Site gives users more independence

For the first time, AAN members can comment on posted Web site stories and upload news releases thanks to the site’s newly activated tools section.

The AAN.org Web site’s tools also offer users enhanced powers to edit their personal profiles and publication and company profiles, as well as manage news releases, help wanted ads, and staff rosters.

Access to the tools options is two-tiered. Administrators may use all the tools, while individuals can only edit their own personal profile. Administrators, however, can upgrade access for individuals who are not administrators.

The newly activated tools include the edit personal profile tool, which allows individual users to edit name, title, user name, password, home page URL, bio, mailing lists, e-mail address, and e-mail display settings.

Administrators have greatly expanded powers to manipulate the information on the Web site. These options include:

The edit company profile tool allows an administrator to edit fields such as address, phone, fax, and description, as well as all the demographic information on the member profile pages.

The manage help wanted ads tool allows administrators to create, edit and delete help wanted ads for their publication/company. Ads are presented from most recent to oldest. By default all help wanted ads expire in three weeks. However, administrators may reset expiration dates.

The manage press releases tool allows administrators to create, edit and delete news releases.

The manage staff roster tool provides full control over staff roster and staff settings. Administrators can set the preferred sequence for their staff rosters, such as putting the publisher in position one, editor in position two and so on. The default sequence is alphabetical. This tool also allows an administrator to edit the profiles of everyone on staff, change their user names and passwords, raise their access level to administrator, or remove them from the roster entirely by flagging them as ex-employees. In addition, an administrator can add names to the staff roster and create AAN.org accounts for them.

An e-mail describing how to use the various tools on the new site has been sent to every registered user of the previous site. User names and passwords are the same as for the previous site. For users who have forgotten their user name or password, or who were not registered on the old Web site and need a new registration, a password reminder and new account tool appear within the login box, in the form of “Login help, click here.” For convenience, they are also displayed whenever a login name and password fails authorization.