Welcome and thank you, Beta Testers!
What you need to know:
You can access the login screen and all other site actions in the very upper left of the site, on the admin bar (black bar).
You currently hold the role of “Editor”. Within the site, this allows you to create Groups and edit Pages, Posts, and Comments. If you click on “Dashboard” in the admin bar, you will be taken to WordPress’ admin area and you will be able to edit, create and delete Posts, site Media, Links, Pages and post Comments.
What is your purpose, as a Beta Tester?
Use the site, familiarize yourself with WordPress’ content management. Spend some time in the Dashboard. Click on everything and see what happens. Note: I have no control over the WordPress Dashboard, only the site itself.
Join the Beta Tester Group. Tell me what works, what doesn’t, what’s missing and what needs to be removed. Think the menus on the left should be somewhere else? Don’t think we should do episode or character analysis? Do you think each faculty member should get their own blog page? Say so in the Beta Tester Group!
Create Groups and post topics to them. Got a course you want to head? Create a Group for it and post content to it! Join someone else’s Group and respond to their content!
GENERATE CONTENT, this site has none! Add content to the episode and character pages! Think those pages should be turned into blog feeds that all Editors can post too? Let me know!
General Site Layout
The site’s main navigation is in the upper right:
- Home is the Welcome page, a feed of all blog Posts
- Site News is a feed of all blog Posts tagged with the “Site News” Category.
- Course List is a page listing Brittana U’s current Colleges and Schools. There are no courses at this time, therefore none are listed.
- Community is a drop down leading to the Forums, Groups (where the courses will live!) and Members Pages.
There is a secondary navigation located to the left of every page’s content. The headers are collapsible and they can be dragged and dropped to re-arrange the order:
- Season One Episode List is a listing of all of Season One’s episodes, each leading to its own page
- Season Two Episode List is a listing of all of Season Two’s episodes, each leading to its own page
- Character Bios is a listing of most of the characters of Glee, each leading to its own page
- Actor Bios is a listing of the actors that play the characters listed in Character Bios, with each leading to its own page
How the Site Works
Posts (different from posting Topics in Groups)
- Posting is WordPress’ blog feature. If you create a post, it will show up as a news item on the front page. If you create a post and choose the Category “Site News”, it will also show up in the Site News page. Additional Categories can be created, along with additional Pages dedicated to showing only Posts with those Categories.
- You can create a new Post through the “Dashboard” drop down in the admin bar and in WordPress’ Dashboard.
- You can only edit Posts that you have created.
Pages
- Pages hold all the content of the site. They can be static content (Episode/Character/Actor pages), Post Feeds (Site News), or both (Home). Pages have the option to allow people to comment on them.
- You can create a new Page through WordPress’ Dashboard. However, as an Editor, you do not have the ability to make that page visible.
- You can edit any existing Page by clicking on its “Edit” link.
Groups and Topics (The Forum)
- Not everyone can create Groups.
- When a user creates a Group, they become the leader of that Group and can control all aspects of the Group and its members.
- Group Members may be promoted by the Group Leader to the role of Moderator and have the ability to edit and delete Topics within their Group.
- A site Member most Join a Group before they can post a Topic in it.
- Besides being Public, Groups can also be set to Private or Hidden. In this case, Members must be invited to the Group by the Group Leader, in order to Join the Group.