How to Use Platon Website

Welcome to Platon!

Platon is an academic collaboration platform that unites everyone that has interest in being part of a research project. It is prepared by 7th group for CMPE 352/451 course, Bogazici University students.

For Guests

If you do not have an account yet, you can still use some functionalities of Platon. You can search for users, upcoming events, and even workspaces that are currently being worked on or published. You can see the trending projects. --------- 1 If you want to be a part of Platon, you may register by providing your name, surname, email and your job. To go to the register page, click register on the right top. --------- 2 Further, you can link your Google Scholar and ResearchGate accounts to fetch your projects. You have to give an email address in use, since a verification code will be sent to it. You have to verify your account to log in. You have to accept Terms&Conditions to register.

For Users

Platon does not require a username for the users. You may log in with providing your email address and password. To log in, click on the LOGIN button on the right top. --------- 3 --------- 4 --------- 5

Your Profile

To go to your profile, click on the profile icon on the right top. --------- 6 --------- 7 --------- 8 You may personalize your profile by several ways:

Change Account Information

If you are not satisfied with your current information, you may click "Edit Profile" button in your profile page. --------- 9 Here, you may add some of your skills, change your current information, upload a profile photo, and link your Google Scholar and ResearchGate accounts. You can change the privacy of your profile (see Engaging With Other Profiles) If you link your account, the projects you registered there will be automatically uploaded to your profile. You may add yourself an existing skill, or you may create a skill. You can choose from the list for existing skills, or just type the skill name you want to add and then click the add button. --------- 10 You may also click the "Create Research" button on your profile to add your past research. --------- 11 You need to provide your project's title, a description of it, and also a date. Date and title are mandatory. --------- 12 You can edit your research information later on by clicking "Update Research" button. --------- 13 You can also delete it by clicking the delete button, if you change your mind. --------- 15

Engaging With Other Profiles

There are two types of profiles in Platon: public and private. If you choose the privacy of your account as public, other profiles can see your name, surname, job, institution, skills, followers, following, and past research information. Registered users will be able to follow you without sending a follow request first. If you want a private profile, other users and guests can only view your name, surname, profile photo and your job. To view your other personal information, they will have to send you a follow request. You will have the option to accept and reject their request. If you accept, they will view your information as if you had a public account. You can see your followers, following, and follow requests in your profile under the tabs named "FOLLOWERS", "FOLLOWING", and "REQUESTS" respectively.

Workspaces

Workspaces are storage areas for a group of users to develop their project/paper proposal collaboratively. To list your workspaces, click on the workspace icon on the top right.

Create a workspace

If you do not have a workspace yet, you can create a workspace by clicking the "NEW WORKSPACE" button. To create a workspace, you must provide a title and a description associated with the workspace. After clicking next, you may provide other information. The workspace is created as public by default. Public workspace means any user or guest may view the details of your workspace, files, issues, milestones, and the contributors in your workspace. They may search for it from the search bar, and your workspace may be seen in the trending projects, if it gets much attention. After viewing, a user may send a collaboration request to join your workspace. If you want your workspace to be invisible, you should make it private. Private workspaces does not show up in any search or in the trending projects section. Only the collaborators may view it. You can provide the maximum number of collaborators in your workspace. The default number is 10 if you decide to leave it empty. You may write the requirements to join the workspace under the Requirements section. You may add the required skills in your workspace. Skills will act as labels to your workspace. If you set your workspace to be public, other users may use those skills to narrow down their search. For example, if your workspace has a skill named "Python", than if the user filters their search by giving python as a parameter, your workspace will be visible to their search result. You may provide a deadline to your workspace. You may link one or several upcoming events to your workspace. That will mean the project will also be a part of the specified upcoming event/s.

Editing your workspace

To change the information of your workspace, you have to click the inspect button under your listed workspace. Then you may edit all the information of the workspace.

States of the workspace

A workspace has three states: 1- Search for Collaborators State: It is the first of the three states of a project. In this state, the founder of the project waits for requests from other Users and sends invitations to Users. A workspace is created with this state by default. 2- Ongoing State: It is the second of the three states of a project. This is the development phase of the project. After finding enough collaborators, the project will go to the second state which is the Ongoing State. 3- Published State: It is the last stage of a project. After milestones are completed with the request of owners of the project, the project will go to Published State. You may change the state of the project by editing your workspace.

Adding Collaborators

Invitations

To add collaborators, you may direct to the profile of the person that you want to add as collaborator. Then click the "Invite" button and select the desired workspace to invite them to the workspace. You may send invitation to both public and private workspaces. They will automatically be added as collaborator to your workspace if they accept your invitation. If your workspace is private, only way to add collaborators to invite them personally.

Applications

If your workspace is public, users are able to send it a collaboration request. To send a collaboration request, go to the desired workspace's page and click Apply Workspace button. You can view your workspace's applications in its details page. You may accept or reject the application. If you accept, the user will automatically be added as collaborator to your workspace. If you get accepted, you will automatically be added as collaborator to their workspace. There is no limitation on the number of applications, invitations, or on the number of your workspaces.

Quit/Delete Workspace

If you are the creator of the workspace, you cannot quit it. You can only delete the workspace. If you are one of the collaborators, you can quit a workspace by clicking Quit Workspace in the details page of the workspace. If you delete a workspace, you cannot recover it. All the files, milestones, and issues will be deleted. The workspace will automatically disappear in every collaborator's workspace list. Also, no collaborator can kick other collaborator from the workspace.

Files

You may add files related to the workspace. You may also create folders for ease of use. To add or view your files, go to the files section under the workspace page. To create a folder, type the name of the folder to the text view on the left of the create folder button. Then click the button. You may delete or change the name of the folder after you create it. To delete it , click the delete button on the right of the desired folder. This cannot be undone. To rename it, click the rename button on the right of the desired folder. To upload a file, you should click the Choose file button. After you choose your folder, you may specify its name. Once you upload it, you will not be able to change its name. You can view files, delete and edit them. To delete it , click the delete button on the right of the desired file. This cannot be undone. To edit it, click the edit button on the right of the desired file. After editing it, you need to click the save button. Supported file types are: .txt.

Issues

You may create issues to keep track our your future work. To create an issue, go to the issues tab under your workspace's page. You must provide a title, description and a deadline to the issue to be created. You can assign collaborators to the specific issue. After creating the issue, you may edit its title, description and the assignees. You can comment on the existing issue.

Milestones

You may create milestones to your workspace. To create a milestone, go to the Milestones tab under your workspace's page. You must provide a title, description and a deadline to the milestone to be created. After creating the issue, you may edit its title, description and the deadline. To delete a milestone, click on the delete button on the right of the milestone. This cannot be undone.

Notifications

You will receive notifications for: by default. If you do not want to receive notifications, you may mute them.

Home Page

Home page consists of mainly three parts: Upcoming events, Trending Projects, and Activity Stream

Upcoming events

Upcoming Conferences, Journal Special Issues, Submission Deadlines and CFP (call for papers) documents. These are provided by CFP API. If you search for an upcoming event, you may visit its website by clicking on the search result.

Trending Projects

Under this section, trending public workspaces are listed. You may see its details by clicking on the name of the project.

Activity Stream

Search

Platon supports semantic search. Semantic search is a data searching technique in which a search query aims to not only find keywords but to determine the intent and contextual meaning of the words a person is using for search. You may search for users, workspaces, and upcoming events. You may use the filters related to every search type to narrow down your search. Only public workspaces will be listed in the workspace search.