WordPress Quickstart Guide

ITS offers all faculty the ability to create an academic website through WordPress, a flexible publishing tool that allows you to create a site without any technical skills. Follow the instructions below to create your first page. If you are a faculty member or adjunct instructor and do not yet have an account on this server, you can submit a request from the Request Support tab at the RU Technology Help Desk, or by phone at 312.341.4357.

Creating a Simple Home Page
Go to https://sites.roosevelt.edu/wp-login.php and log in with your RU network/email credentials. When you are logged in, you have administrative access to your new web site.
On the next screen you'll see your Dashboard page. This is your starting point. It's also where you return to to make any changes. In the left column of this page click the Pages link to bring up a display of the pages on your site. Initially your site has only one page, which serves as the site's home page (you can add more pages later). The default title may vary -- in this example it is called "Page Title."
When you roll the cursor over the name of the page you'll see a series of choices. Click the "Edit" link to open up that page for editing:

The edit page has a large number of options but you can safely ignore most of them for now. All you really need to do at this point is to add basic material to your home page. There four steps to this process, as illustrated below:

1. Edit page header text. This is both the name of your page and the bold text that appears at the top. Modify the text in this field to suit the purposes of your page design. You could use your name or a descriptive label such as "About me," or "Welcome."
2. Add or edit your content. Make all of your page edits in this field. You can use basic word processing techniques and the editing icons above the text field to modify font styles, sizes, and colors, build lists and tables, and even create hot links to other web pages. For word processor-style editing make sure the Visual tab is selected. If you're familiar with web programming techniques you can work directly with HTML tags by selecting the HTML tab.
3. Check your work. Before you publish your page it's a good idea to click this link to get a preview of how your page will look when it's published. If you don't like what you see you can continue editing by clicking the Edit link that now appears on your page. If it's a lost cause, return to the editing page click Move to Trash to discard your changes and start again.
4. Publish your page. When you're satisfied with your page click the blue Update button to publish your changes. When you're done you can log out using the link in the upper right hand corner.

Publishing your Web Address

Once your new site is ready, you will want to promote it! You can add it to your email signature block, publish it on your Blackboard course site, include it on course syllabi, etc. You should also consider updating your personal profile in the Roosevelt directory to include the URL to your web site. You can edit your profile by going to the RU directory page and following the "Edit your record" link in the left column. The login page provides information on how to retrieve the unique password that is used for this service.

Other Possibilities

There are many other things you can do with your web site. The Wordpress documentation is a great source of info; it's available from the Help links on your administrative pages (Dashboard). Or, write facultyweb@roosevelt.edu or call the Help Desk at 312.341.4357 to request personal assistance. Here's a short list of what you can do:

• Create additional pages
• Develop a list of favorite links
• Create custom menus and clickable tabs in the page header
• Upload image, audio and video files
• Set up a blog page that optionally accepts user comments
• Create an archive of files for downloading by your visitors
• Add features such as page counters and site search tools

[Rev. 20 Jun 2011]