General
Questions About 2021 Changes
Communication Preferences
Contacts / Connections
Communities
Discussions
Library / Resources
General | Top
Q: What is my username/password?
A: You will use your AAAS member ID and password to login. If you have forgotten your login credentials or need assistance with your login information, click
here.
Q: How do I get to my profile in AAAS community?
A:There are two ways to get to my profile from the aaas.org/community home page. 1. In the upper right corner of the site, you will see a profile image, or a generic gray headshot. Click the image and select “profile.”
OR
2. Scroll down to Profile Card, and click on the profile image.
Q: What if I don't have a AAAS Username and Password?
A: If you are not a member of AAAS, you likely do not have a AAAS ID. You can create a free one by visiting
AAAS ID Registration.
After you enter your email and create a password, please look for an email in your inbox with a link to activate your new AAAS ID.
If you don't receive an email, you may visit https://account.aaas.org/identity/lookup to activate your account.
Once activated, you will use your AAAS ID to sign in to AAAS Member Community and visit or request to join the different communities therein.
Q: How do I update my contact information?
A: From your profile page, click the edit icon next to the demographic of your choice. This will take you to your My Profile account where you can update and manage your AAAS account. Please allow at least 20 minutes for changes made in My Profile to update in your AAAS Community Profile.
Q: How do I control what information is visible in my AAAS COMMUNITY Profile?
A: Go to your profile page and click on the “My Account” tab. Choose “Privacy Settings” from the drop-down menu. This will let you control what information is visible to whom. After you’ve made changes, click the “Save Changes” button at the bottom of the page.
Q: What is My Profile?
A: My Profile is self-service online portal, enabling Members to update and manage their AAAS account themselves; resetting passwords, updating contact and address information, joining or changing a section, and more. Any updates made in your My Profile is linked to your AAAS Community Profile.
Q: Why does my AAAS Community Profile show my old email address? I'm logged in with my new one.
A: Your new email address updated in real time. Please allow 20 minutes for data to update from My Profile to your AAAS Community Profile.
Questions about 2021 Changes | Top
Q: Why does the main member community have strict conduct rules and only allow staff-initiated threads?
A: User feedback prompted us to create a safer space for discussion, move arguments and sensitive discussions out of the main member community, and provide designated
opt-in communities for you to resume the engaging conversations you'd started in the main member community.
Q: Where can I go for the science discussions I enjoyed before the changes?
A: If your conversation was closed, or if you want to start a new discussion, you can do so in one of our
opt-in communities, or make suggestions for new threads and communities in our
feedback thread.Q: How can I make suggestions for new threads in the Main Member Community?
Q: Is AAAS concerned that these changes may look like censorship?
A: We’ve listened to user feedback and consulted with experts to determine the best way to preserve the successful aspects of AAAS community, while creating designated safe spaces for discourse, learning and networking. Anyone can start threads and comment in our designated
opt-in communities, and feedback is invited on our
feedback thread.Communication Preferences | Top
Q: How can I control the frequency and format of emails I receive?
A:
Navigate to your profile and click on the "My Account" tab. Choose "Community Notifications" from the drop-down menu. On that page, you can view and control your subscription options. For each discussion, you have the following delivery options:
- Real time: sends an email every time a new message is posted.
- Daily digest: sends one email to you each day, consolidating all of the posts from the previous day.
- Plain Text: By default, all emails sent are HTML, and we encourage you to leave it set to this if your email client can support it. However, if you are having problems viewing the HTML version or if it takes too long to open, please switch to the text version.
- No Email: allows you to be part of the group without having emails sent to you. You can still post and read others’ messages by logging into the community site.
- Consolidated Digest: Allows you to combine multiple communities into one notification email either for a weekly and/or daily delivery.
Q: What emails do I control on the Email Preferences Page?
