The Participate mode enables you to contribute software features and design principles and to connect them with other features and principles already in the database.
This mode requires registration and log-in.

Working as individuals
To participate in the DPD you will be required to be part of a group. A default group, which you will automatically be registered to, is the “Individual Users” group. Any entry made in as an individual user will require review of the Editorial Board before publishing.

Working in groups
If you would like to work in a group (course, workshop, seminar etc.) to contribute to the DPD – please contact the Editorial Board we’re happy to open a private group for you, in which you’ll be able to share features and principles in progress, without publishing them in the public area. An editor will need to be assigned to the group (this could be any member of your group, or one of us), who would be able to export any feature or principle to the public area later.

Working in teams within groups
After registration to any of the groups (including the Individual Users), you will be able to create a team to work in. A team is a collaboration between members of a group who are working together on the same entries. For instance, if Yael Kali and Tamar Ronen-Fuhrmann are both registered at the Technion group, they can create a team Yael-Tamar to submit together new entries to the Technion group. This will not prevent them from continuing to work as individuals in this group.

In order to contribute a feature to the database, you will be required to provide several pieces of information including: a detailed description of the feature, a rationale (i.e., the specific design principle that led to the design of the feature), the context in which the feature is used, evidence of success or lack of success, reference, and an image illustrating the feature. You will also be required to choose a category, or several categories to describe the feature (e.g., visualization tools, inquiry tools, communication tools, ubiquitous computing, etc.), and provide URLs for downloads. Finally, you will be required to connect your feature with a pragmatic design principle. If you can't find a pragmatic principle in the database, you can add a new one.

In order to contribute a pragmatic principle, you will be required to provide a detailed description of the principle, theoretical background, goals, limitations, tradeoffs and pitfalls. You will also be required to connect your pragmatic principle to features that are already in the database, and to meta-principles. In this way the database can grow while keeping connectedness between features and principles and between principles in the different levels.