A brief introduction to the JISC Casper system

Light social networking

JISC Casper is a social networking application for copyright professionals and educational institutions to discuss e-copyright issues.

If you are familia with other social networking tools such as Beebo or Facebook, then you should feel right at home here. Currently JISC Casper is purely concentrating on the sharing and discussion of ideas, so the system is set up around users, connections and groups.

Every registered user has a profile that can be customised to a certain degree. You can add a photo and some information about yourself. This information can be shared openly with the other users, or if you choose it can be hidden from view allowing you to control who sees what. You can also add personal files (up to 10 megabytes each) to your profile.

When you log in, you will notice that you are already a member of the JISC Casper group. This is one of a growing number of groups within the system. You may your own groups as well. Groups like profiles can be public or private giving the administrator full control over who can see what. If a group is private, all new members must be approved by the administrator before they can proceed.

As with profiles, groups can have a group picture (to indentify it from the others) and members can upload files to the group file repository. All files are encrypted on the server, so only group members can download them using the correct key. Groups also have a message board which allows you and the other members to converse on any issue you like.

Finally, once you are a member of a couple of groups, you may want to connect with other users. When you form a connection, you can see what they have been doing within the system (if you're permitted) and can follow discussions or see files they have uploaded. Connections will lead you to more users and more groups and slowly your network will grow.

To start using JISC Casper, you must first register and authorise your account. Once you are registered, you can log in from any main page or from http://jisc-casper.org/login.