Gateway to 21st Century Skills

Submission Procedure

Only GEM Consortium members can submit news items to GEM. News items and featured collections submissions are reviewed and edited by GEM administrative staff before publication. Because of the large number received by GEM, only a select few can be published at any one time. We apologize in advance if your submission does not make the News.

The following steps apply to both News and Featured Collection submissions. Consortium members will need a user name and password to submit news and featured collection items. If you do not have one, contact geminfo@geminfo.org.

Helpful Hints

Both Gateway News and Featured Collection are intended to provide educators with useful information regarding upcoming events and services provided by Consortium members. The metadata elements noted below are used in various combinations throughout the GEM Web site:

• Title & Teaser appear alone together on the GEM homepage in the right hand Gateway News and Featured Collections windows.
• Title & Description appear alone together in the Web site's reverse chronological listing of all News and Featured Collection articles under the News tab.
• Title & Body appear alone together in the Web site's full News and Featured Collection articles.

Since Teaser, Description, and Body never appear together and, in each of the three publication contexts must "carry the story", repetition is useful and advised. Since they appear together on the input screen, authors may be tempted to avoid repetition that will be useful when the various components are published separately.

Logging In

1. Click on the "consortium" tab across the top or the "consortium" link in the left hand navigation box.
2. The "my gateway log in box" is displayed on the left under the "navigation" box.
3. Enter your user name and password and click the "log in" button.
4. Click on the "my folder" link in the upper right hand corner to go to your personal workspace.
5. In the drop down box labeled "select", choose "Gem News".
6. Click the "add new item" button.

Filling in the Submission Form

1. Fill in the following fields:
   • Id (a short acronym of the news item used by the system as part of the news item's Web address. The acronym should not contain spaces, Underscores and mixed case are acceptable(e.g., "FluStrikes")
   • Title (required, this is the headline of the news and appears throughout the Gateway where your news item appears)
   • News audience (select "Consortium News" or "Featured Collection" if the news is about a specific collection of educational resources)
   • Description (enter a brief description (maximum one paragraph) of the news item this short description appears along with the title in the index of news items)
   • Teaser (a single sentence description that captures the essence of the news item that will be displayed on the Gateway homepage along with the headline. Please keep the teaser to no more than 60 characters)
   • Body (this is where the full text of the news item should be typed. Include carriage returns for paragraphs or feel free to use well-formed HTML.)
2. Select the "text format" pull down menu (select "text/plain" or "text/html" if you included HTML markup).
3. To add a thumbnail image, click the Browse button to select an image. Use GIF or JPG images only. They should be no larger than 200 pixels in their widest dimension.
4. Click the "save" button.
5. The system will display the news item in the view state. If you receive an error message, see Editing and Error Messages instructions below.
6. Click the "state" link in the upper right hand corner.
7. Change the state from "visible" to "submit".

Editing and Error Messages

If there are textual corrections needing to be made or the system returns an error message, edit and save again. If, upon saving after editing, the system continues to return an error message, do not proceed. Contact geminfo@geminfo.org for assistance in submission.

Thumb nail image: Use gif or jpeg images only.

Image Sizes & Formats

Relevant images greatly enhance News & Featured Collection articles. GIF or JPG images submitted for News & Featured Collection publication should be no larger than 200 pixels in their widest dimension.