Yesterday, April 21, Prof. Vittorio Scarano from the University of Salerno led a workshop dedicated to NEOLink, the new platform of the NEOLAiA alliance, which was officially launched at the end of the session and is now available to the whole community. A total of 53 participants attended.
The session was very hands-on: Scarano first walked through the updates introduced following feedback collected in previous meetings. Among the most visible changes are the new Summer School category, an improved Virtual Café (now easier to use, with private groups by default), and a more immediate way to join groups via the “I’m Interested” button.
There were also important updates on notifications: group members now receive automatic emails when someone joins, and users can set up personalized alerts based on keywords. Additional improvements include a link to the publisher’s Open Research Hub profile (when available), a new share button to copy a link or scan a QR code, and smoother navigation between NEOLink events and Virtual Café groups.
The focus then shifted to the platform itself. Access is now available through university credentials, followed by an overview of the homepage and menu. Key features include creating items (with categories such as Focus Academy, BIP, COIL, Virtual Exchange Course, NEOTeach, and Summer School), browsing and filtering content, and managing notifications and alerts.
A live demo showcased the platform in action, along with the user manual available on books.neolaiacampus.eu.
The final part of the workshop was more informal, with questions and discussion. Topics included the possibility of adding new categories, support for multiple languages within the same project, and some technical issues such as handling special characters related to authentication systems.
Another interesting point is that the project is open source (hosted on GitHub), making it potentially reusable by other alliances. Looking ahead, there was even mention of a possible shared platform across multiple alliances.
The workshop concluded with the official launch: NEOLink is now live and ready to be used by the entire NEOLAiA community.
