For all other help information on plugins, please refer to this page here.

Plugins extend and expand the functionality of blogs.

The Super admin user on an Edublogs campus network can:

1. Network activate plugins in Plugins > Installed Plugins.
2. Control which plugins can be activated by admin user using Plugins > Plugin Management.

Network activating a plugin

Plugins can be ‘Network Activated’ or ‘Network Deactivated’ via Plugins > Installed plugins in the Network Admin dashboard of an Edublogs Campus network.

When a plugin is network activated that plugin is automatically activated network wide and is available for use on all blogs across your campus  network.

If a plugin is ‘network activated’ it no longer appears in the Site Admin dashboard at all.  Only a Super Admin user is able to deactivate a “network activated’ plugin via the Plugins > Installed Plugins in the Network admin dashboard.

In most cases we recommend you only network activate plugins that need to be network activated to work because if you network activate plugins that your users don’t want to use they won’t be able to deactivate them.

Below is a list of plugins that need to be network activated to work:

1. Blogs Category – allows you to categorize blogs into a blog listing for your Campus network so your community can find blogs based on specific groups (check out University of Oregon’s blog listing page).
2. Blogs Directory – provides a fully searchable directory of all the blogs on  your Campus network (check out SJSD blogs directory).
3. Categories to Tags Converter Importer – used for converting tags to categories or vice versa.
4. Classes – used to enable access to My Class on your Campus network.  “My Class”  is the ultimate tool for class and student blogs.  Read more about My Class here.
5. Communities – allows your users to create a community within their dashboard with their own discussion board.  Read more about Communities here.
6. Friends – normally used with Communities and Messaging.  Allows your users to add each other as friends.
7. Help and Support – adds a Help & Support menu item to the top of the left navigation inside the dashboard of all blogs so your users can email you for support from directly inside their dashboard and you can add custom links to your own Help site or Edublogs Support site.
8. Log in message – allows you to add your own custom message to your login page (the terms of Service message on Baylor Blogs login page is created using this plugin).
9. Messaging - normally used with Friends and Communities.  Allows your users to message each other from directly inside their dashboard.
10. New Blog Template – allows the super admin user to set up template blogs that can be used as a template for all newly created blogs (here is an example of a template blog on Mulgrave Learning).

Below is a list of plugins that are suitable for network activating:

1. Subscribe to Comments – adds a notify me of follow up comments below the comment form for readers to select if they want to be notified of new comments.
2. Widget pack - The Widget Pack plugins adds the ClustrMaps and Flickr widgets to Appearance > Widgets.
3. Wiki – enables your users to set up Wikis on their blogs (read more about wikis here).

How to network activate a plugin

Plugins are network enabled as follows:

1. Click on Plugins > Installed Plugins in the Network Admin dashboard.

2.  Select the plugins you want to network activate by either:

• Clicking on Network Activate below the plugin name.
• Selecting all the plugins you want to enable, then select Network Activate from the Bulk Actions drop down menu and click Apply.

Controlling which plugin can be activated

As a super admin user you can control which plugins your admin users can activate using Plugins > Plugins Management in the network admin dashboard.

All you need to do is:

1.  Go to Plugins > Plugin management in the network admin dashboard.

2.  Select All Users under User Control for any plugin you want your admin users to be able to activate.

• You select None if  you don’t want admin users to be able to use a plugin.

3.  Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Update Options.

Please note:

Ability to access the plugin page is controlled in Settings > Network Settings in the network admin dashboard.  The default setting for plugins is ‘enabled’.

If you see a ‘Cheating huh?’ message when you go plugins page in the site admin dashboard of a blog you need to check the plugins menu item has been enabled (refer to these instructions).

Using Plugins

Refer to the following support documentation for using Plugins:

1. Activating and deactivating plugins.
2. Overview of standard Edublogs plugins.

The most common reasons why a super admin uses Sites > All Sites are to:

• Confirm which users are attached to blog.
• Archive, deactivate or mark a blog as spam.
• Confirm if a blog has been created.

Finding Blogs

1.  Go to Sites > All Sites in the Network Admin dashboard.

2.  Locate the blog by either scrolling through the list of blogs or searching for the blog using “Search Sites”.

You have a range of options once the required blog is located:

Dashboard

When you click on the Dashboard action link it takes you to the dashboard of that blog where you have complete access to all features of that blog e.g. you can add, edit, delete posts and pages; modify blog settings; change the blog theme.

Deactivate

Reverses the activation step users go through when they signup for a blog.

