eTwinning Groups are virtual places where eTwinners with similar interests can meet and work together. Groups are organised by specific subjects or areas of interest.

In the eTwinning Group’s page, eTwinners can browse and search for the Groups created by other eTwinners. Groups can be joined, depending on the settings defined by the administrators, by:

     ● all European School Education Platform registered users

     ● only eTwinners

     ● invited people only.

To access Groups, click on the menu which opens by clicking on users’ name on the top right bar and then select “My Groups” (4).

This is the “cover” of the project’s TwinSpace or Group and contains relevant information. Part of it is publicly visible by default: the name and description of the TwinSpace and Group and the updates from users, including the names of the members who posted the comments.  Project’s administrators and moderators can change the title and the description of the TwinSpace (or Group) by clicking the “Edit TwinSpace/Group” button on the right. These changes will not affect the project’s details such as the project title and description.

The Homepage is also the place where project updates are shared by teachers and commented by all other members, including pupils. Teachers can use the “Teacher Bulletin” to plan their activities, share ideas and organise meetings. The Teacher Bulletin is not available on Groups, it is not visible to pupils and it’s restricted to TwinSpace members.

From the Homepage members can:

     1. See what other partners posted in the Teacher Bulletin (only on TwinSpaces) and create posts.

     2. Use quick links to:

          ● go to the chat room

          ● create online meetings

          ● create discussions

     3. View which TwinSpace or Group members are online

     4. Read the updates and add a new update.

The latest updates feed on the homepage show:

     ● the posts published by all users in the project’s TwinSpace (or Groups). Posts can be liked, commented and pinned (comments remain on top of the feed).

     ● the actions that users have carried out in the TwinSpace (or Groups). They are automatically generated by the system.

Please note

The "Updates” of the Homepage are public and can be seen by anyone on the Internet at the same URL of the Homepage. However, only users’ posts are visible (no comments, no likes), whereas users’ names redirect to their profiles only if publicly available on the European School Education Platform.

TwinSpaces and Groups are both a collaborative space and a small website. As all content on the Internet, copyright and personal data protection are important factors to consider.

When publishing content, members must ensure that:

     1. If they are embedding a short video-clip or uploading a picture, which include materials from third parties like sound, music, voice or photos, they must make sure that the providers/owners of the content have given their consent or written approval for the use of the video/photo.

     2. Anyone appearing in the video/photo has given their clear consent to their picture, image or sound being used in the video/photo.

     3. Any personal data (name, email address, home address, picture etc.) of students are handled or processed in accordance with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation.

More specifically:

     ● When it comes to students’ photos, we advise the use of avatars (an icon or figure representing a person). If teachers decide not to use avatars but students’ real photos, teachers must have the consent both of their students and of their students’ guardians.

     ● Watermarking the photos is an additional way to protect students’ pictures. Watermarked pictures cannot be copied and used for other purposes, apart from the website where they were initially intended to be published.

     ● Users should not publish any postal addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses, even if such content is visible only in the restricted part of the TwinSpace.

     ● Users should avoid posting information which may easily lead to the identification of a person, especially if this person is a minor (below 16 years old). If this is part of your activities, do not make this information publicly available.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) foresees a parental consent requirement for all people under 16 years old in situations where digital services are offered directly to them; consent is the legitimation ground that is relied upon. However, Member States may choose to deviate and decide to lower the age threshold to 15, 14, or 13 years. To find out the laws regarding consent in your country read this article here.

TwinSpaces and Groups’ pages may show the process, content and results of members’ work. Pages can be private (only available to the members of the TwinSpace/Group) or made public and therefore available on the internet for promotion and dissemination purposes.

To create a new page, click the “Pages” tab in the middle bar and then the button “Create a page”. As soon as a page is created, its “Visibility” (who can see the page) and “Permissions” (who can work on the page) can be defined via the sidebar on the right side of the page.

Pages may include: 

     ● content: text – images – videos.  (see more below)

     ● a poll: ask about people’s thoughts on a particular topic or try to find the most suitable time to plan a meeting 

     ● a TwinBoard: an interactive board where you can post text, images, or embed videos (temporarily not available)

In addition, administrators can add a Discussion (which will be hosted in the Forum section but linked from the page).

Please note

     ● Pages are created by administrators who decide who can view and edit them via the boxes “Visibility” and “Permissions”

     ● Pages are created as “draft” by default and are only visible to administrators. To make them more widely visible use the box “Visibility”.

