Community is a social media space within Scholar with some important differences - in fact, we call this a 'social knowledge' technology because it is designed for knowledge interactions, rather than connections between 'friends' or participation by 'followers'.

To get started, when you enter Scholar for the first time you are asked to create a profile, with steps shown in Setting up your Community Profile.

In Community, you can view and make updates, comment on updates, and star updates. If you make these in your profile page, the update feeds to your peers. If you make these in a community (you can only create an update if a community is unrestricted), the update feeds to all the members of that community. For a demonstration of making updates, see Introduction and Navigating Community.

You can also provide information about yourself and your knowledge experiences. If you are over 18 and not a student, you can choose from a range of privacy settings including full visibility of your knowledge profile on the web, including feeds to Facebook and Twitter. For suggestions on how to use these features of Community, view Sharing More about Yourself.

Community also supports sharing files with peers, or if the community is unrestricted, with all members of a community. For more information, see Shares and Published Works. Or, if you want to share something just with the community admin, you can use the submissions function instead of shares.

Now you are ready to interact with your peers with whom you have chosen to connect—see Peers. Or within knowledge communities—see Communities. Over 18 non-student users can also create communities—see Creating a Community.

Comment: If you have a question about Scholar, ask it in the comments box below this update. Another community member is likely to know the answer!