Welcome and thanks for signing up for the Science Museum of Minnesota’s Experimonth!

How do I participate?

Check back in on Buzz daily, or as often as you can, to complete your assignments, catch up on the conversation, and post your own thoughts. Comment freely and openly- the idea is to get ourselves thinking about identity and what it means, together as a community. Set an alarm clock reminder; stick Post-Its on your computer monitor, whatever it takes to get you thinking about identity on a daily basis and blogging on the Science Buzz Experimonth site.

At the end of the month, your comments and data will be pulled together to create a comprehensive picture of identity in the Twin Cities.

Your Assignments:

Buzz will keep track of your assignments and the steps necessary to complete them. You can also see your comments along the right-hand side bar, and click to see what the response has been.

Your Profile:

Let us get to know you! Click “My Profile” at the top of the screen to upload a profile photo, change your username and password. Answer as many questions as you feel comfortable.

Posting a Photo:

Follow these steps to add an image that's already downloaded on your computer:

1. Log in to your Buzz account. You must be a registered user to upload photos to Buzz.
2. Click the plus sign on the lower right hand corner of the comment box (see an example).
3. Click the "Upload" button to add a new image (see an example).
4. Under “Image Galleries” pick “Experimonth" (see an example).
5. Fill in a title, type the name of owner of the photo, and select a license option.
6. Press the "Save" button.
7. A window will pop up- the size of your photo should be “Thumbnail,” alignment: “Left.”
8. Click insert, and then post your comment to the blog.

Voila!
Questions? Email us at experimonth@smm.org.

Posting Images that Aren't Yours:

Confused about how to attribute an owner or license to someone else's photo? Use these two copyright-friendly sources for images.

1. Search Google for images on .gov sites. Anything offered up by the US government that is not explicitly copyrighted is public domain. You can use it without permission, but should always include a credit for the image in your post. A quick way to find these sorts of images is to search Google like this:
avian flu site:gov
Your search will be restricted to just .gov sites.

2. Flickr creative commons (http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/ )
Flickr is a photo sharing community where you can find tons of great images. People who load their images onto Flickr can tag their images with different licenses, and Creative Commons licenses allow you to use images for free in most cases. (You must still check the license and make sure that your use of the image is allowed.) Read the self-explanatory description on the Flickr creative commons page, but then search each set of images for your topic. Here’s an example:
http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/by-2.0/tags/snails/

Please remember to give credit where credit is due. *Thanks Liza!*

Posting Anonymously:

If you would like to comment on an issue but feel uncomfortable about posting, sign out of Buzz and post to the page while signed out. Your text comment will show up as “Anonymous.” They will not show up immediately, as all anonymous posts are moderated. Photos are not able to be posted anonymously.

Community Guidelines:

We welcome all perspectives, but offensive or inappropriate comments/stories will not be posted. We refuse to post some entries to ensure that all content is appropriate for the children and adolescents who frequent this site as they learn about science.

What do we consider offensive? If your post or comment is abusive, obscene, threatening, harassing, defamatory, libelous, profane, racist, etc, we won't allow it. Decisions of the moderators/administrators are final.