     ● If the visibility of the page is set to “Everyone on the internet”, it will be visible to everyone also for non-registered people (it can also be visible from search engines like Google).

     ● Pages can be reordered via the “More options” button on the right. Click on this icon and follow the instructions on the pages. A page can also become a subpage of another. You can have as many pages and subpages as you need, but only two levels are allowed (pages and subpages. You cannot have subpages of subpages).

     ● Pages cannot be deleted completely. If members do not want a page to appear in the TwinSpace, the page can be archived it by going to “Page options” and clicking on “Archive page”. Pages can be restored at any moment by administrators (“Restore page”).  Only administrators can see pages once they are archived. 

     ● Administrators can change the order of the three elements of the page (content, poll, TwinBoard): drag and drop the arrows next to the type of content title.

     ● In the pages, members can add directly materials like pictures and files. These are automatically saved in the section “Materials”.

This function allows users working on a specific content page to go back and see the changes performed by their partners.  To access the different versions, click “Edit page” and scroll down on “Version history” where the list of all the previous versions are displayed. To restore a specific version, click on the selected one and a new page with the preview of the restored page opens. If this version is fine, click on “Restore this version”.

In the editing interface of a page, users can add different types of content, which can be moved around the page and reorganised simply by dragging and dropping them through the small arrows on the left side.

The content types are:

     ● “Text content”, which allows you to add a box including text and images. Images can be added by dragging and dropping them into the editor or by selecting the icon “Insert from Media Library” in the editor.

     ● “Poll” allows you to add simple polls to the page with:

          ○ Multiple choices

          ○ Single question

          ○ Ranked choice

          ○ Open-ended questions

     ● A “TwinBoard” allows members of the TwinSpace to share ideas (temporarily not available)

The content block, poll and the TwinBoard are independent and can be moved around the page:  click on “Edit page” and drag&drop the small arrows to move the elements up or down in the page structure. 

This is the repository of the TwinSpace/Group. Videos from Daily Motion, YouTube and Vimeo can be embedded. Video files can be shared as well, but limited to 100MB.

     ● All files, pictures and video embedded in a TwinSpace’s page are available in the Materials section. If they are deleted from here, they will also be deleted from the page.

     ● When uploading pictures and files, do not forget to check if you are allowed: do you have the copyright? Do you have the permission of the people depicted? 

 Add and Delete pictures

     ● Image’s title and description can be edited.

     ● When hovering over images, three icons allow to delete/sort/edit the pictures.

     ● All images will remain in the main folder. Pictures can be organised via albums.

Please note:

     ● Pictures can be added either by dragging the picture or uploading it from a local computer. Once it is uploaded can click on “Submit”.

          ○ The maximum size of each photo is 10 MB.

          ○ TwinSpace’s users can add up to 10 photos at once, in the following formats: JPG, GIF, PNG, JPEG.

Videos:

     ● Videos can be organised in folders.

     ● To share a video, there are two options:

          1. click on upload and upload a link of a video from DailyMotion, Vimeo or YouTube

          2. upload a video up to 100MB from your device. Users can add only one video at a time.

     ● The maximum duration of a video is 1 hour. Videos must be in MP4, OGG, WEBM, MOV.

Files

     ● This section works like the ‘images’ section, except that:

          ○ Files can be 100MB maximum

          ○ Users can add up to 15 files.

          ○ Files must be in the following formats: avi, ai, aiff, dbf, dif, doc, docx, eps, epub, flac, key, mp3, mp4, mov, mpg, mpeg, numbers, odg, odp, ods, odt, otp, ots, ott, pages, pdf, ppt, pptx, rar, sda, sdd, sdc, sdw, sjr, stc, sti, stw, svg, sxc, sxi, sxw, txt, vor, wav, wma, wmv, xls, xlsx, zip

     ● Files can be organised in folders.

This is where members of the TwinSpace communicate, collaborate and exchange. A forum may contain as many discussions as needed and each discussion as many threads as needed. All members can post a message (embedding photos/videos/files if needed) in existing threads, but only administrators can create new discussions and threads.

Teacher administrators manage the forum. To do this, go to “Forum” and create a discussion by clicking “New discussion”. Once a “discussion” is created, threads can also be created (click “New thread”). Everybody can reply to threads by writing in the box and then clicking on “Post comment”.

The Forum section contains discussions, each of which contains one or more threads composed of messages and replies. The homepage of the section shows the latest updated threads and the user’s latest posts. Discussions created in specific pages are displayed as threads in the section under “Page discussion”. These threads are created automatically when users add a discussion to a page.

