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SPU SPHERE TRAINING

The information on this page is intended to prepare student leaders, especially club presidents and board members, for using the ASSP Groups feature on the ASSP website during the academic year. All questions about the ASSP Groups feature should be directed to the ASSP Officer of Student Groups or the ASSP Officer of Operations.

ADMIN PRIVILEGES

As a club president, board member, or advisor, you are awarded additional admin privileges in the SPU Sphere area. These admin functions can be used to keep a club or student group organized. 

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Here are the abilities awarded through admin privileges:

  1. Moderate group discussions.

  2. Pin important posts.

  3. Assign topics to posts.

  4. Managing club members.

  5. Creating and editing membership questions.

  6. Approving and/or rejecting member applications.

  7. Removing members.

  8. Accessing Student Leadership Training and other locked content on the ASSP site.

MONITORING CONTENT

Content Monitoring

SPU Sphere functions as a social media/community engagement platform, meaning students can make public posts and interact with other SPU students. This necessitates content monitoring to ensure the platform is being used by students properly, and that posted content maintains SPU policy expectations (i.e. not inappropriate content). If a student is using their SPU Sphere account to post inappropriate content or content that otherwise violates SPU’s community guidelines and expectations, the account should be reported to ASSP.

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Community Accountability

Although the content monitoring responsibilities fall to the club president and their board, club presidents should also encourage their club members to report accounts that are posting inapporpriate content, or content that otherwise violates the Community Guidelines. 

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Reporting Content that Violates Community Guidelines

To report inappropriate content, navigate to the student's profile and select to report them. Next, follow the prompts to inform ASSP of why you'd like to report their account. The student will not know that their account has been reported, or who reported them.

 

Once ASSP has received a report, they will contact the student about their behavior and issue a warning. Each student can receive up to 3 warnings for violating community guidelines before facing disciplinary action--in some cases, fewer warnings can be issued if the violations are considered serious. Once a student has received 3 warnings, or their violations have been considered serious enough to necessitate disciplinary action before receiving 3 warnings, their account will be suspended and they will be contacted by ASSP and the Office of Student Involvement and Leadership. In order for an account to be reinstated, the student must meet with a full-time OSIL staff member, such as the director, to discuss their behavior. If a student is reported again after their account is reinstated, their account will be removed and the student will lose the privilege to use ASSP Groups. On a case-by-case basis, some removed accounts can be reinstated after meeting with a full-time OSIL staff member, but further infractions will result in the account being permanently removed. 

MANAGING MEMBERS

Membership "Application"

Clubs and student groups have three options for how new members can join.

  1. Public group, no application.

    • Any SPU student can join the group without needing approval or answering membership questions.

  2. Public group, non-approved application

    • Any SPU student can join the group after answering membership questions. Their membership is automatically granted once they've answered the membership questions and do not need to be approved by admins. 

  3. Private group, approved application

    • Any SPU student can request to join a group and must answer the prompted membership questions. Membership requests are then reviewed by group admins and either approved or rejected based on the applicant's responses. 

 

Membership application questions submitted with a student group application will be added on your behalf, otherwise group admins can create and edit application questions at any time. 

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To create and manage questions:

  1. Go to the ASSP site and navigate to the Groups area (make sure you are logged in as an admin).

  2. Navigate to the relevant group page.

  3. Click the show more icon (three vertical dots) at the top right of the group.

  4. Click "Group Settings."

  5. Click the "Admin Tools" tab.

  6. Click "Edit" under "Membership Questions." 

  7. Manage your questions using the following options:

    • Add a new question: Click Add a Question to create a new one.

    • Edit an existing question: Click into each question's text field to edit.

    • Delete a question: Click the delete icon at the right of a question.

    • Make a question mandatory: Select the checkbox next to "Required."

  8. Click "Save."

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Reviewing Membership Requests

If your club or student group requires that SPU students apply for membership before joining, these applications will be visible on the group's profile page. The club admins will then be able to review these applications and either approve or deny memberships based on their responses. 

