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WORDPRESS AND THE UMW WEBSITE

What will we cover?

• Background on WordPress

• Site Types

• Content Types

• Managing Your Website

• Tips and Tricks

BACKGROUND ON

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WHAT IS WORDPRESS

• Began in 2003 as a blogging platform

• Began to be used heavily as a CMS in 2010 (version 3.0)

• WordPress 3.5 has been downloaded more than 11 million times

• WordPress is used on over 16% of all websites throughout the Web

• WordPress is used on over 50% of websites that use a CMS

WHO USES WORDPRESS?

• Many small business and hobby sites

• CNN, the New York Times and many other major news outlets

• GM, UPS and Sony

• TechCrunch, Mashable, TheNextWeb and most major tech blogs

WHO USES WORDPRESS IN HIGHER ED?

• UMW was 1 of the first to use WordPress as a blogging platform, and 1 of the first to use WordPress as its website CMS

• Other institutions currently using WordPress as a CMS include:• University of Florida (http://ufl.edu/)• Boise State University (http://www.boisestate.edu/)• Southern Arkansas University (http://web.saumag.edu/)• University of Arkansas at Little Rock (http://ualr.edu/)• Lafayette College (http://www.lafayette.edu/) – the first known to go

full-WordPress• University of Central Arkansas (http://uca.edu/)• Maryville University (http://www.maryville.edu/)• …and many, many more (

http://wordpress.org/showcase/tag/education/)

SITE T

YPES

DIFFERENT TYPES OF SITES

Twelve different categories of sites

• UMW Home – Used specifically for the root site

• Level 2 – Used for general top-level sites

• Admissions (Undergraduate, Graduate and BLS are 3 different types)

• Administrative Division

• Administrative Department

• College Home Page – used for the CAS, COB and COE root sites

• Academic Department

• UMW Topic or Program – general sites not related to any specific dept or division

• College-level Topic or Program – general sites related to a specific college

• UMW Magazine – specifically for the alumni magazine

HOW DO THEY DIFFER?

• Slightly different layout for each

• Different header options

• Different palette options

• Different menu layouts

• Different widgets and widget areas

CONTENT

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MAIN CONTENT TYPES

Two main content types:

• Posts – used for blogging, news, etc.• Time-sensitive• Once posted, they don’t need to remain at the forefront

• Pages – used for static content• More permanent• Remains in the same location• Can be organized hierarchically

TANGENTIAL CONTENT TYPES

Many items that aren’t necessarily considered “content” are actually special “content types”

• Media (images, documents, etc.) – Can set a caption (excerpt), description (content), title, etc.

• Menu Items – Can also set a description (not used in the UMW theme)

• Revisions – Tied to specific posts and pages; previous versions of the parent item

CUSTOM CONTENT TYPES

We use a few different custom content types at UMW, as well

• Forms and Entries - all forms and their entries are “content”

• Advisories – important announcements to be broadcast across individual site

• Opportunities – on some sites, job/internship opportunities are set up

• Documents – on the Documents site, all documents are pieces of content

• …and many more throughout

MANAGING YO

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LOGGING IN

• Everyone at UMW can login to the website

• Click Login in the footer

• Enter your email username and password

• Much of what you can do depends on your “role” on your website• There are 5 basic roles on the UMW website1. Subscriber – Can view areas of the site that are restricted to

logged-in users2. Contributor – Can write new blog/news posts, but can’t publish

or edit3. Author – Can write new blog/news posts and publish them; can

edit own posts4. Editor – Can write new blog/news posts and pages; can publish

posts and pages; can edit all posts and pages within individual site

5. UMW Site Administrator – Can perform all Editor tasks; can manage/change settings; can manage users on the site

WHAT IS A “WEBSITE” AT UMW?

• “Website” is used in 2 different ways:• overall University website; everything with “umw.edu” in its address• individual areas of the website; managed by different sets of users

• Installation –entire group of websites that make up “umw.edu” – • where plugins & themes are installed for use by entire community• where users are “housed” to be added to any site in community

• Network – area of the installation that contains group of individual sites

• Site – a single area within a network• where users are granted roles to be able to perform actions within

the site

MANAGING CONTENT

Editors and Administrators can manage website content

• Create new pages

• Reorganize pages

• Manage menus*

• Manage widgets and layout*

• Create and manage forms

• Manage “assets” (images, documents, etc.)**

* - Only Administrators can manage custom menus and widgets** - Documents used by the entire University are managed separately from site-specific assets

CREATING PAGES

ORGANIZING PAGES

MANAGING MENUS

MANAGE WIDGETS & LAYOUT

CREATE AND MANAGE FORMS

MANAGE ASSETS

MANAGE THEME LAYOUT & SETTINGS

MANAGE PLUGINS & FEATURES

TIPS

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WORDPRESS 101

View many tutorials and announcements on the WordPress 101 website

http://technology.umw.edu/wordpress101/