Quick Tips – Using WordPress in Your Course

What is WordPress?

WordPress is a blogging website platform.  It allows you to easily create a website using templates and forms without knowing HTML.  WordPress is focused on blogging – creating a personal (or group) journal of ongoing, chronological posts.  It can be used for creating a “static” website by turning off or shifting the blogging feature to another part of your site.

What is Sites@Duke?

Sites@Duke is a special Duke installation of WordPress.  While anyone can create a site for free at wordpress.com, creation of websites here at Duke is limited to individuals with a Duke NetID.  The Duke sites can be viewed privately by the members of a course, by the Duke community, or by the general public, depending on the privacy settings of the site.

Which should I use?

Scenarios for a Sites@Duke site:

• Creating a website or blog for a course that will be authored by individuals at Duke or their guests
• Creating a website or blog resource for an academic program or department at Duke
• Creating a blog or website for a student project or portfolio that will be used while the student is at Duke and has a Duke NetID

Scenarios for a WordPress.com site:

• A student portfolio that will be changed and updated by the student primarily after they leave Duke
• A personal professional site you wish to maintain if you leave Duke for another institution
• A professional organization site that will be maintained by Duke and non-Duke individuals
• A website for a non-Duke organization or non-profit that you or your students may be associated with

Tips for Designing a Good Blog or Website Assignment

• Make a sample blog entry or site and create detailed expectations for the assignment.
• Use a grading rubric to encourage students to focus on content that supports the learning goals of your course.
• Contact OIT for student training; have students take advantage of help in the MPS labs.

Rubrics and Resources for Assessing Student Blogs

• ProfHacker: A Rubric for Evaluating Student Blogs (Chronicle of Higher Education)
• Rubrics for Assessing Blogs – Elon University
• A Rubric for Evaluating Student Blogs – University of Wisconsin-Stout
• Rubrics to Evaluate Student Blogging – Bowling Green State University

Getting Started with Sites@Duke

Log in at https://sites.duke.edu/

• Creating a Course Site
• Creating a Non-Course Site

Thinking About Subsites

Sites@Duke has a special plug-in that allows the creation of “subsites.”

These are sites that are associated with a main course or project site.  They are completely “free-standing” as sites – when they are created, the person creating the site is an administrator with others in the class added with their role carried over from the main site.

The web address will be a “sub-directory” of the main site.  For example:

Main site:  https://sites.duke.edu/sites/writing101/
Subsite:  https://sites.duke.edu/sites/writing101_team1/

On the main site, install the Duke Subsites widget to place a box in the site’s sidebar or footer containing links to the site’s subsites.

The instructor can create subsites for students in the course – this is usually used when the instructor creates sites for teams, with the instructor going in to each subsite to set up the users of the subsite for particular team members.

The instructor can allow students to create their own subsites – this is usually used when the students are making their own individual sites.

• More information and step-by-step instructions on subsites at the Sites@Duke Help Site.

Managing Users

When creating a course site, students are automatically added as Authors – they can post or create pages and only edit material they have created.  If you have a TA in a course or are having students collate material, you can make users Editors and they can edit any course or page.

• Roles in Sites@Duke : https://sites.duke.edu/getting-started/userroles/
• Adding users : https://sites.duke.edu/getting-started/addusers/

Privacy Settings in Sites@Duke

Site access can be limited to Admins of the site, if you have it in development and don’t want to share it, with members of the site, with anyone that has a Duke NetID, or public.

Note that parts of sites cannot be made private except that pages or posts can be password-protected.  (The password is set by the author when creating or modifying the post or page.)  Some faculty use that feature to have a public course website that might include links to copyright-protected material on a password-protected page just for members of the class.

• Information on Privacy Settings at the Sites@Duke Help Site.

Tags or Categories?

Posts in a blog can have Tags or Categories attached to them – these are keywords that can be used to sort blog posts.  Clicking on a tag or category in a post can bring up all the posts with those keywords.

Tags and categories are entered by authors or editors when creating or changing a post.  A post can have both tags and categories.

Some differences between tags and categories:

• Categories can include subcategories and can be displayed in a hierarchical list in the sidebars or footer of the site.
• Tags can be displayed in the sidebars or footer of a site as a tag cloud.

Typically, faculty use tags or categories when they have multiple student authors on a blog to attach keywords to posts that are for a particular assignment or topic in the course.

• Find out more about tags, categories and creating posts in the Creating Content section of the Sites@Duke Help Site.

Examples of Course and Student Project Sites

• You can explore Duke WordPress sites that are open to the public at https://sites.duke.edu/websites/.