If you have requested to join the Community as a contributor, your account will be verified and updated with the correct permissions within 1 hour, after which you will be able to start creating content. You will receive a confirmation email when your account is ready.

After you log in to the Community, you will see a ‘Create’ button in the top right corner, which will allow you to create a piece of content:

You can also do this by selecting one of the icons from the welcome bar on the homepage:

You can create a written post by selecting ‘Post’ or a video-based post by selecting ‘Video’.

Select ‘+New Post’, on the top, right-hand side of the page. This will take you through to the post creation page. The fields marked with an asterisk (*) must be filled out before the post can be saved (i.e. title and content fields).

You will also see a number (300) in the bottom right corner of the introduction field, which indicates the character limit for the text. If the character limit is exceeded, the number will appear red and indicate how many characters over the limit you are. Your post will not save or publish if you have exceeded this limit.

Once you have filled out the compulsory fields, you will be able to save and then publish your post.

Before publishing your post, ensure that you have filled out all relevant fields on the right-hand side:

Poster image - the primary image for your post that appears at the top of the page. Including images is a great way to draw attention and promote engagement with your post

Journal - journal name (e.g. Nature Communications) - select the journal in which your paper was published

Channels - content groups (e.g. Behind the Paper) - if you are writing a Behind the Paper post then select this channel, but you may also find topical channels that relate to your work, feel free to include these too.

Rooms - not currently in use

Contributors - Here you can add any co-authors of your blog. If they are already a part of the Community, search for their name and select their profile. If they aren’t yet part of the Community, type in their email address to invite them. Once they accept the invitation they can be added as a contributor to the post.

Article link - For Behind the Paper posts this is the place to link your research article. For other types of posts, this can be used to link to anything directly relevant to your blog post.

Once you have saved your post you can then preview it by clicking on ‘Preview’ in the top right-hand corner. 

To navigate back to your post from the preview page, you can either use the back function of your browser or go to the ‘My Posts/Videos/Documents’ section of your profile, accessible through your profile drop-down menu (under your profile photo).

Once you are happy with the appearance of your post, you can either publish it immediately by clicking ‘Publish now’, or schedule it for a later date.

All your posts will appear in the ‘My Posts/Videos/Documents’ section of your profile, accessible through your profile drop-down menu (under your profile photo). From here you are also able to edit or un-publish your post if you wish to do so.