Team+Structure

toc =Team parts= Amara teams are collaborative platforms for subtitling videos about a given topic, or towards a given aim. They therefore have different parts, some common to all teams, some optional.

Common to all teams
The parts that are common to all teams are listed in the top navigation bar
 * Description: under the team's name. It is possible to have live URLs in the description
 * Videos: i.e. the videos assigned to the team. On the home page of the team. Viewable by all.
 * Members: On the /members subpage. Viewable by all.
 * Activity: On the /activity subpage. Viewable by all.
 * Tasks: On the /Tasks subpage. Links to My tasks - Tasks in my languages - All available tasks under Member Tools in the left navigation bar. Viewable by members (including admins and managers) of the team
 * Settings: On the /settings subpage, with various sub-subpages. Viewable and editable only by admins. More info under Team settings, below.

Optional
=Team settings= Presently, team settings can only be viewed and edited by admins. A request to make settings viewable by all has been made: people should know what they are in for before they join a team. In the present situation, admins can have an external page describing the settings and link to it in the team description. Subparts of the settings:
 * Projects: listed in the left navigation bar if there are any. Admins can create projects about specific themes. Each project has a description, a list of videos (viewable by all), a list of tasks (viewable by team members) and a settings subpage (viewable by admins) see also Team settings -> Projects below).

Team details
in the main /settings subpage:
 * Name
 * Team URL
 * Description
 * Display Settings: possibility to add a Logo/Banner picture, and to make the team publicly visible or not.

Messages
in the /settings/guidelines/ sub-subpage. Two parts: 1. For the customization of messages automatically sent to members: 2. To add team-specific guidelines in the subtitling widget:
 * When a member is invited to join the team
 * When a member applies to join the team
 * When a member is given the Manager role
 * When a member is given the Admin role
 * When transcribing (meaning: when creating the first set of subtitles in the original language)
 * When translating
 * When reviewing (for teams that have a workflow with reviewing tasks: see Tasks below)

Workflows
in the /settings/permissions/ subpage. This is possibly the most sensitive part of the Settings, with options ranging from the very open to the very hierarchical, which will directly affect captioning and subtitling. So think carefully before making choices. The Workflows subpage is divided in several sections:

Team Management

 * How can users join your team? - Open, Application, Invitation by any team member, Invitation by manager, Invitation by admin.
 * Who can add/remove videos? - Any team member, Managers and admins, Admins only.

Tasks
Manage subtitling and translation work for your videos
 * Who can create and assign tasks? - Any team member, Managers and admins, Admins only.
 * How many tasks can a user have at once? If left blank there will be no limit.
 * How many days should an assignee get to complete a task? If left blank tasks will not expire.

Note
When a task is assigned to a given person, others cannot collaborate in it. Therefore tasks should only be used in teams that only subtitle / translate their own videos.

Subtitling

 * Who can transcribe subtitles - i.e. transcribe from video and perform time-alignment - Anyone, Any team member, Managers and admins, Admins only.
 * Who can translate subtitles - i.e. translate text from an original subtitle into a new language - Anyone, Any team member, Managers and admins, Admins only.

Note
Restricting permissions for transcribing and subtitling should only be done in teams that only subtitle / translate their own videos. If a team uses videos that are not theirs, then the Anyone option should be chosen.

How your subtitles will get published
(configure below) Transcribed -> Published Anyone or.... Translated -> Published Anyone

Workflows
Workflows enable you to add moderation steps and automate tasks If you tick the Enable Workflows box, you'll see:
 * Automatically create transcription tasks - tickable box.
 * Automatically create translation tasks for preferred languages (manage languages [linked to the /settings/languages/ subpage of the team; here, see Languages below]
 * Review - Don't require review - Peer must review, Manager must review, Admin must review.
 * Approval - Don't require approval - Manager must approve, Admin must approve.

Note
The effects of automatically created transcription and translation tasks, as well as of required reviewing and approval, can be very baffling for team members and managers, and totally incomprehensible for outsiders. Therefore these features should only be used if
 * the team only subtitle and translate their own videos
 * a comprehensive and comprehensible explanation of these features and of their effects is given either in the team description or in an external text linked in this description.

Languages

 * Preferred Languages - Translation tasks will be auto-created for these languages
 * Blacklisted Languages - Will not be shown when creating or performing tasks

Note
These features should only be used in teams that only work on their own videos, as they will affect everyone.

Projects
In /settings/projects/ (For what they are, see Optional in the Team Parts of this page) When you click the Add New Project button, you are prompted to give a title and a description for the project. Project descriptions, like the general team description, can contain live URLs. So you can link to an external text giving more info. Adding videos to a project is done from the each video in the team's video list.

Note
Once you've added projects to a team, each new video assigned to the team must also be assigned to a project. So if the team allows any member to add videos, as only admins can create new projects, and the existing projects might not fit an already created project, it's a good idea to have a generic project, e.g. "uncategorized videos". =Summarizing=

How much hierarchy?
The "notes" in the Workflows section of this page should help decide how much hierarchy fits a given team, and through which settings this hierarchy should be implemented. On the one hand: on the other hand:
 * the more elaborate the preliminary concept of a team and the more knowledgeable about Amara teams foreseen admins, the more hierarchical a team can be
 * the greater the numbers of foreseen videos to be captioned and of likely participants, the more a hierarchical structure for the team might perhaps be advisable
 * when a team gets started from a good but yet unstructured concept and when people starting it are not yet fully familiar with Amara teams, it is safer to set it as openly as possible, lest features like task assigning, workflows and language preferences create hurdles
 * when the numbers of foreseen videos to be captioned and of likely participants are not known, it is not advisable to have a strongly hierarchical structure for the team: having workflows, task assignments, projects etc. does not make sense when a team starts with few members and few videos.
 * hierarchical features can always be implemented later if the growth of the team - in participants and videos - justifies it, and if the admins and managers have acquired sufficient knowledge of the workings of Amara teams.

Information
While some information can be given in the descriptions of both a team and of its projects, it may be or become a good idea to have outside pages with more detailed info, linked in these descriptions, especially for more complex teams. See "User Guide: []" in the description of the Amara [|TED team].

Communication
Amara messaging within teams is top-down: only admins can message all team members, and that's not something that can be changed in the team settings. Usually, this is not a problem: team members mainly need to communicate with each other about given subtitles in given videos, and they can do that using the comment feature of those subtitles or of the video page. Nevertheless, in some cases, it may be useful to set up another, horizontal communication channel, e.g. a group (yahoo, google...) and link to it in the team's description. =Disclaimer= This page is not an official Amara document: only some observations made so far by me as an Amara team user. Claude Almansi claude.almansi@gmail.com =Short URL for this page= http://bit.ly/amara-team-structure =Back to= Amara Teams.