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To review membership question responses:

  1. Go to the ASSP site and navigate to the Groups area (make sure you are logged in as an admin).

  2. Navigate to the relevant group page.

  3. Click the Members tab. 

  4. Membership requests will appear differently based on if your student group is public or private:

  5. For public groups

    1. In public groups, a member joins automatically if there are no required membership questions. For required questions, the potential member must fill out an answer before they can join, but no further approval is needed. 

    2. Click the Show more icon (three vertical dots) to the right of the member whose questions you want to review.

    3. Click "View Answers."

    4. Review the answers in the pop-up.

    5. Click "Close" when you're finished.

  6. For private groups

    1. In private groups, the group admin must approve each new member regardless of whether the membership questions are required or optional.

    2. You will see a notification for "New Member Requests." Click the drop-down arrow at the right.

    3. Under the name of the pending member, click "Show (#) Answers."

    4. The member's answers appear in a pop-up window. Review the answers before selecting "Approve" or "Decline."

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Removing Members

As a group admin, you can also remove members who should no longer be a part of a group. Keep in mind, accounts are only permitted for enrolled students at SPU, and accounts will be removed once a student graduates, or if they have otherwise transferred or unenrolled from SPU. This means you should only need to remove members if your board has decided to revoke their membership. 

POSTS

Group admins have the ability to pin important posts to the top of their profile, and delete any posts (including posts made by other members). Admins can also add a category or topic tag to posts so that members can sort all group content by category. 

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All members of a group can create posts in the group. It is the responsibility of the group admins to monitor posts made in their group and delete and/or report any inappropriate content. 

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If your student group is hosting an event, the officer of student groups will create the event listing for you once your event has been approved by the CSC. This event listing will automatically show up on the ASSP site's event page, as well as automatically create an event post in your group. Students will be able to RSVP for events from this post, or from the event page on the ASSP site. 

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Creating a post in your SPU Sphere group can be a versatile way to communicate information to other group members, and even receive information from members.

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There are several ways to customize your post and make it more effective: 

  1. Images- Embed Images to your post along with your text

  2. Videos- Embed videos to your post along with your text. Attach a YouTube, Vimeo, or Facebook video by embedding a link, or upload your own video from your computer. 

  3. Audio (SoundCloud, Spotify, or mp4)- Add a link to either a SoundCloud or Spotify track to add it to your post, or upload an audio file from your computer

  4. GIF- Embed a GIF to your post along with your text

  5. Files- Attach files to your post (PDF, etc.)

  6. Image gallery- Attach an image gallery and add multiple pieces of media

  7. Dividers- Separate your post into sections by adding dividing lines 

  8. Embed HTML- If you're feeling fancy, you can add HTML code and completely customize your post. For some survey/form sites, this means you can embed a form directly into your post (EX: TypeForm or Jotform)

  9. Polls- Create and customize polls for your members to vote on topics

  10. Buttons- Add a button to link to other sites or forms

  11. Link social media posts- Link a post from Instagram, X (Twitter), or TikTok directly to your Sphere post

  12. Connect an Event- Embed an event listing directly to your post. This will allow members to RSVP for the event from your post. This is only possible if the event listing has already been created on the ASSP website.

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Polls

In many cases, a well-organized poll may replace the need for a form.

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To create a poll:

  1. Choose poll type – this can be changed later if you change your mind

  2. Change the poll title

  3. Change the images (if applicable)

  4. Change the voting options

    1. add more options by selecting "+Add Answer"

  5. Change the poll design by clicking the paintbrush tool

  6. Adjust the settings by clicking the setting icon

    1. Determine who can see the poll's results

    2. enable/disable the visible vote count

    3. enable/disable if members can see how other members voted

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Attaching Forms

There is not a function to create a form in SPU Sphere, however forms can be linked to Sphere posts using text links or buttons. In some cases, forms can also be directly embedded to your post using HTML (this will only be possible if your form hosting site will provide you with HTML embed code, or if you personally know HTML).

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Some of the most popular form/survey hosting sites include: Google, Microsoft, SurveyMonkey, TypeForm, and Jotform.

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NOTE: Both TypeForm and Jotform allow for HTML code embedding–they will provide you with embed code and you can copy and past the code into the HTML function in your Sphere post. Typeform limits responses to 10 submissions a month with a free account. Jotform limits free accounts to 5 active forms at a time and a total of 100 monthly form submissions.

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