Deactivated blogs can be reactivated without causing issues.

There’s really not much use to deactivate on an Edublogs Campus network.

Archive

Marks a blog as being archived so it’s not accessible by users.

Archived blogs can be unarchived and used again immediately.

Spam

Used when you find a spam blog but aren’t completely sure it’s spam so you mark it as spam.

You can mark it as “not spam” if it turns out to be legit.

Visit

Takes you to the blog URL.

For more information on the different roles you can assign users when you add them to a blog,  please refer to our user role documentation.

Options for creating blogs

Users > Blog & User Creator

Used to bulk  create blogs for new or existing users.  This is the fastest ways for your admin users to bulk create blogs for their students and is a fast way for a super admin to bulk create new blogs.

The Blog & User Creator is disabled on newly created Campus networks.  The super admin user can enable Blog & User Creator components in Settings > Blog & User Creator in the network admin.

Read how to create blogs using the Blog & User creator here.

My Class > Create Student blogs

Used to bulk create new blogs for students when My Class is set up on the blog.  This is the recommended way for teachers to set up and manage students blogs.

You’ll find comprehensive resources on working with My Class here.

To use My Class you need to either activate classes plugin in Plugins of the blog dashboard or network activate the Classes plugin in Plugins in the network admin dashboard.

Read how to create blogs using the My Class > Create Student Blogs here.

Batch Create

Batch Create is the more advanced option designed to allow Super admin users to quickly create a large number blogs using an Excel file.

Read how to use Batch Create here.

Enable users to create their own blog using your signup page

Users can also create their own blogs if you have enabled your sign up page under Allow New Registrations in Network Settings.

Sites > Add Sites in the network admin dashboard

Super admin users can create new blogs using Sites > Add New in the network admin dashboard.   This is the least common way of creating a new blog.

We don’t recommend you use Sites > Add New if creating a blog for a new user because their username is created using the site address i.e. it doesn’t allow you to specific what username you want to use.

For existing users, you just need to add their existing email address.  Once their blog is created they just need to log in with their existing username and password.

Blog Domain tips

A Blog domain can’t be changed once created.  If you want to change it you will need to create a new blog.

Ideally it is best to keep blog URLs short, easy to remember and suitable to be reused for several years.

A simple option is to use the last name in the blog URL as these educators did:

1. Mr. Baldock’s Class blog (http://mrbaldock.edublogs.org)
2. Mr. Salsich’s Class blog (http://jmsalsich.edublogs.org/)

Alternatively, use something unique that has meaning like:

1. Huzzah (http://huzzah.edublogs.org)
2. The Skinny ( http://edublogs.misd.net/theskinny/)

For students, we recommend you use their first name only and include unique numbers and/or letter identifiers like these student blogs:

1. http://adenahz1.edublogs.org/
2. http://baileehz1.edublogs.org/

Some schools use the student’s user ID for their blog URL and username.

Change email address

Changing a user’s email address as a super admin user is as simple as:

1. Go to Users > All Users in the Network Admin dashboard or Users > All Users in the dashboard of the user’s blog.

2.  Locate the user by searching using their username or email address.

3.  Click on Edit link underneath their username.

4.  Scroll down to email under contact info.

5.  Add the new email address.

6. Click Update User at the bottom of the page.

Email tips

If the email doesn’t change when you click Update User this means it is probably associated with another username.  Each e-mail address is a unique identifier for a username and only one email address can only be associated with a username.

You can check if  an email address is attached to an existing username by searching the email address in Users > All Users in the network admin dashboard.

If the email address is already being used with another username you’ll need to change the email address attached to the existing username to an alternative email address.   You need to wait 48 hours after you’ve changed the email address for the system to release it so you can associate it with another username.

Forgotten passwords needs to be reset by the user using the lost password link or can be manually reset by a super admin user on an Edublogs Campus network.

Reset user password

Resetting a user’s password as a super admin user is as simple as:

1. Go to Users > All Users in the Network Admin dashboard or Users > All Users in the dashboard of the user’s blog.

2.  Locate the user by searching using their username or email address.

3.  Click on Edit link underneath their username.

4.  Scroll down to New Password and enter their new password.

5. Click Save Changes at the bottom of the page.

6.  Once the password is reset you just need to email them their new login details.

• The system doesn’t send an email with their new password.

The Super Admin user has the highest level of access and responsibility above a regular blog Administrator, and has complete control of your entire network.

Deciding who and how many users you assign as a Super Admin user requires the greatest consideration because they have the highest level of access and are able to make changes that affect the entire network. Mistakes made by a Super Admin user can have a significant impact on your network.