Users can edit or delete their thread by clicking the three dots on the right side of it.

Please note

     ● Discussions can be archived: sometimes it’s handy to make some room for new ones

     ● Teachers can subscribe to threads: when a new message is posted, they will receive a notification. 

This is where members meet, in real time, with other members of the TwinSpace or Group.

     ● The online meeting is a video/conferencing session that administrators can set up at any time. All scheduled online meetings are visible in the ‘online meetings’ page.

     ● To create a Meeting, click on “Create Meeting” and then complete the information: Title, Description, Number of Participants, Allow recording or not, Duration and Date. Then click on Search Slot to indicate when the session will take place and click on Save.

     ● When the time arrives, join the online meeting by clicking on the link visible in the ‘Online Meetings’ page and follow the instructions.

     ● The chatroom of the TwinSpace/Group is available to all teacher members and allows them to exchange text messages. Partners may decide to meet at a specific time and start chatting.

          ○ All the members of a TwinSpace/Group can enter the chatroom by simply clicking on the Chat icon on the ‘Online meetings’ page. When more members have joined, they can participate in online activities or discuss and share ideas. Teacher administrators can access the chat history from the chat page.

Please note:

     ● For safety reasons, pupils can only use the chatroom with their individual accounts. They can, however, participate as part of a classroom, under the supervision of their teacher(s), who will be the ones taking part in the video conferencing session.

TwinSpace and Groups’ content is only available to its members, unless published (in the form of pages) on the Internet. The members section allows to view, invite and manage the members of the TwinSpace/Group (to manage members of a projects, see the ‘Project’ section in the eTwinning area).

Members of a project are automatically members of its TwinSpace. Other users can be in invited to the TwinSpace directly from this section, but such users will not automatically become members of the project unless they are contacts and available for eTwinning project. So, a pop-up will ask if they want to add the member only to the TwinSpace or also as a project member).

Administrators can:

     ● Invite members to the TwinSpace as teachers, pupils, and other users

     ● Export pupils' details from the members page. In case pupils’ password is forgotten, it can be reset by the teacher who invited them.

     ● Change members’ permissions (what they can and cannot do in the TwinSpace)

     ● Find the member and select the drop down that displays their role. Roles are:

          ○ Administrator - can edit and delete everything

          ○ Members - can only edit and delete their own content and their pupils’ content

          ○ Pupil - can view and add comments in users’ updates, add images and videos and can only view pages.

          ○ Pupil administrator – They have the same permissions as pupils but they can also add user updates and add/edit pages.

          ○ Expert – can only participate in activities, including online meetings, but cannot modify the main elements of the TwinSpace or invite new members.

          ○ Observer - can see content within a TwinSpace - but can edit only if given the right to edit

All the members can see and search for the other members’ profile pages and get in contact with them.

For more information about the Groups’ roles, see later in this page.

Adding pupils to the TwinSpace

Teachers have three options to add pupils to the TwinSpace: add new pupils manually, add existing pupils, or import pupils from a csv file.

     ● Add new pupils manually: teachers can add their pupils, one by one, creating one pupil account for each of them. Teachers can add the pupils’ first name, last name, a password (they can also use random password generated by the platform) and choose the role they want to assign to each pupil (Pupil Administrator or Pupil).

     ● Add existing pupils: these refers to pupils who have already an account for other TwinSpaces. Teachers can add the pupils’ username and the role they would like to assign to each pupil

     ● Import pupils: teachers can import a list of students by uploading a .csv file. A template can be downloaded by the import pupil’s page where teachers can add the pupils’ first name, last name, username, password and role.

Please note:

     ● For safety reasons, pupils’ password cards (a pdf with the pupils’ login information, username and password, which can be cut and given to pupils) can be downloaded only once at the end of the ‘add pupils’ process. In case pupils forget their password, teachers can create a new one from the members’ page.

     ● Teachers can export the list of pupils in an excel file which includes name, surname and username.

     ● The system will verify whether a pupil with the same name and surname exists already in order to create a unique account for each of them.

     ● The URL for pupils’ login is school-education.ec.europa.eu/pupil-login

The TwinSpace can be accessed by any browser which is newer than two years. No specific technical requirements are needed. For video-conferencing sessions, other devices (camera, microphone) are needed.

The complexity and richness of some pages suggest avoiding working on a TwinSpace from a mobile device.

TwinSpace and eTwinning Groups are safe:

     ● Content published in pages is restricted to its members by default. If pages are made public, administrators are informed of the consequences. Users should not forget, however, that the updates in the homepage (including the embedded materials) are always public.

