Contributing to LevelUp

Credits LevelUp Last Updated 2016-06

LevelUp relies on contributions and input from members of the training community, like you, to remain an evolving, up-to-date, and most importantly, shared resource. We welcome and encourage all users of LevelUp to contribute new training content, provide feedback or updates for current content, and participate in our ongoing localization efforts.

Core to LevelUp is an ethos of community ownership - the content on this site is your content, and it is meant to reflect your effort and experience as a member of the training community.

This site was created to provide a sustained repository of resources, created by trainers for their peers, that can continue to be used and relied on. LevelUp relies on contributions and feedback from members of the training community, like you, to remain an evolving, up-to-date, and most importantly, shared resource.

How Can I Contribute Content or Provide Feedback?

There are a few different ways you can contribute content or provide feedback on LevelUp’s growing compendium of digital security training content.

1. Submit Content or Feedback via Email

Email us at levelup@riseup.net (GPG public key here)

LevelUp is cared for by trusted members of the training community, who are dedicated to maintaining the resource and staying engaged with its users.

This resource is continually evolving, as is the community.

Send a request to join the LevelUp Mailing List at levelup-subscribe@lists.riseup.net, to stay updated with the latest on LevelUp, be informed of changes or improvements to the site, and interact with others in the training community.

2. Annotate and Discuss Content with Hypothes.is

LevelUp now uses Hypothes.is - a free and open source annotation plug-in - that allows users to comment and notetake on LevelUp content - directly on the site.

To begin using Hypothes.is, click the grey arrow in the upper right corner of any page on the LevelUp site (see image below) to expand the menu sidebar. Here, you can either log-in or sign up.

New users will need to create an account; however, the Hypothes.is team maintains extremely transparent and privacy-friendly Terms of Service.

To leave a comment, simply highlight/select the text you would like to comment on - this icon will then appear over the text:

…from which you can choose to leave a comment (Annotate) or simply Highlight the text - select an option, and the Hypothes.is tool bar will expand to display the comment editor.

To toggle your comment privacy settings between Public or Private, click on the icon, which will change to when Private is enabled. Any comment or response that you leave can be either public to all users, or private to yourself only.

In addition to leaving new comments, you can also engage in discussion with other users of LevelUp, by selecting their public comments and leaving a response.

For more in-depth details on using Hypothes.is, see our mini-tutorial and walkthrough here.

3. Submit Content as a Pull Request on GitHub

LevelUp now uses GitHub to edit and manage the content of this website.

This also means that all content can now be found, in markdown (.md) format, via the public LevelUp GitHub repository. To make using this option easier for all users, we’ve created a series of mini-tutorials which detail the process:

Using GitHub to Contribute Content»

Contribute to the community resources section of the Level Up website.

Using GitHub to Edit Existing Content»

Submit edits or updates to existing content.

Using GitHub to Add New Content Pages»

Submit new pages for module, how-tos, and other resources.

What Can I Contribute?

The content on LevelUp is varied and currently includes training session modules, how-to guides for planning events and event agendas, guidance on facilitation aids and techniques, and introductory resources on holistic security and psychosocial well-being, but is expanding to include more.

Here’s what we receive the most requests for:

New Training Modules

Your own training module for a specific topic, tool, or practice, that you’ve found useful and would like to share with other trainers.

Module Adaptations

An existing LevelUp module useful, but adapted or altered for a certain context or audience.

Module Additions

New Activity & Discussion, Input, Deepening, or Synthesis element(s) that you’d like to add to an existing module.

More Icebreakers & Energizers

Activities and games for starting trainings, building trust between participants, explaining or demonstrating technology, and re-energizing participants when energy is low.

Modules or Resources on Physical & Holistic Security

New or original content, that addresses key aspects of physical security, situational awareness, and self-care and wellbeing, which trainers can either build in their own events or use to raise their own awareness of these considerations.

Reminder: The above contains only some examples of content that we’ve received requests for; if you’d like to submit something that doesn’t fall into one of the above categories, we’re still interested in receiving it!