We recommend you limit the number of people who are super admin users to a few people.

Grant super admin privileges

You grant super admin privileges to a user as follows:

1.  Go to Users > All Users in the network admin dashboard.

2. Locate the user by searching for the username using “Search users”.

3.  Click on Edit link under the person’s username.

4.  Check the checkbox next to ‘Grant this user super admin privileges for the Network.’

5.  Scroll to bottom of page and click Update User.

The site admin dashboard is the dashboard of a blog.

The most common reasons why a super admin uses Users > All Users in a blog dashboard are to:

• Manually reset a password or change an email address attached to a username.
• Confirm the username attached to an email address.
• Change a user’s role on a blog.
• Remove a user from a blog.

Finding Users

Locating a user is as easy as:
1. Go to Users > All Users in the site admin dashboard.

2. Locate the user by either scrolling through the list of users or searching for the username using “Search users”.

• You can search by username or email address.
• If you are unsure of the exact spelling of a username you can add an asterisk to the end of your search term to locate all usernames that include the search term.

You have a range of options once the required user is located:

Change Roles to 

The Change Role to drop down menu lets you change the roles of a user.

Refer to the following support documentation for more information:

1. About user roles
2. How to change user roles

Remove

When you click on the Remove action link it takes you to the Remove User from Site panel where you can confirm removal of a user from that blog.

This only removes them from the blog and doesn’t delete their username or allow you to create a new username attached to their email address.

Reports

When you click on the Reports action link it takes you to the Reports page where you can create user reports for posts or comments by that user or any other user attached to the blog.

Here’s an example of a report:

Edit

When you click on the Edit action link it takes you to the Edit User panel for that user where you can view and edit the user’s details. The Edit action link is only visible to the Super Admin user.

You use the Edit User panel to:

1. Change the display name of a user
2. Change the email address attached to a username
3. Manually reset the password of a user

Below are the main areas on the Edit user page you use as a super admin user:

Change Display name

The display name is displayed on all posts and comments a user publishes if they have set a display name.  For example, my username is suewaters and my display name is Sue Waters.

When I log into my account I log in as suewaters and the name Sue Waters is displayed on any posts or comment I publish.

It is easier to set up a display name than to change a username.

Change email address

The email address associated with a username is used for password resets and for comment notification emails.

Comment moderation emails are sent to the blog admin address listed in Settings > General.

Reset Password

You use this to reset a user’s password.

Terms & Conditions

This Services Agreement (the “Agreement”) contains the complete terms and conditions which govern your subscription of Web hosting and other Internet-related services provided by Edublogs Campus (the “Services”). As used in this Agreement, “Edublogs Campus” means Edublogs Campus and “Client”, “you”, or “your” means you. By purchasing a license to Edublogs Campus you agree to its terms and conditions and all policies posted on the Edublogs Campus site. As referred to in this Agreement, “Site” refers to a World Wide Web site and “Edublogs Campus Site” refers to the Site located at the URL http://www.edublogs.org/campus/.

1. APPROPRIATE USE OF THE SERVICES.

Edublogs Campus provides the Services exclusively and makes no effort to edit, control, monitor or restrict the content of data other than as necessary to provide such Services.

Client Content

The client agrees that it will not distribute, electronically transmit or display any materials supplied by Client – or through Client by a third party – to any Edublogs Campus service in connection with Client’s use of the Services which:

• violate any state, federal or foreign laws or regulations;
• infringe on any intellectual property rights (e.g., copyright, trademark, patent or other proprietary rights) of Edublogs Campus or any third party;
• are defamatory, slanderous or trade libelous;
• are threatening or harassing;
• are discriminatory based on gender, race, age or promotes hate;
• violate any Edublogs Campus policy posted on the Edublogs Campus Site including, but not limited to, our Acceptable Use and and Abuse Policy;
• contain viruses or other computer programming defects which result in damage to Edublogs Campus, it’s property, or servers, or any third party.

Shell Access

Edublogs Campus does not offer shell,telnet, or FTP access. If included in the Campus package, themes and plugins can only be uploaded by the Edublogs staff.

Late payments

Any payment not received within 28 days will be suspended / terminated at Edublogs Campus’s sole discretion.

2. CLIENT LIABILITY AND INDEMNIFICATION

To the maximum extent allowed by applicable law, the parties agree that in no event shall Edublogs Campus be liable to any third party for Client’s breach or alleged breach of any of the terms and conditions set forth in this Agreement.

