Frequently Asked Questions

The Resource Community for Higher Education in Prison (RCHEP) an an interactive platform will serve as a virtual space where practitioners, students, graduates, advocates, administrators, and anyone invested in HEP can gather to share program updates, news, and resources, while also initiating and engaging in community building group discussions and blogs. This platform will also be an access point for resources ranging all the way from technical assistance to funding, and everything between!

We invite anyone interested in problem solving, community building, and collaboration among higher education in prison practitioners, students, advocates, and community members to join RCHEP! 

Yes. All users must abide by the Community Guidelines. Failure to adhere to these guidelines may result in warnings, content removal, or, in severe cases, account suspension or banning. Let's work together to create a welcoming and supportive community for all members!

1. Navigate to “My Profile”:
   After you log on to the RCHEP site, you will see a “My Home” option in the navigation menu. Under that navigation menu item, click on the “My Profile” link. 
    
2. Edit Profile Settings:
   Click “edit” to edit your profile settings. Scroll to the bottom of the profile form, and you will see a heading “Email of website recent activity” with the options “Daily,”“Semiweekly,” “Weekly,” and “Never.” By default, you will be configured for daily email digests of site activity. The daily email digest will contain any new posts since the previous email digest that you received.

1. Creating a post on the home page feed
   Add a new post on the RCHEP home page by clicking the blue button “Create a Post” that is visible near the top of the home page. The post you make from the home page is available for all to see on the home page feed. You can also have this post show up in a “group” by choosing the appropriate group(s) at the bottom of the “Create a Post” form. You do not need to add every post to a group.
    
2. Creating a post within a group
   Add a new post to a group by navigating to the Groups page, select a group, and then join the group by clicking the “Subscribe” button on the group page. After you are a member of the group, you will see a button to “Create a Post.” A post that you make within a group will appear in the feed of posts on the group page, and the post will also appear on the site home page. 

RCHEP is a public site, which means that anyone can access the homepage and will be able to see content posted there without logging in. In order to see postings and resources within RCHEP groups you must log into the site and be a member of the group. This means that post you share within groups can be commented on within your group. 

Each post on the site includes a “Report” link in its bottom-right corner that allows you to report a post that you feel violates the site community guidelines. When you report a post, an email is sent to the site administrator. They will take action to unpublish the post if necessary.

If you notice recurring violations of our Community Guidelines, please fill out our Contact Us Form.

Resources are documents uploaded by the community to provide information, guidance, tools, and assistance to RCHEP community members and the field of HEP overall. AIR with support from Ascendium Education Group has gathered resources from across the field to populate the Resource Library. RCHEP members are encouraged to add resources to the site as they find or develop them.

1. Navigate to the Resources page by clicking “Resources” in the top navigation menu. 
    
2. Click the “Share my Resource” button at the top right to open the resource sharing form.
    
3. Fill out the form with details about your resource. 
    
4. Tag your resource with the appropriate topic, audience, and type to ensure that your materials can be seen by the right folks. 
    
5. Note: Resources that are overtagged or tagged to non-relevant categories run the risk of not getting approved or getting a delayed approval.
    
6. When you click the “Save” button at the bottom of the page, an email will be sent to the site content team to notify them that you uploaded a resource. The site content team will review the resource prior to publishing it on the website to ensure it is not a duplicate of another suggested resource and that all the topic codings are appropriate.

You can report a problem with the site by submitting feedback through our Contact Us form, which can be found on this FAQ page.

A group is a password protected space within the RCHEP site where people with common interests around the topic of the group can discuss and post resources connected to ideas, events, challenges, and successes related to that topic. 

RCHEP groups include: Advocacy and Policy, Community-Based Organizations, Education: Administration and Implementation, Opportunities in the Field, Reentry, Research, and The Field of Higher Education in Prison. 

We would love to hear your ideas for new groups! To suggest a group go to the Contact Us form, mark "Suggest a Group," and provide a title and description for the potential new group. 

Trends are topics currently of pressing interest to the field of Higher Education in Prison. You will be able to search for resources and discussions that fall within the trends identified on RCHEP. 

Currently identified trends are: Accreditation, College Preparation, Employment, Equity, HEP Program Operation, Mental Health, Pathways to Campus, Pedagogy, Policy, Program Funding, Reentry, Research, STEM, Student Support, Technology, and Vocational Training. You can suggest new trends by providing feedback on our Contact Us form.

The Higher Education in Prison Listserv is a Google Group that you can join to receive direct announcements from community members. 

Check out our page about the listserv to learn about the history, guidelines, and how you can subscribe.