1. Search.  In the search box at the top of the page, enter a name or a topic. Try:

technology
your name
tobacco

Personos search returns both articles and people. You can click on a person’s image to see her profile, or click on an article’s title to read it.

The articles returned are not, in general, from USF’s site (www.usfca.edu), but are articles from the web that have been posted to the live directory. In this sense, the live directory provides an expanded and growing database for USF-specific search.

2. Add some articles to your profile.

Once you are logged in to the system, the next step is to post links to some of your own publications and accomplishments.

The easiest way to add articles is with the peoplemark browser button. This is a special button you can add to your browser bar. Then, when you are surfing the web and see an article you like, you click on the peoplemark button to add the article to the USF live directory.

You may have already setup the browser button when you first logged in. If not,  click on Help → buttons in the top-right menu and follow the instructions.

After dragging the browser button into your browser bar, find an article on the web that you’d like added to your profile, then click on the peoplemark button. A form will appear displaying the url and title of the article. If your name is in the article, the form will automatically tag you as being associated to the article.  If it doesn’t, you can add yourself by opening the people palette, finding yourself, and dragging your picture into the people association area. Tagging yourself or another person to an article causes it to appear on that person’s profile page.

You can also “tag” the article into a collection. Collections are organizations or topics. You can choose an existing collection or create a new one with which to tag the article.

There’s an alternative way to add articles instead of using the peoplemark browser button. You can open a Personos page, then find an article in another browser window. Then just drag the url of the article into the drop zone found to the right of articles header on the Personos page.

4. Add a collection

For an example, check out the collection for computer science alums.

To add your own collection, click on the Contribute → Collection menu item in the top-left menu and enter the name of the collection you want to add. You can also specify a homepage and a short description for the collection. Note that collections need not be a department or formal organization, but can be based on an interdisciplinary area or general topic.

6. Add yourself to a collection.

Go to your profile and click on the add button near the Collections header in the right column. Then enter the name of the collection for which you want to be a part and select add.