3. TERM, TERMINATION & REINSTATEMENT

Subject to the terms and conditions hereof, this Agreement shall be effective on the date Campus site is installed.

Either party will have the right to terminate this Agreement upon notice to the other party.

If Edublogs Campus suspends an account for non-payment, Client shall be allowed to re-instate Client’s use of the Services within Five (5) business days of cancellation upon approval from Edublogs Campus and full payment of balances due.

If a Client terminates their account, Edublogs Campus will disable the service/account within twenty-four (24) hours the client specifies the account is cancelled. Edublogs Campus will not maintain an archival copy of the Clients Web site or files. It is the responsibility of the Client to remove any data off the server prior to the date provided in their cancellation notice.

4. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY

IN NO EVENT SHALL EDUBLOGS CAMPUS BE LIABLE FOR DAMAGES RESULTING FROM LOSS OF DATA,

PROFITS, USE OF THE EDUBLOGS CAMPUS SITE OR ANY EDUBLOGS CAMPUS PRODUCTS OR SERVICES,

OR FOR ANY INCIDENTAL, INDIRECT, PUNITIVE, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES IN CONNECTION WITH

THIS AGREEMENT OR IN CONNECTION WITH ANY PRODUCTS OR SERVICES PROVIDED HEREUNDER. IN

NO EVENT SHALL EDUBLOGS CAMPUS CUMULATIVE LIABILITY EXCEED AN AMOUNT GREATER THAN FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS (AU).

Privacy Policy

Privacy is critically important to us. At Edublogs we have a few fundamental principles:

• We don’t ask you for personal information unless we truly need it. (We too don’t like services that ask you for things like your gender or income level for no apparent reason.)
• We don’t share your personal information with anyone except to comply with the law, develop our products, or protect our rights.
• We don’t store personal information on our servers unless required for the on-going operation of one of our services.
• In our blogging products, we aim to make it as simple as possible for you to control what’s visible to the public, seen by search engines, kept private, and permanently deleted.

• Below is our privacy policy which incorporates these goals.
• If you have questions about accessing or correcting your personal data please contact our support team.

It is Edublogs’ policy to respect your privacy regarding any information we may collect while operating our websites.

Website Visitors

Like most website operators, Edublogs collects non-personally-identifying information of the sort that web browsers and servers typically make available, such as the browser type, language preference, referring site, and the date and time of each visitor request. Edublogs’s purpose in collecting non-personally identifying information is to better understand how Edublogs’s visitors use its website. From time to time, Edublogs may release non-personally-identifying information in the aggregate, e.g., by publishing a report on trends in the usage of its website.

Edublogs also collects potentially personally-identifying information like Internet Protocol (IP) addresses for logged in users and for users leaving comments on Edublogs.org blogs. Edublogs only discloses logged in user and commenter IP addresses under the same circumstances that it uses and discloses personally-identifying information as described below, except that blog commenter IP addresses are visible and disclosed to the administrators of the blog where the comment was left.

Gathering of Personally-Identifying Information

Certain visitors to Edublogs’s websites choose to interact with Edublogs in ways that require Edublogs to gather personally-identifying information. The amount and type of information that Edublogs gathers depends on the nature of the interaction. For example, we ask visitors who sign up for a blog at Edublogs.org to provide a username and email address. Those who engage in transactions with Edublogs – by upgrading to a Pro account, for example – are asked to provide additional information, including as necessary the personal and financial information required to process those transactions. In each case, Edublogs collects such information only insofar as is necessary or appropriate to fulfill the purpose of the visitor’s interaction with Edublogs. Edublogs does not disclose personally-identifying information other than as described below. And visitors can always refuse to supply personally-identifying information, with the caveat that it may prevent them from engaging in certain website-related activities.

Aggregated Statistics

Edublogs may collect statistics about the behavior of visitors to its websites. For instance, Edublogs may monitor the most popular blogs on the Edublogs site or use spam screened by our filters to help identify spam. Edublogs may display this information publicly or provide it to others. However, Edublogs does not disclose personally-identifying information other than as described below.

