Project Membership

Member Types

Project teams can be comprised of the following types of members:
  • Coach: All projects must have at least one Coach, who acts as the primary facilitator. The teacher who originally created a project is automatically a Coach; this teacher can also assign additional teacher members to act as Coaches. Coaches have special privileges, including the ability to edit project settings, approve most types of membership requests, invite teachers to join, and remove any member from the project.
  • Teacher member: Teachers who are not acting in the role of Coach are known as teacher members.
  • Student member: Students are known as student members. For safety reasons, a student cannot join a project unless there is at least one Coach or teacher member from his/her own school.

The Coach sets the membership type for a project:
  • Open Membership: Anyone in the ThinkQuest Projects community can request to join the project. Note that students who are not enrolled at the Coach's school can only join a project if a teacher from their own school joins too. For example, if a student at School #1 wants to join a project created by a Coach at School #2, he must request that a teacher from School #1 join the project along with him.
  • Closed Membership: Project membership is limited to teachers invited by the Coach and students assigned by the Coach or teacher members.

Coaches can change the membership type at any time by editing project settings.

Assign Students to a Project

Coaches and teachers can only assign students from their own schools to a project.

To assign students to a project:

  1. Go to any page of the project.
  2. Click Members in the menu on the left.
  3. Click Assign Students.
  1. Click the + button next to the student(s).
  1. Click the Done button at the bottom of the page.

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Invite Teachers to Join a Project

Only Coaches can invite other teachers to join a project.

To invite a teacher:
  1. Go to any page of the project.
  2. Click Members in the menu on the left.
  3. Click Invite Teachers.
  1. Locate the teacher:
    • A list of teachers in your school is displayed by default
    • To locate teachers in other schools, click the Change School link at the top of the page and navigate by country, region, and school.
    • To search for a teacher by name or school name, enter the name in the search field at the top of the page and click the magnifying glass icon.
  2. Click the + button next to the teacher(s). (If you used the search field to locate a teacher, click the teacher's name and proceed to step #7 below.)
  3. Click the Continue button at the bottom of the page.

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  1. Write a brief invitation message.
  2. Click the Send Invitation button. The message will be sent to the invited teacher.
  1. You will receive a message when the teacher accepts or declines your invitation. Teachers who accept become members of the project and can assign students from their own schools to the project.

Upgrade a Teacher into a Coach

Coaches can upgrade any teacher member to a Coach. Conversely, Coaches can also remove Coach privileges from a member, reverting him/her to a teacher member.

If you are a Coach, you can change your own status to become a teacher member only if the project has at least one other Coach.

To upgrade a teacher member to a Coach:
  1. Go to any page of the project.
  2. Click Members in the menu on the left.
  3. Check the "Coaches" box next to the teacher member.

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  1. Click the Submit button.

To remove Coach privileges from a member:
  1. Go to any page of the project.
  2. Click Members in the menu on the left.
  3. Uncheck the "Coaches" box next to the member.
  4. Click the Submit button.

Remove Members from a Project

Coaches can remove any teacher or student member from a project. Teacher members can only remove students from their own school from a project.

When a member is removed from a project, all of that member's project content will remain unless it is manually deleted.

To remove a member from a project:
  1. Go to any page of the project.
  2. Click Members in the menu on the left.
  3. Click the X button next to the member.

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  1. Click Remove in the pop-up window to confirm permanent removal from the project.

Accept or Decline Requests to Join a Project

If a project has Open Membership, anyone in the ThinkQuest Projects community can request to join. However, there are restrictions on who can accept or decline these requests:
  • If a teacher requests to join, any Coach can accept or decline the request.
  • If a student requests to join and there is already a teacher in the project from his/her own school, only that teacher can accept or decline the student's request.
  • If a student requests to join and there are no existing teachers in the project from his/her own school, the student must first request that a teacher from his/her own school join too:
    • If the teacher has not yet agreed to join with the student, the request will be marked as "Pending Approval." In the meantime, any Coach can decline the request, but cannot yet accept it.
    • If the teacher has agreed to join with the student, any Coach can accept or decline the request. If the request is accepted, both the teacher and student become members.

To accept or decline requests:
  1. If there are requests to join one of your projects, you will receive a message. Click the Review Requests button in the message. (You can also view requests by going to any page of the project, clicking Members, and looking at the Requests list on the right side of the page.) Remember, if your project does not have Open Membership, there will be no membership requests.

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  1. Click the "Accept" or "Decline" link under each request.
  2. The requester will receive a message confirming whether you accepted or declined the request.

Send a Message to Project Members

Coaches and teacher members can send a message to all project members.

To send a message to all project members:

  1. Go to any page of the project.
  2. Click Send a Message to Members in the menu on the left.

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  1. Enter a subject, message, and link (optional).
  2. Choose when the message should expire.
  3. Click the Send button.

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Leave a Project

Any member of a project can leave the project at any time. However, please note the following restrictions and results:
  • If you are a Coach, you can only leave if the project has at least one other Coach.
  • If you are the only teacher from your school in a project, all students from your school will automatically be removed from the project if you leave.
  • If you leave a project, all of your project content will remain unless it is manually deleted. If you want to delete the content yourself, make sure you do so before you leave the project. Otherwise, a remaining Coach or teacher member can delete the content after you leave.

To leave a project:
  1. Go to any page of the project.
  2. Click Members in the menu on the left.
  3. Click the Leave Project button.
  4. Click Leave in the pop-up window to confirm that you want to leave the project.