Technical Notes for Cluster Curators

This page contains basic instructions for curating a cluster on The New Everyday. To become a Cluster Curator, please submit a proposal to the managing editors at tne@mediacommons.futureofthebook.org. If your proposal is approved, you will be granted “Cluster Curator” status. To learn more about what we do and what we're looking for, see About.

Creating a Cluster

We recommend that you create your cluster before contacting your contributors, i.e. as early as possible in the process. In the meantime, you can encourage your contributors to create MediaCommons accounts, if they don't have accounts alraedy.

To begin: log in and click on the "Contribute" link at the top right. If you have been designated a “Cluster Curator” by the Managing Editor, you should see a link to “Create a New Cluster.” This link will take you to a blank cluster form. 

Enter a title for your cluster. Try to keep it reasonably short - your description, tags, and emblem will help readers understand what your cluster is about.

Next, choose an image or video to appear on your cluster's home page.

For video: If you haven't already done so, upload the video to a service like YouTube or Vimeo. Enter the embed link into the “video embed link” field, and then choose an accompanying image file.

For an image: in the “image” box, choose a file from your computer to upload, and click “upload.”

After the image is uploaded, you'll be given a few more fields to fill out.  Just follow the instructions below each field if you need assistance.

Next, provide a description for your cluster. Your description should be 100 words or fewer. Think of this as a brief preview or abstract. If you’d like to offer a longer introduction, we recommend that you contribute a separate introductory piece (see “Notes for Contributors” for a how-to on contributing a piece). Eventually, you should ensure that it appears first in your list of contributions on the cluster entry page.

Then, provide a start and end date for your cluster. These dates establish the recommended window during which TNE visitors should expect active conversation to take place around your cluster’s pieces. We recommend that the commenting period remain open for at least two weeks. The start date does not determine when your cluster “goes live,” nor does the end date automatically disable commenting.

In the contributors section, type the names of people who you'd like to authorize as contributors to the cluster. People you add here will be able to submit their contributions directly to your cluster. Anyone registered in the MediaCommons network can be contributors. Only authorized contributors will be able to indicate that their work is part of your cluster.

Pieces that have been submitted by your authorized contributors will automatically appear in your contributed pieces list. You can attach additional pieces to your cluster by typing in the name of the piece in the field, or by clicking on the magnifying glass icon and choosing from among all TNE’s contributed pieces. [You are welcome to “recycle” pieces contributed independently or to other clusters; try opening another window and searching the site to see what’s available, then add your chosen contributions – by either typing in the piece’s title or searching for it with the magnifying glass icon – in the “Contributed Pieces” pane of the “Create Cluster” page.

Once all the pieces have been added, you can control the order in which they appear on the home page by dragging them up and down in the list using the little cross icon to the left of the title.

Finally, add tags describe what your cluster is about. This is important. Please provide at least three tags.

Most importantly, Click save and wait for confirmation. If you have any technical problems contact admin@mediacommons.futureofthebook.org.

Publication Status: 
Published