Protection of Certain Personally-Identifying Information

Edublogs discloses potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information only to those of its employees, contractors and affiliated organizations that (i) need to know that information in order to process it on Edublogs’s behalf or to provide services available at Edublogs’s websites, and (ii) that have agreed not to disclose it to others. Some of those employees, contractors and affiliated organizations may be located outside of your home country; by using Edublogs’s websites, you consent to the transfer of such information to them. Edublogs will not rent or sell potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information to anyone. Other than to its employees, contractors and affiliated organizations, as described above, Edublogs discloses potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information only when required to do so by law, or when Edublogs believes in good faith that disclosure is reasonably necessary to protect the property or rights of Edublogs, third parties or the public at large. If you are a registered user of an Edublogs website and have supplied your email address, Edublogs may occasionally send you an email to tell you about new features, solicit your feedback, or just keep you up to date with what’s going on with Edublogs and our products. We primarily use our various product blogs to communicate this type of information, so we expect to keep this type of email to a minimum. If you send us a request (for example via a support email or via one of our feedback mechanisms), we reserve the right to publish it in order to help us clarify or respond to your request or to help us support other users. Edublogs takes all measures reasonably necessary to protect against the unauthorized access, use, alteration or destruction of potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information.

Cookies

A cookie is a string of information that a website stores on a visitor’s computer, and that the visitor’s browser provides to the website each time the visitor returns. Edublogs uses cookies to help Edublogs identify and track visitors, their usage of Edublogs website, and their website access preferences. Edublogs visitors who do not wish to have cookies placed on their computers should set their browsers to refuse cookies before using Edublogs’s websites, with the drawback that certain features of Edublogs’s websites may not function properly without the aid of cookies.

Ads

The Edublogs platform is 100% advertising free.

 Privacy Policy Changes

Although most changes are likely to be minor, Edublogs may change its Privacy Policy from time to time, and in Edublogs’s sole discretion. Edublogs encourages visitors to frequently check http://edublogs.org/privacy-policy for any changes to its Privacy Policy. Your continued use of this site after any change in this Privacy Policy will constitute your acceptance of such change.

The most common reasons why a super admin uses Users > All Users are to:

• Manually reset a password or change an email address attached to a username.
• Confirm the username attached to an email address.
• Identify blogs attached to a username.
• Grant a super admin privileges to a user.

Finding Users

Locating a user is as easy as:

1. Go to Users > All Users in the Network Admin dashboard.

2. Locate the user by either scrolling through the list of users or searching for the username using “Search users”.

• You can search by username or email address.
• If you are unsure of the exact spelling of a username you can add an asterisk to the end of your search term to locate all usernames that include the search term.

You have a range of options once the required user is located:

Mark as Spam 

Used when you find a spam user but aren’t completely sure they are a spammer so you mark them as spam.

You can mark it as “not spam” if it turns out to be legit.

When you spam a username it spams all blogs attached to that username.

Edit

When you click on the Edit action link it takes you to the Edit User panel for that user where you can view and edit the users details.

You use the Edit User page to edit features like:

1. Enabling and disabling the Admin Bar
2. Change the display name of a user
3. Grant a user super admin privileges for the Network
4. Change the email address attached to a username
5. Manually reset the password of a user

Below are the main areas on the Edit user page you use as a super admin user:

Grant user super admin privileges 

Used to grant a user super admin privileges on your network. Remember to use caution when deciding who to grant super admin privileges to as mistakes made by a Super Admin user can have a significant impact on your network.

Change Display name

The display name is displayed on all posts and comments a user publishes if they have set a display name.  For example, my username is suewaters and my display name is Sue Waters.  When I log into my account I log in as suewaters and the name Sue Waters is displayed on any posts or comment I publish.

It is easier to set up a display name than to change a username.

Change email address

The email address associated with a username is used for password resets and for comment notification emails.  Comment moderation emails are sent to the blog admin address listed in Settings > General.

Reset Password

You use this to reset a user’s password.

It is automatically disabled on newly created Campus networks as some Campus sites use My Class or LDAP and don’t want their users accessing it.  When components are disabled your users see the following message:

The super admin user can enable some or all of the Blog & User Creator components in Settings > Blog & User Creator in the network admin dashboard.  If you are using LDAP you would probably only enable Add Existing Users to ensure only LDAP users are created on your campus network.

Enabling Blog & User Creator components

1.  Go to Settings > Blog & User Creator in the network admin dashboard.

2.  Select which components you want to enable and who can use.

• Yes – all blog admin users can use the component
• Super admin only – only a super admin user can use the component.
• No – component is disabled and users see “This feature has been disabled by the administrator of your network” when they visit that page in the Blog & User Creator.

3.  Click Save Changes.

Using the Blog & User Creator

Refer to the following support documentation for using the Blog & User Creator:

1. Bulk add new users
2. Bulk add existing users
3. Bulk create blogs