In HORTUS, an Event is the platform’s structured way of presenting, organizing, and activating a time-bound scholarly activity. An Event is not just a date on a calendar and not just a simple announcement. It is a dedicated space where the community can understand what is happening, why it matters, who is organizing it, when it takes place, how to engage with it, and how to remain connected to it before and after it happens.

Events help turn HORTUS from a static catalogue of research information into a living research environment. They make workshops, seminars, conferences, webinars, talks, and training activities visible to the wider Religious Studies community, and they do so in a way that is structured, searchable, and interactive. For a researcher, this means that an Event page is not only a notice to read: it is a place to decide whether to participate, to ask questions, to follow updates, and to understand how the event connects to ongoing scholarly work.

An Event in HORTUS serves three major purposes.

First, it is a discovery tool. The Events area allows users to browse upcoming and past activities, filter them by keyword or period, and sort them by date. This is especially useful for researchers who do not want to depend only on mailing lists, scattered websites, or social media updates to know what is happening. By centralizing events in one platform space, HORTUS helps users identify relevant academic activities quickly and efficiently. For a doctoral candidate, this can mean discovering a workshop that opens a new research direction. For a more experienced researcher, it can mean identifying a relevant seminar, conference, or training opportunity at the right moment.

Second, it is a community engagement object. An Event page does not stop at basic description. It can include a structured overview, a readable abstract, one or more scheduled sessions, a participant area, and a discussion space. This means that an Event is designed not only to be announced, but also to generate interaction. Researchers can use the Discussions tab to ask questions, clarify details, and create exchanges around the event itself. This is important because it keeps communication attached to the scholarly activity rather than dispersing it across unrelated channels. In this sense, Events can create a lightweight but meaningful layer of scientific interaction and community-building.

Third, it is a participation and visibility instrument. Through the Register to this event action, HORTUS allows users to express participation or interest directly inside the platform. This gives the Event a participatory dimension: the page can show who is involved, who is following, and how much attention the activity is receiving. For organizers, this creates a useful overview of engagement. For participants, it creates visibility and a sense of being part of a live academic moment. Even when an external registration system is used, the HORTUS Event page remains the central reference point where users can understand the event and reconnect with it later.

A key strength of Events in HORTUS is that they combine description, scheduling, interaction, and action in one place. A typical Event page may include:

• an event identity, such as title, event type, organisers or conductors, and publication context
• an abstract or rich textual description that explains the purpose and content of the event
• one or more schedule entries, including date, time, and location
• an optional external link to a conference website, webinar page, or registration form
• a Participants area showing registered users within HORTUS
• a Discussions area for questions, comments, and follow-up
• engagement actions such as Register, Unregister, Share, and Leave feedback
• optional links to institutional pages or projects, helping the user understand the event’s research context
• tags and metadata that improve discoverability and interpretation

This is what makes Events especially valuable for users: they are not isolated announcements, but structured entry points into a scholarly activity.

Events are also important because they help users answer a practical question very quickly: “Is this worth my time?” A well-structured Event page gives the answer at a glance. It tells the user what the topic is, who is behind it, when it happens, and whether it connects to their current interests. It also gives them clear next steps: register, ask a question, share it with a colleague, or follow the discussion. This reduction of friction is very important in academic life, where researchers constantly move between competing priorities

For young researchers in particular, Events can play an especially attractive role. They are often one of the easiest ways to enter a research community without immediately committing to a larger collaboration. A doctoral student may first discover a project through an event, attend a webinar, ask a question in the discussion tab, and only later connect more deeply with the contributors or related resources. In this way, Events can function as a first point of contact between users and the wider HORTUS ecosystem.

From the organizer’s perspective, Events are also powerful because they transform a one-off announcement into a reusable platform object. When an event is created in HORTUS, it becomes searchable, citable, shareable, and connected to the rest of the platform. Organizers can enrich it with conductors, tags, schedule entries, and institutional context. They can also use the Share action to circulate it more widely and the discussion area to keep communication visible and centralized.

An especially important point for the user manual is this: in HORTUS, an Event may combine internal participation logic and external participation logic. The platform’s “Register to this event” action records participation inside HORTUS, which is useful for visibility, participant lists, and internal follow-up. At the same time, some events may include an external event link, such as a Zoom page, conference website, or external registration form. In those cases, the user may still need to complete an additional registration outside HORTUS. This means that HORTUS serves as the main scholarly reference point for the event, even when some logistical steps happen elsewhere.

A good way to think about an Event in HORTUS is this:

AN EVENT IS THE PLATFORM’S STRUCTURED ACADEMIC MEETING POINT

It makes a scholarly activity visible, understandable, discussable, and actionable in one unified place. In practical terms, an Event in HORTUS helps the user to:

• discover relevant academic activities
• understand the event’s intellectual and practical context
• register interest or participation
• see other participants
• ask questions and interact through discussions
• share the event with colleagues
• reconnect the event to projects, institutional pages, and wider research work

Taken together, these elements make Events one of the most dynamic parts of HORTUS. They connect time-bound activities with longer-term research communities and give users a clear, attractive, and interactive way to engage with academic life on the platform.