A: The Email Preferences Page DOES NOT control the Community Digest and Community digest emails. The Email Preferences page DOES NOT control informational emails related to the AAAS Community membership benefit. You may receive some emails even after unsubscribing, because those emails are related to your membership and do not have an opt out option. The Email Preference page does help you control automated emails from AAAS Community.
Navigate to your profile and click on the "My Account" tab. Choose "Email Preferences" from the drop-down menu. The Email Preferences page explains each of the email types that you can control there. Please note that selecting "No" for Participation Emails will opt you out of the discussion thread real time notifications.
Q: How do I subscribe or unsubscribe from a discussion thread I'm following?
A: 1. From the Community page, select the discussion tab, then the discussion thread.
2. On the Discussion Thread page, select the Follow star on the far right to subscribe to thread reply notifications and deselect the Follow star to unsubscribe to reply thread notifications.
Contacts / Connections | Top
Q: How do I add a contact?
A: There are two ways to add a contact from the aaas.org/community home page.
1. At the top of the page, click "Directory"
2. Search for the person you'd like to add, and click "Find Members".
You can search based on
- First and/or last name
- Company Name
- Email address
- City
- State/Province
- Country
- Community
3. When the person populates, select ‘Add as Contact’, then ‘Send'.
4. Once you’ve completed the steps, a “contact request sent” message will appear.
5. When the person accepts your request, they’ll show in Profile -> My Connections -> Contacts.
Q: Why should I add contacts to my contact list?
A: Creating this virtual address book makes it easy to send your contacts messages through the community site to stay in touch, ask questions or even build a referral network. Additionally, when you view another member’s profile, you’ll be able to see any contacts you have in common. You can also choose to let your contacts view certain demographics in your profile that others can't.
Q: How do I view my sent connection requests?
A: On your AAAS Community Profile view your sent connection requests in the Sent Items under your "My Inbox" tab.
Q: How do I Accept Connection Requests?
A: Accept connection requests through your Profile on My Inbox > Contact Requests
Q: How do I send a direct message to an AAAS Member community contact?
A: On your Profile under My Connections > Contacts click the "Send Message" button next to the desired contact.
Communities | Top
Q: What are communities?
A: Communities allow you to participate in discussions and share resources with other members. All new members are automatically added to our Member Community and to the
Section Communities that you are a member of. Additionally, you can opt in to other subcommunities for discussions on climate change; infectious disease,
Science publications and more.
Q: What communities do I already belong to?
1. From the main page, select Communities > My Communities. The resulting page that appears is a list of the communities to which you already belong.
Q: How do I join/subscribe to a community and the affiliated discussion group?
1. On the main page, select "Communities". The dropdown that appears will show the option to see either All Communities for you to view or join or see our Opt-in Communities which we recommend you explore.
2. The Communities page shows communities to which you already belong and communities which you can join. To Join a community, select "Join" next to the Community name.
Q: How do I join a section community?
A: To join a section community, you must first join the section in your profile. This will automatically add that section to your communities. You can join up to three sections. In order to update your Section affiliations,
login and click on your AAAS Member My Profile page.
Q: Where did my section community go?
A: You may only select up to three sections. If you replace a section, you will be removed from the old section community and added into the new one.
Q: How Do I add an event?
A: Go to the community where you want to add the event, then select the Events tab and the "Add Event" button. Fill out the fields and save.
Discussions | Top
Q: How do I Browse the latest Discussion Posts?
A: You can access the latest discussion posts from the Quick Links menu on the home page by selecting "Recent Discussion Posts".
Q: How do I respond to others’ posts With a Direct message?
A: To send a message to the author only, please select “Reply Privately” (located in the “Reply” drop-down). We recommend replying to the sender for simple comments like “me, too” that add little value to the overall discussion; and replying to the entire community when you are sharing knowledge, experience or resources that others could benefit from.
Q: How do I start a new discussion thread?
A: From your Community Homepage select “ADD” (located next to “Latest Discussion Posts” heading) to post a new message to the chosen community’s Discussion.
