Communities

Communities help people who share a common interest to collaborate by exchanging and sharing information with one another through a web browser, IBM Sametime®, or email software.

A community works with all the other parts of IBM Connections in the same way that a person does. For example, you can discover communities the same way you discover people, you can tag communities, and so on.

A community typically includes a related blog, discussion forum, member list, activities, home page, wiki, files, media gallery, and bookmarks although the community's manager determines which components are included.

You can extend a community by adding content libraries to it. Community members can manage documents and work with folders stored in Lotus Quickr for WebSphere Portal as well as enterprise content management (ECM) systems, IBM FileNet® Content Manager and IBM Content Manager, from within IBM Connections.


Optionally, a community manager can moderate files, forums, and blogs within a community to realize the benefits of active and vibrant community participation. The community manager also decides if a community is open to all or to a select group of people.

A Recommendations widget suggests communities for you to join, based on your existing community membership, network connections, and tags.

You can also follow communities that interest you to get the latest updates from them in your home page news feed. The My Communities page shows the communities that you own, are a member of, or are following.

The Files widget allows you to upload and share files with your communities. The Media Gallery widget allows you to upload and share rich media files with your communities.

Communities can also have sub-communities allowing members to bring added attention to select topics.

Community owners can invite people to join their community. Members of public communities can send invitations to people whom they think may be interested in becoming community members.

The Public Communities page shows all the communities you can use. Take a look.