MINNESOTA DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH
Guide to Basecamp
For Local Public Health in Minnesota
September 2013
Office of Statewide Health Improvement Initiatives
Table of Contents
PURPOSE ............................................................................................................................. 2
EXPECTATIONS .................................................................................................................... 2
RULES OF ENGAGEMENT .................................................................................................... 3
GETTING STARTED .............................................................................................................. 4
SETTING UP A BASECAMP ACCOUNT.................................................................................. 5
BASECAMP MAIN PAGE ...................................................................................................... 6
DISCUSSION BOARDS .......................................................................................................... 7
ADDING & LABELING RESOURCES....................................................................................... 8
SEARCHING RESOURCES ................................................................................................... 10
CALENDAR ......................................................................................................................... 11
GETTING HELP ................................................................................................................... 12
1
PURPOSE
The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) is providing Basecamp as a platform to
facilitate peer-to-peer sharing about health improvement work in Minnesota. There are
nine forums available:
1. Physical Activity/Active Living
2. Child Care (Healthy Eating/ Active Living)
3. Worksite Wellness
4. Health Care
5. Healthy Eating
6. Tobacco-Free Environments
7. Schools
8. Foundational Skills for All
9. Grantee Orientation
Employees of local public health (LPH) agencies or tribal governments will be granted
access to the Basecamp site. MDH recognizes that some LPH agencies or tribal
governments have sub-contractors providing direct services on behalf of or in close
partnership with them. These subcontractors are also invited to join Basecamp; this
includes Office of Statewide Health Improvement Initiatives (OSHII) grantees who serve
in a technical assistance (TA) role for OSHII.
The Basecamp calendar serves as the repository of all upcoming MDH technical
assistance events. Basecamp users will access it to view events and can also add their
own events.
Access to the Basecamp site is granted by emailing your community specialist (if you are
a grantee) or emailing [email protected] (if you are not a grantee).
EXPECTATIONS
The primary purpose of this forum is peer-to-peer sharing. The breadth and depth of
the resources and discussion will depend on the active engagement of the group
members.
Role of group members
• Log in regularly
• Participate in forum discussions
• Post resources you have created or found very useful
• Update the calendar with relevant events in your area
• Follow the rules of engagement (see below)
Role of site manager
2
•
•
Manage members (issue invitations and removals)
Ensure rules of engagement are being followed (see below)
The purpose of this forum is to facilitate peer-to-peer sharing. MDH will not be
providing technical assistance using Basecamp; however, MDH will add all its
training/TA resources to Basecamp. MDH will continue to provide technical assistance
via the TA request process. MDH also will not be disseminating information only using
Basecamp. MDH will continue to use the weekly Making it Better Log and Community
Specialists for this purpose; if information from MDH is posted to Basecamp, it will
also be disseminated to grantees through one of these other channels.
RULES OF ENGAGEMENT
Note: these are from MDH “Social Media Standards” Policy.
• Strive to post only comments that are meaningful and respectful of others.
• Never post remarks that are off-topic or offensive.
• Always pause to consider your comments before posting them.
• Reply to the comments of others in a timely manner (within a day or two) or
whenever a response is appropriate.
• Do not inappropriately post proprietary information or content, or material that
violates appropriate standards of confidentiality.
• Be polite, appropriate and respectful when educating others.
MDH Staff will delete any material that is:
• Graphic, obscene, explicit, vulgar or racially offensive;
• Abusive, hateful or intended to defame anyone or any organization;
• Hate speech, name-calling and/or personal attacks;
• A solicitation or advertisement, which includes a promotion or an endorsement
for or a negative campaign against any financial, commercial or nongovernmental agency or candidate running for a political office;
• Suggesting or encouraging illegal activity;
• A copyright infringement; and
• Spam (items posted repeatedly).
LPH sub-contractors are invited to join Basecamp (this includes Office of Statewide
Health Improvement Initiatives grantees who serve in a technical assistance role). They
will be expected to:
•
•
Refrain from promotion of paid services of their organization
Avoid using Basecamp to provide direct technical assistance to other group
members; instead, these entities should work with MDH to address emerging
and immediate TA/Training issues through alternative communications
3
•
•
Contribute to Basecamp as an entity doing work at the local level
Provide personal experiences in the field and post resources/tools used
GETTING STARTED
The first step is to request access to the Basecamp site. You may do so by emailing your
community specialist (if you are a grantee) or emailing
[email protected] (if you are not a grantee).
You will receive an email invitation to join. Click on “accept this invitation to get
started”
4
SETTING UP A BASECAMP ACCOUNT
When you click on “accept this invitation to get started” you will be brought to this
page:
Enter the fields required:
• First name
• Last name
• Email address
• Password
Then click “OK, let’s go”
The Basecamp program will then send you an email with the title “Your account has
been created”. Within that email you will find your username and a link to access your
Basecamp account. Click on the link in your email.
5
BASECAMP MAIN PAGE
This is what the main page of Basecamp looks like. Click on any of the boxes to access
one of the health improvement strategy topic or setting areas.
6
DISCUSSION BOARDS
After you click on one of the health improvement strategy topic areas, you will be
brought to the project main page.
The discussion section is at the top. Click “Start a discussion” to begin a new discussion.
To contribute to an existing discussion, click on the bolded discussion title, enter your
comment and press enter.
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ADDING & LABELING RESOURCES
There are three ways to add resources:
1. Add a file
2. Create a text document (type in a comment that is longer than a discussion post)
3. Put an item on the “to-do” list
To add a file: click on “file” at the top of the project. Then select the file you wish to
share and click “upload”
To add a text document, click “Text document” at to the top of the project page. Enter
your text and click enter.
To add an item (such as a link to a terrific resource) to the to-do list, scroll down to “Todo lists” below the discussion category
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•
•
To add to an existing “To-do list”, click on the topic area, then on “add a to-do”
To start a new category, click “Add a to-do list”. Title the category and add your
resource.
Labels will be used by MDH when adding any technical assistance content to Basecamp,
using the applicable topic areas below.
Others adding content/resources (excludes comments/discussions) to Basecamp
projects are expected to also use these labels. See list below. Items added should
include two labels, one from each column (a & b).
(a) Type of File/Post:
(b) Subject:
Webinar/Recorded PowerPoint
Event
Website
Picture
Template
Policy/Legal
Fact sheet
Presentation
Draft Ordinance
Workshop/Training
Toolkit
Technical Assistance
Child Care
Healthy Eating
Active Living
Schools
Tobacco
Health Care/Clinical Systems
Worksite Wellness
Assessment-Planning-Evaluation
Health Equity
Community Engagement
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Translation
Survey
Communications
Understanding PSE
You will be given the option to add the labels as the content is uploaded.
SEARCHING RESOURCES
To search for a resource use the search box in the upper right-hand corner. It is possible
to search using the title of the item, project or label assigned to the item.
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CALENDAR
The calendar is available at the very top of every project page and the homepage.
To add a new event to the calendar, just click on a date. Enter the:
• Event title
• Event time
• Relevant health improvement strategy
Then click “add this event”
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GETTING HELP
If you need help using the Basecamp site, you may contact that Basecamp support team
by clicking on the green “Support” tab on the left side of the screen:
Basecamp also has weekly online training modules. A schedule of those trainings is
available at http://basecamp.com/classes
You may also contact your community specialist if you are a grantee.
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