Q: How do I edit my discussion Post?
A: To the right of your post, select the down arrow next to "Reply", then select "Edit".
Q: Where do my drafts go
A: When writing a post you can save your work as a draft to finish later. When writing a discussion post your work is auto-saved at a frequent interval, just in case of a crash or an unexpected event. However, you can manually save your message as a draft at any time by clicking the Save As Draft button at the bottom of the message editor. After saving your draft, you can access the message in the My List of Contributions option in the My Contributions tab located in your profile. The List of Contributions includes all your published content, auto-saved drafts and manually saved drafts. To view only your drafts, you can select View draft items from the filter menu. To edit your draft, click on the title to continue writing.
Q: How do I edit my discussion thread signature?
A: From your AAAS Community Profile, select the "My Account" tab, then "Discussion Signature".
On the Discussion Signature page, you can use the default template, which pulls your First Name, Last Name, Designation, Job Title, Company Name, City and State from what you've entered in My Profile. While we do encourage users to take advantage of the default discussion signature variables, users are welcome to create their own custom discussion signatures with or without the many available variables. Simply delete the variables and insert any text you want.
Selecting an available variable will add that field to your signature. To remove it, simply delete it from the Default Signature field.
Q: I’m having trouble viewing the HTML email messages. How do I fix this?
A: If images are not appearing, it is likely that your email client is set to suppress images. This should be something you can change in your security or viewing options. If you would rather receive text-based email, go to your profile page and click on the “My Account” tab. Choose "Community Notifications" from the drop-down menu. Select the “Plain Text” format option for each of the discussions you are subscribed to. Be sure to hit “Save” at the bottom of the page once you’ve made this change.
Q: Can I search for posts across all the communities?
A: Yes. Enter a keyword in the search bar. From the results page, you can filter on content type, date range or posted by.
Q: How do I see a listing of all of the posts to a specific Community?
A: Locate the community you are interested in viewing from the appropriate communities’ page. Click through the community’s landing page, then click on the “Discussions” tab. If you see a post you’re interested in, click the subject line which will take you to the entire thread. “Original Message” at the bottom of all of the posts in a thread will display the original message that started that discussion.
Q:How do I flag a comment for AAAS Staff review using the Mark as Inappropriate Feature?
1. Select the dropbdown arrow next to "Reply". Then select "Mark as Inappropriate"
Enter a note which explains why you've marked the comment as inappropriate, then submit.
Once you select "submit", the comment will disappear from the discussion thread until a staff member approves or rejects it.
Libraries / Resources | Top
Q: How do I find resources that may have been uploaded by other members?
A: If you know which library the resource might be located in, find the community on the appropriate communities’ page. Click through the community’s landing page, then click on the “Library” tab. If you do not know where the resource might be, enter search terms in the main search box the same way you might enter search terms into Google or another search engine.
Q: Can I search for specific file types?
A: Yes. From the ribbon at the top of the main page, select Browse > Library Entries. This gives you the option to narrow results according to file type- Document, Image, Video, etc.
Q: How do the libraries get populated?
A: The libraries are populated in two ways: When you include an attachment in a discussion post, the system automatically places it in the library. You can also upload documents by clicking the “Create a new library entry” on any community's library page. Library resources are not required to be associated with a discussion thread.
Q: How do I upload a file?
A: Select the Library tab on any community’s landing page. On the Library page select "Create Entry". Please note that uploading a document is done in a few steps, and each step must be completed before you can move on to the next:
- Choose a title for your document, include a description (optional), and choose an Entry Type (most will be Standard Files, but be cognizant of any copyright licensed material). Then click “Next.”
- Browse and upload your file. Click “Next” if you want to add tags to your file or click “Finish” (you may have to scroll down to access these buttons).
Q: What kind of files can I upload?
A: The system supports dozens of file types including hyperlinks, standard files (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), webinars, images and YouTube videos.