of your announcement, select Vocabularies to tag it, and select which forums the announcement will post to.

How do I adjust my subscription notification settings?

See full tutorial instructions at http://cps-vo.org/tutorial/exploring-my-account/subscriptions

You can get to your subscriptions page by going to your account and clicking the "My Subscriptions" menu item in the "My Tools" toggle menu. This is the page where you can manage your subscriptions and your notifications settings.

How do I report a bug/inappropriate content? Submit feedback?

Submit a bug or inappropriate content by clicking the feedback button to the far right of the site or by hovering over the house icon at the top left of the CPS-VO home page and selecting "Contact Support" in the dropdown menu.

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