Here’s a quick step-by-step guide to getting started with blogging at unimelb.
Getting a blog
At this stage, blogs are not being offered as personal staff/student blogs, but if your org unit has a need to get some information out there, a blog might be just the ticket.
Email us at blogs-info@unimelb.edu.au. We’ll need:
- a name for your blog (you can change this later)
- a unimelb email address for the admin account (you can change this later)
- a preferred * URL. Blog URLs are all in the form: blogs.unimelb.edu.au/your-site-name (you won’t be able to change this later)
* The allocation of blog URLs will follow the spirit of the University Domain Name Policy. - the Themis account code against which the charges will be made.
Cost?
As of January 2008, blogs at the University will be on a cost recovery basis of $200 per annum. This small annual fee helps us cover design, hosting, support and training. Blogs that need extra customisation will be charged at an hourly rate. For more information, please contact blogs-info@unimelb.edu.au.
Add users
Unless you want to blog alone you’ll need to add some users to your blog. Users must have created an account on blogs.unimelb before you can add them.
- Go to the Users tab of the admin interface
- Enter the email address of the user you want to add to your blog
- Select a level of privilege for the user – the names are self explanatory
Creating a user account
Users can create their own accounts.
- Visit the account creation page
- Select a username (preferably your unimelb user name)
- Enter your email address (only accepts *@unimelb.edu.au)
- Watch your email for the activation message
- Activate your account by following the link in the email
- You’ll get a confirmation email
- Log in and manage your account on the Users/Profile tab
Writing a post
- Log in to the site back-end and look for the ‘Write’ tab. There’ll always be a ‘Login’ or ‘Site admin’ link somewhere on the blog.
- You’ll usually be writing ‘posts’ which appear sequentially and in dated archives, but you can also write ‘pages’ which don’t sit in the dated sequence of the site
- Almost everyone will belong to more than one blog – the main blog , as well as any others you’ve been added to. You can switch between the admin interfaces of the different blogs by moving your mouse over the blog title at the top of the admin interface – it should display your blogs in a drop down list.
And there’s more
As an admin, you’ll be able to change the look of your site. We’ll be adding more themes and features as soon as we can, so keep an eye out!