This is a quite large and somewhat complicated site and tool set -- fair enough given the considerable level of ambition that we have for The Commons and its many parts. We have worked hard however to make it user friendly: relatively easy to get into, understand and make quick and efficient use of. If you will take a bit of time in these first stages to familiarize yourself with the various components of this tool set, you should find that it offers a number of things which will help make this a quite pleasant and creative experience.

If this is your first time here, the Mission Statement is a good place for you to start. As far as getting around efficiently in the couple of thousand pages that make up this site, we suggest you begin with the Navigation Aids, which provide a rather solid introduction for new users. From thence a few minutes spent with the section on Functions & Organization should prove useful.

For your immediate working purposes we suggest you check out the World Forum and its Group Work Tools . But if you are interested in the earlier history of The Commons, try the Quick Tour. For the rest, the most efficient course is to work your way right down that small menu just to your left.

To close out this first visit, if you are generally satisfied with what you see here, we invite you to sign in so that you can have full access to the whole of the site and its tools. For the rest, we think you should find the site and its multiple menus reasonably intuitive and user friendly. But if we have this wrong in any respect, we count on you to get in touch and let us know.