Every account has a “My Favorites” lens. It’s there and you can use it or not, but you can’t delete it. All accounts can create “Member List” lenses. The creation of “Endorsement” and “Affiliation” lenses are restricted to organization accounts that are specifically authorized by the Connexions Community Developers. Organizations should contact them request instructions on establishing an organization type of account. Email them at: cnx@cnx.org

Lens creation is done in two parts:

Other than one minor difference for building “Endorsement” and “Affiliation” lenses, their construction is identical to “Member List” lenses. At the end of this module, we will cover that one minor difference with some additional instructions that pertain to “Endorsement” and “Affiliation” lenses.

Figure 1:

Figure 2: The New lens page with defaulted title

The new lens page contains the same information sections as the “Edit lens properties” tab when editing an existing lens. We are going to show you the different sections and provide instructions as needed on a lens that is already built.

Figure 3: Basic Information Section

The basic information section consists for four items:

Figure 4: Lens Branding Section

Lens branding for a “Member List” lens has only one item: Logo. Many member list lenses do not have a logo. Individuals can create a logo if they desire. Organizations usually have a logo. You can select the radio button “Replace with new image” and the “Browse” selector will become active. Click on it and browse to the location on your computer were the logo you desire to use resides. The directions indicate that your logo should be 150 by 150 pixels or smaller. Most people use either .jpg or .gif file

Figure 5: Lens Settings Section

The lens setting section consists of three items:

Figure 6: Advanced Setting Section

The advanced settings section consists for four items:

Remember to “Save” the lens when you have completed build it.

In order to add contents to a lens you must be logged in to your account. If you are not, don’t fret. The Connexions web site will automatically inform you that you need to login. After you have logged in the same content still shows and you can then add it your lens. Here is an example of adding content to a lens.

Figure 7

Remember, every account has a “My Favorites” lens and you might also have other lenses that you decide to build. In our example, we have found this item (content that is a module in the repository) on complex numbers and what to add it to the Math Materials lens.

Figure 8: Picking the Math Materials Lens

Figure 9: Adding Tags and Comments

We use tags to further focus a lens, that is to narrow the contents to items that are similar. Thus, we would want to use tags that are consistent within a lens. In the example, we used “complex-numbers” and “geometry” as tags. Note the use of a hyphenated word instead of two words.

Comments are not always added to the item as it is placed into a lens. Some lens makers comment on the quality of the materials or some special aspect of the item that would be pertinent to those using the lens.

You can add content to a lens without adding any tags or comments.

Once you click on the “Add to lens” button, the Connexions site will add the content to your lens and update the “Lenses Box”.

Figure 10: Changed Lenses Box

When you are logged into your account, you can edit any existing lens easily whenever you see the (edit) link at the end of a lenses name.

Figure 11: Lens Editing Tabs

Pick the tab necessary to either change the properties of the lens or its contents.

We suggest that you start slowly so that you can understand more fully how lenses are built and content is assigned. Perhaps it would be best to first learn how to add some content to your “My Favorites” lens. Then build a “Member List” lens (making it private) and add some content to it.

In addition to building “Member List” lenses, organizations have the ability to create lenses that appear in either the “Endorsement” or “Affiliation” lens area. Some organizations will choose to create only one “Endorsement” lens. Other will create more than one “Endorsement” lens, because they have a need to focus on many different parts of the repository. “Affiliation” lenses are used to show that the content from the repository has been created by them or by members of their organization.

The “Advanced Setting” has an additional item and the organization selects from the drop down box either: “Endorsement”, “Affiliation” or “List” (meaning a regular “Member List”).

Figure 12: Advanced Settings – for organizations – Lens Type