VIUBlogs is a multisite WordPress installation that can be used by current VIU students to design and develop standalone websites, blogs and portfolios that contribute to your learning at VIU.
User Guidelines
- All VIUBlogs users must abide by all local, provincial, and federal laws (including copyright and intellectual property law) as well as VIU’s Use of Information Technology Policy and all other relevant VIU policies.
- VIU students must also abide by the Student Academic Code of Conduct Policy, and Student Code of Conduct Policy
- VIUBlogs sites may not be used for commercial purposes or for the benefit of organizations not directly affiliated with the University.
- Content that is found to violate laws or VIU policies may be removed or unpublished without notice.
- VIUBlogs sites belonging to current employees or students will remain on VIUBlogs for as long as the site continues to be actively maintained.
- Sites that are not maintained and sites which do not have an active VIU employee or student listed as an administrator will be removed once each year in July.
- A site is considered no longer maintained if the site has not been updated in more than one year. Student-administered sites will be retained for at least one academic year after the last update to the site.
Login to VIUBlogs
Before you create or join a VIUBlogs site, you will want to make sure you have logged into the platform.
- Navigate to VIUBlogs.
- Click the Login with your VIU account link.
- Login with your VIU Computer Account credentials. These will be the same credentials you use to login to VIULearn.
Please note: Your username is your student number with no spaces, dashes or additional characters. Do not add VIU\ in front of your student number in the username input field.
I Can't Log In or I Forgot My Password. What Do I Do?
If you have forgotten your VIU Computer Account credentials or are having any difficulties logging into VIUBlogs, a good first step is to try and reset your Computer Account password and try again. If you have tried resetting a password and it is still not working, you may have reset your Student Record password instead of your Computer Account password.
You can find instructions on how to reset your Computer Account password on the IT Department's website.
If you have reset your Computer Account password and you are still unable to login, you can contact the IT Department for further assistance.
Create a VIUBlogs Site
- Navigate to the VIUBlogs homepage while logged into your account.
- Click the Create a new site link from the homepage.
- You should now be at the site creation page. First, choose a name for your site (this will form your unique URL) and then enter a title for your site. URLs can only contain lowercase letters (a-z) and numbers. The URL is not something you can change later, but the title can be changed at any time.
- If you would prefer to keep your site from appearing in internet search results, check the No button under Allow search engines to index this site.
- There also exists options to hide the site from public access on the internet. Your options include:
- Visible only to registered users of this network: Your site will only be visible to VIU community members with the link to your site after they have signed in.
- Visible only to registered users of this site: Your site will only be visible to VIU community members who have been added to your site.
- Visible only to administrators of this site: Your site will only be visible to you, and any other administrators of your site.
- Click the Create Site button.
- Congratulations, you have just created your site!
Clicking on the name of your site will take you to the web view of the site. It looks pretty stark at first but we can edit the theme to make it look more unique and visually appealing. .
VIUBlog Profile.
When you first login to VIUBlogs, we would highly recommend that you edit your VIUBlogs profile settings. In particular, we would recommend that you enter and confirm an email address into the Email input field. Doing so will allow other VIUBlog users to invite you to their sites.
You may also wish to edit and change your Display name so that your name (rather then your student number) is displayed publicly to other users.
- Navigate to VIUBlogs. and login using your VIU Computer Account credentials.
- Click Howdy in the upper right hand corner of the page.
- Scroll down and insert an email address in the Email (required) input field.
- Click the blue Update Profile button at the bottom of the page.
- You will be taken back to the top of the page and you should see a "Your email address has not been updated yet. Please check your inbox for a confirmation email". Please Note: You will need to click on the link in this confirmation email before your email address has been successfully changed.
- Login to your email client and find and click the confirmation link that has been sent. If you do not see the confirmation email in your inbox after a couple of minutes, check your span and junk folders.
- Once you have clicked on the confirmation link, you should be taken to your profile settings page and should see a Profile updated confirmation message without any additional messages or warning.
- Navigate to VIUBlogs. and login using your VIU Computer Account credentials.
- Click Howdy in the upper right hand corner of the page.
- Scroll down and insert the name you wish to be displayed in VIUBlogs in the Nickname (required) input field.
- Click the input field next to the Display name publicly as heading. Select your newly created Nickname from the dropdown menu.
- Click the blue Update Profile button at the bottom of the page.
- You will see a "Profile updated" confirmation message at the top of the page.
VIUBlog Dashboard
You can edit and create content on VIUBlogs by navigating to your Dashboard. From your Dashboard, you can create posts & pages, add media, add users to your site, customize your theme, and much more. To navigate to your Dashboard:
- Navigate to VIUBlogs.
- Click the Login with your VIU account link. Login using your VIU Computer account credentials.
- You will be taken to your Dashboard upon login. In order to make changes to a particular site, you will need to navigate to the Dashboard of that site. You can do so by clicking My Sites in the upper left hand corner of the screen.
- You will be taken to a page that lists all the VIUBlog site you are a user of. Click the Dashboard link underneath the site you would like to edit.
The My Sites option will appear in the upper left hand corner of every page you visit in VIUBlogs. If you ever need to go to the Dashboard of one of your sites, you can always do so by clicking on this link.