     ● TwinSpace members are warned whenever their action may have an impact on copyright and data protection issues.

     ● Content embedded in pages can include both materials hosted in the TwinSpace (files, videos, images) and other content hosted elsewhere (videos, websites displayed via iFrames). The TwinSpace will only host content for which members have declared they own the copyright and permission to use it. Embedding content of other services/tools is subject to the copyright of the hosting services used. Source code cannot be embedded in pages as it may include malware, snippets or content for which users have no permission.

     ● Pupils participating in the TwinSpace only need a username and a password set up by their teachers. This is to avoid the risk that such email addresses can be misused, even if unintentionally. 

eTwinning Groups are virtual places where eTwinners with the same interests meet and collaborate. Groups are organised by specific subjects or areas of interest. Most tools are common to the Twinspace.

The main differences are:

     ● The Teacher Bulletin is available only in TwinSpaces.

     ● Members –there are a few differences in the roles:

          ○ TwinSpaces: Teacher (administrator or member), Pupil (administrator or member), Expert and Observer

          ○ Groups:

               ◆ Administrator(can edit and delete everything)

               ◆ Member(can only edit and delete their own content)

               ◆ Moderator (have the same permissions as Administrators, but they are European School Education Platform registered users)

               ◆ Expert (can only participate in activities, including online meetings, but cannot modify the main elements of the Group or invite new members). Groups may host experts to run, for instance, online workshops via online meetings.

In the TwinSpace you can work with your students, your project partners, and their students. The content of your TwinSpace is by default restricted to the members of your project. All content will remain private to you and your colleagues unless otherwise decided. 

For example, when you set up pages on the TwinSpace, and you wish to create a page through which you will demonstrate publicly your work, you have the option to do so. 

The pages settings allow you to set the visibility of your pages to:

     ● Just you and the admins of the TwinSpace. This option will make the page visible only to you, the creator of the page, and the administrators of the TwinSpace.

     ● Everyone on the internet (public). This option will make the page visible to everybody. Caution is required. You need to refrain from disclosing personal information not only of your project partners but most importantly of your students. 

     ● TwinSpace members. This option will make the page visible to all members of the TwinSpace including students. 

In general, we advise you to refrain from disclosing private information of your students. When adding pupils and students to your TwinSpace, it is essential to inform parents about the work you are doing with their children, and to ask for their consent in case personal data are going to be shared.

The following notification on the platform informs eTwinners that, whenever they invite their students and their personal data are going to be shared, they need to obtain a consent from the parents. In many cases, parents have already such consent for all schools’ activities, but you may want to be sure.

“I declare that I have collected the prior, specific and informed consent in writing from the minor entitled to give consent or from the holder of parental responsibility over the child in line with the regulation, also that you have provided a copy of the privacy statement. All this in line with the Data Protection regulation 2018/1725 for the processing of personal data of these pupils by the platform’s controller for the purpose of offering them the use of the Twinspace service and in line with the privacy statement. I have retained proof of consent, and upon request of the platforms controller, I will make such proof available for verification.”

Parents are most welcome to see what activities are going on in the TwinSpace: create a visitor account and share it with them. It is also important to agree with your eTwinning partner(s) that all photos which show personal information (for instance pupil’s faces) will remain visible only for the TwinSpace’s members. No other use should be permitted unless there is an explicit consent from parents.

In case you and your partner decide to make paged of your TwinSpace public: 

     ● Avoid exposing personal data of your students and make sure they cannot be identified. 

     ● Do not disclose personal data of anyone 

For further information, have a look at the eTwinning code of conduct.

Copyright protects your published or unpublished work from unauthorized duplication without due credit and compensation. Copyright covers not only books but also advertisements, articles, graphic designs, labels, letters (including emails), lyrics, maps, musical compositions, product designs, etc. 

Creative Commons copyright licenses and tools give everyone from individual creators to large companies and institutions a simple, standardised way to grant copyright permissions to their creative work. All Creative Commons licenses have many important features in common. Every license helps creators — we call them licensors if they use our tools — retain copyright while allowing others to copy, distribute, and make some uses of their work — at least non-commercially.  

Every Creative Commons license also ensures licensors get the credit for their work they deserve. 

The European School Education Platform uses a Creative commons license with the following prescriptions: everyone can reuse materials non-commercially, provided the source is acknowledged. You can use only free for commercial use photos. 

To read more about copyright read the copyright notice on the European Commission Website.