Please complete the batch create spreadsheet (Click File, Download to download the spreadsheet, complete the spreadsheet and save) and upload the spreadsheet to the IT Service Desk. Remember to add all the staff who require access to these blogs along with the role that they should have. We recommend that blog titles for student blogs have the following naming convention:studentusernamemodulecodeyear.

By default all blogs are set with the privacy setting Only registered users of this blog are able to view it. The blog Administrator(s) can change this from the Dashboard. Click on the Settings menu and select Privacy. From this screen the appropriate privacy setting can be selected and click Save changes.

For an individual student blog, which is not assessed, the student is typically the Administrator (can do everything including complete power over posts, pages, plugins, comments, choice of themes, imports, settings and assign user roles) and tutors are subscribers (can view posts and comments and add comments). For a full breakdown of the roles please see the Edublogs guidance on roles.

For an assessed blog it is recommended to make students Editors (are able to publish posts/pages, manage posts/pages, upload files, moderate comments as well as manage other people’s posts/pages, but are not able to assign and remove user roles)

Please complete the batch create spreadsheet (Click File, Download to download the spreadsheet, complete the spreadsheet and save) and upload the spreadsheet to the IT Service Desk. For a module blog, a tutor or module leader is typically the Administrator and each student is either an Author (can write and publish own posts) or Contributor (can write own posts, but the Administrator needs to review and publish the posts). For a full breakdown of the roles please see the Edublogs guidance on roles.

By default all blogs are set with the privacy setting Only registered users of this blog are able to view it. If you want to change these settings you can do this from the blog Dashboards. Click on the Settings menu and select Privacy. From this screen the appropriate privacy setting can be selected and click Save changes.

Your display name is automatically set to your username. You may prefer to change this to your full name. To do this:

1. From the Dashboard click Update profile
2. From the Display name publically as drop down menu select your full name
3. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Update profile.

From the post text editor, click on the add media icon which is located at the top of the editor. (Hover over an icon for information on its function).

1. Drag and drop an image from your computer into the uploader or select and browse to the image. The maximum upload file size is 19MB.
2. In the media options fields you can add a title, description, caption, resize or change the placement of the image.
3. Click Insert into Post.

Please note: You cannot re-use every image you find in a Google search in your blog. You need to ensure that you are not in breach of copyright when using images. City Library has produced a list of sites where you can re-use images in particular circumstances. Check the individual sites for terms of use as these vary.

Find the YouTube video that you want to embed.

1. Click on Share under the video
2. Click on Embed
3. Copy the code that appears (CTRL C)
4. Go to your blog and click on + New tab to open the drop-down menu
5. Select Post
6. Type a title for the post
7. Type your text into the input field
8. Click on the HTML tab on the top right of the post
9. Paste the YouTube embed code into the input field
10. Click on the Visual tab on the top right of the post
11. Click Publish
12. Click View Post to view and play the video.

Please note : You need to ensure that you have permission to embed the video. If you are ensure of the permissions then you can simply create a link to the video.

How do I add an external file to my post?

1. From your blog Dashboard or blog view, click on + New tab to open the drop-down menu
2. Select Post
3. Type a title for the post
4. Type your post into the input field
5. Go to the section of the post where you want your external file to appear and click on Upload/Insert icon above the text editor.
   

   Select external files to upload

You can set up email notification for comments on your blog.

1. From the Settings menu select Discussion
2. Click the checkbox alongside E-mail me whenever… Anyone posts a comment. (These notifications will be sent to your @city.ac.uk email address)
3. Click Save changes.

Your blog Dashboard also displays recent comments. If you are viewing your blog you can see a count of the number of comments for each post and clicking on the number of comments opens these for you to read.

Pages are not part of the chronological blog stream and are more suited to static content that doesn’t need to be updated regularly.

1. From your blog dashboard or view click on + New
2. Select Page
3. Give your page a Title
4. You can add content (e.g. text, images, links) into the input field
5. Once you have finished click Publish.

Note : You can nest pages under other pages by making one the parent of the other. You can do this from the Page Attributes section of the Add Page/Edit screen by selecting the appropriate Parent page from the drop-down menu.

Please note you need to be the blog Administrator to add a widget. A widget is a tool or piece of content that you can add to the sidebar of your blog.

1. From the Appearance menu in your blog Dashboard select Widgets
2. Click on the desired sidebar to expand (so you can add the widgets)
3. Drag and drop the individual widgets from the Available Widgets or Inactive Widgets menus to the appropriate sidebar
4. The widget automatically opens for you to configure. Configure as required.
5. Click Save and then Close.

Additional instructions and a video on widgets are available from: Edublogs help: Changing your sidebar widgets.

1. From your blog dashboard or view click on +New and select Page
2. Give your page a Title
3. You can add content (e.g. text, images, links) into the input field.
4. From the Page Attributes menu select the page that you want to be as the Parent page from the Parent drop-down menu and your new page will nest underneath the page you have selected as your Parent page.
5. Once you have finished click Publish.

1. From the Pages menu on the blog Dashboard select All Pages
2. Click edit on the page you want to set as your first page
3. From the Page Attributes section input the Order number for the page. 1 is the first page, 2 is the second and so on.
4. Repeat steps 2 & 3 for each page in your blog.

From the Users menu on the Dashboard select Add user. Input the users City username (e.g. sbbg123 or abxy123), select the appropriate role from the Role drop-down menu and click Add user. For a full breakdown of the roles please see the Edublogs guidance on roles.

If you need to add a batch of users complete the batch create spreadsheet and log a request with the IT Service Desk.