What is Karma?
Karma is a user-based rating system on Campus Open Course. Users are encouraged to give each other positive karma points (applause) when other users help them or provide useful information, and if necessary to give negative karma points (smite) if other users are acting inappropriately or are giving away misleading information.

The karma system is entirely user-based, meaning your rank is determined by your opinion among your peers. If you want to earn karma, help other people out—using the View New Posts feature and replying to help requests is a great way to earn karma points.

Additionally, helping to bring other people to the system raises the overall usefulness of the website, and therefore earns you automatic karma points for each member you refer. Use the Invite a Friend feature to tell your friends about the website, and once they sign up by clicking the link in the email they receive, you will earn a karma point for your help in making Campus Open Course grow!

Starting new discussions and replying to threads is a way to earn karma as well. Our forum moderators are always on the lookout for active posters, and people who engage in frequent discussions around the forums will be rewarded for their efforts.

How do I add courses?
You can add courses to your account profile by clicking the My Courses link on the sidebar, and selecting your course from the list that appears. If your course is not on the list, simply click the "Add a Course to This List" button, and add the course information. Your new course will automatically be registered in our database.

Where do I go to talk about something other than academics?
Yes, Campus Open Course is centered around academics. However, our users have spoken about the need for an open discussion forum, and we have listened. The General Discussion forum is a place where you can talk about whatever you want—school-related or not—with other students.

How do I get on the frontpage?
The frontpage of our website contains a Karma Leaders list. This list is, in essence, a miniature version of the Karma Ladder—the top ten users in terms of Karma are displayed on the Karma Leaders list. If you want to be on this list, boost your Karma by using the methods in the What is karma? section above.

The frontpage also contains a Hot Discussion list. These are simply the ten most recent discussion threads posted in the current school you have selected (if you have no school selected, they are the ten most recent discussions across all of the schools in our system). To get on this list, start a new topic in a class of your choice, and your topic will remain on the frontpage until ten newer ones are posted!

How do I help spread the word about Campus Open Course?
You can help us spread the word by using the Tell-a-Friend feature. There are many ways you can tell people about Campus Open Course using this feature—you can send out an email to your friends, post a referral URL in your Facebook profile, put a link in your AIM profile, and more.

How do I contact Campus Open Course?
You can reach us by filling out the Contact Form on our website. Or, if you know the specific department you would like to reach, you can contact it directly by selecting from the list below:

» General Inquiries
» Advertising Requests
» Press/Media Contact
» Bug Reports

Who founded Campus Open Course?
Information about who we are and what we do can be found in the About Us section.

What is boardcode?
Boardcode are special tags that will allow you to format your messages. Currently, Campus Open Course supports links, bold, italic, bold, "quoted" text, img, size, list and colored text. The tags are used as follows:

[b]Bold[/b] will produce Bold

[i]Italic[/i] will produce Italic

[u]Underline[/u] will produce Underline

[size=4]Size[/size] will produce Size

[color=#FF0000]Red[/color] will produce Red

[img=150]link to image[/img] will produce a image with a width off 150 pixels.
Please remember you can go to a maximum width of 499 pixels.

[ul][li]item 1[/li][/ul] will produce an unordered list, but please keep in mind you'll have to insert
the [li][/li] tags around the list items. See example below.