Frequently Asked Questions

The Questions

1. What is OLS and what does it do?
2. What is the relationship between OLS and iCampus Outreach?
3. What is indicated by "x people found this post helpful', which appears in the heading of every post?
4. What is the "Did you find this response helpful?" I see on people's posts?
5. What is the "Report this message as inappropriate" link I see on people's posts?
6. Who develops the OLS software?
7. When will the OLS software have (some specific feature I want)?
8. What is RSS?
9. Who funds the development of the OLS software?
10. Is OLS "open source" software?
11. Can I integrate OLS into my own content repository?
12. What HTML can I include in comments or posts?
13. I am having problems searching. How do I obtain better search results?

The Answers

1. What is OLS and what does it do?
   
   OLS is social software designed to be integrated with collections of open educational content. OLS allows users of content repositories, digital libraries, and other online archives to find each other, ask and answer each others' questions, form study groups, socialize, and get to know each other.
2. What is the relationship between OLS and iCampus Outreach?
   
   iCampus materials are designed and developed by MIT professors and staff. The OLS software is designed and developed by Utah State University professors and staff. While MIT and USU have agreed to work as partners on integrating iCampus and OLS, OLS is not a product of MIT. USU is solely responsible for OLS.
3. What is indicated by "x people found this post helpful', which appears in the heading of every post?
   
   This indicates the number of votes a message has received. Users can vote for messages they find especially helpful, insightful, or useful. These votes are tallied and displayed in real-time to all system users. This helps everyone find high-quality information more quickly.
4. What is the "Did you find this response helpful?" I see on people's posts?
   
   You can click on the "Yes" link to vote for a message you believe to be particularly helpful, insightful, or useful. Voting only takes about ten seconds. You must be logged in to vote. You can only vote once per message. You can't vote for your own messages.
5. What is the "Report this message as inappropriate" link I see on people's posts?
   
   The "Report" link provides users with a simple mechanism for reporting messages which they believe violate the OLS Terms of Use. When you click the link or "pull the fire alarm" you are asked to provide a very brief summary of the way in which the message you are reporting violates the Terms of Use. You must be logged in to pull the fire alarm. According to the Terms of Use, your user account can be terminated if you pull the repeatedly pull the fire alarm without just cause.
6. Who develops the OLS software?
   
   The OLS system is designed, developed, tested, and improved by The OSLO Group at Utah State University, in the Department of Instructional Technology.
7. When will the OLS software have (some specific feature I want)?
   
   To keep OLS easy to use, extra features are only added to the OLS system as community need demands. When OLS researchers determine that OLS users need a certain type of feature, a satisfactory feature will be added by OLS engineers.
8. What is RSS?
   
   RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and an aggregator allow you to subscribe to OLS and other websites in order to receive timely, organized updates of posts, news, and other information you care about.
9. Who funds the development of the OLS software?
   
   The OLS project is generously funded by a grant from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
10. Is OLS "open source" software?
    
    The OLS system is open source software, and will be available for download from SourceForge.net in the near future.
11. Can I integrate OLS into my own content repository?
    
    Absolutely. You can download the OLS software as described above, or you can partner with members of The OSLO Group to work on customized versions of OLS with the specific additional features your audience needs.
12. What HTML can I include in comments or posts?
    
    The following HTML tags may be used in the body of a post, in the body of a news post, or in user profile comments:
    

    <p> <a href> <i> <br> <b> <strong>

    Other HTML tags will be removed from all posts. HTML tags submitted elsewhere will be rendered literally.
13. I am having problems searching. How do I obtain better search results?
    
    The search on the OLS website only searches the forums on the website. In addition, words 3 characters or less and common words such as is, the, like, me, etc. are ignored. The search supports the following operators:
    • + The word is required.
    • - The word will be omitted from the search.
    • ~ A leading tilde indicates that the word following should cause results containing that word to receive a lower rank.
    • " Indicates that the phrase in quotes should be matched exactly.

    Examples:

    • left right
      Returns results that contain left or right.
    • +left +right
      Returns results that contain both left and right.
    • +left right
      Returns results that contain left. Results that contain right will be ranked higher.
    • +right -left
      Results must contain right, but cannot contain left.
    • "left right"
      Results will contain the exact phrase "left right".