This presentation walks through some of the interesting features available to content managers and administrators on the UMW website.

2. WORDPRESS AND THE UMW WEBSITE
What will we cover?
• Background on WordPress
• Site Types
• Content Types
• Managing Your Website
• Tips and Tricks

4. WHAT IS WORDPRESS
• Began in 2003 as a blogging platform
• Began to be used heavily as a CMS in 2010 (version 3.0)
• WordPress 3.5 has been downloaded more than 11 million times
• WordPress is used on over 16% of all websites throughout the Web
• WordPress is used on over 50% of websites that use a CMS

5. WHO USES WORDPRESS?
• Many small business and hobby sites
• CNN, the New York Times and many other major news outlets
• GM, UPS and Sony
• TechCrunch, Mashable, TheNextWeb and most major tech blogs

6. WHO USES WORDPRESS IN HIGHER ED?
• UMW was 1 of the first to use WordPress as a blogging platform, and 1
of the first to use WordPress as its website CMS
• Other institutions currently using WordPress as a CMS include:
• University of Florida (http://ufl.edu/)
• Boise State University (http://www.boisestate.edu/)
• Southern Arkansas University (http://web.saumag.edu/)
• University of Arkansas at Little Rock (http://ualr.edu/)
• Lafayette College (http://www.lafayette.edu/) – the first known to go full-
WordPress
• University of Central Arkansas (http://uca.edu/)
• Maryville University (http://www.maryville.edu/)
• …and many, many more (http://wordpress.org/showcase/tag/education/)

8. DIFFERENT TYPES OF SITES
Twelve different categories of sites
• UMW Home – Used specifically for the root site
• Level 2 – Used for general top-level sites
• Admissions (Undergraduate, Graduate and BLS are 3 different types)
• Administrative Division
• Administrative Department
• College Home Page – used for the CAS, COB and COE root sites
• Academic Department
• UMW Topic or Program – general sites not related to any specific dept or
division
• College-level Topic or Program – general sites related to a specific college
• UMW Magazine – specifically for the alumni magazine

9. HOW DO THEY DIFFER?
• Slightly different layout for each
• Different header options
• Different palette options
• Different menu layouts
• Different widgets and widget areas

11. MAIN CONTENT TYPES
Two main content types:
• Posts – used for blogging, news, etc.
• Time-sensitive
• Once posted, they don’t need to remain at the forefront
• Pages – used for static content
• More permanent
• Remains in the same location
• Can be organized hierarchically

12. TANGENTIAL CONTENT TYPES
Many items that aren’t necessarily considered “content” are actually
special “content types”
• Media (images, documents, etc.) – Can set a caption (excerpt),
description (content), title, etc.
• Menu Items – Can also set a description (not used in the UMW theme)
• Revisions – Tied to specific posts and pages; previous versions of the
parent item

13. CUSTOM CONTENT TYPES
We use a few different custom content types at UMW, as well
• Forms and Entries - all forms and their entries are “content”
• Advisories – important announcements to be broadcast across
individual site
• Opportunities – on some sites, job/internship opportunities are set up
• Documents – on the Documents site, all documents are pieces of
content
• …and many more throughout

15. LOGGING IN
• Everyone at UMW can login to the website
• Click Login in the footer
• Enter your email username and password
• Much of what you can do depends on your “role” on your website
• There are 5 basic roles on the UMW website
1. Subscriber – Can view areas of the site that are restricted to logged-in
users
2. Contributor – Can write new blog/news posts, but can’t publish or edit
3. Author – Can write new blog/news posts and publish them; can edit own
posts
4. Editor – Can write new blog/news posts and pages; can publish posts and
pages; can edit all posts and pages within individual site
5. UMW Site Administrator – Can perform all Editor tasks; can
manage/change settings; can manage users on the site

16. WHAT IS A “WEBSITE” AT UMW?
• “Website” is used in 2 different ways:
• overall University website; everything with “umw.edu” in its address
• individual areas of the website; managed by different sets of users
• Installation –entire group of websites that make up “umw.edu” –
• where plugins & themes are installed for use by entire community
• where users are “housed” to be added to any site in community
• Network – area of the installation that contains group of individual sites
• Site – a single area within a network
• where users are granted roles to be able to perform actions within the site

17. MANAGING CONTENT
Editors and Administrators can manage website content
• Create new pages
• Reorganize pages
• Manage menus*
• Manage widgets and layout*
• Create and manage forms
• Manage “assets” (images, documents, etc.)**
* - Only Administrators can manage custom menus and widgets
** - Documents used by the entire University are managed separately from site-specific
assets

18. CREATING PAGES

19. ORGANIZING PAGES

20. MANAGING MENUS

21. MANAGE WIDGETS & LAYOUT

22. CREATE AND MANAGE FORMS

23. MANAGE ASSETS

24. MANAGE THEME LAYOUT & SETTINGS

25. MANAGE PLUGINS & FEATURES

27. WORDPRESS 101
View many tutorials and announcements on the WordPress 101 website
http://technology.umw.edu/wordpress101/