Navigation Bar

You’ll see a navigation bar at the top of your browser window that will provide you with quick and easy access to all the most important pages of your blog and its dashboard, along with important pages for the voices.wooster.edu site. 

Dashboard

The Dashboard is your blog’s home screen that contains menus for managing your site and adding new content.

Adding a New Post

From your Dashboard, hover over the “Posts” menu in the sidebar and choose “Add New” or click the “+New” option in the top menu bar. 

You should see a page that looks like this:

Joining a Group

To join a group:

1. Click groups on the main menu bar just above the image on the home page at voices.wooster.edu.
2. Scroll down to view a list of groups. Public groups will allow you to join right away and private groups require you to request membership.

Backing up your blog

You can use the Export tool in the Tools panel to backup your posts and comments. We would recommend that everyone do this at least once a month, but once a week would be better for heavy posters or active blogs. After clicking on “Export,” click on “Download Export File” to download an XML file containing all of the posts and comments.

Customizing the look of your site

Several of the available themes allow you to customize the colors and layout of your site.

Many other themes allow you to upload a custom header image. If the theme you choose has such options, they will either be found in the Settings panel or in a new option panel added by the theme. If you would like your site’s colors to match those of the Wooster website, you can visit the The College of Wooster Visual Identity System.

If you would like to customize the fonts on your blog you can activate the Typekit Fonts for WordPress plugin and create a free account with Typekit.

Adding Users to your site

Students should register for Voices before being added to your site. You can add them individually or in groups of 10.

Add users individually

1. Go Dashboard > Users > Add New User.
2. Under Add Existing User, enter the user’s College email address.
3. Set the role you’d like the user to have for this site (such as “Author”).
4. Click the Add Existing User button.
5. A message will display: “Invitation email sent to user. A confirmation link must be clicked for them to be added to your site.”
6. The user will receive an email with a link he/she must follow before being added to the site.

Adding multiple users at once

1. Ask your students to register for Voices first.
2. Activate the Add Existing Users plugin:  Go Dashboard > Plugins. Navigate to Add Existing Users. Click the Activate link.
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3. After all students have registered for Voices, go Dashboard > Users > Add Existing Users.
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4. Enter the Wooster e-mail address of your student into the text box. Select the role your student should have (author, contributor). Enter up to 10 users. Click the Submit button.
5. If a user cannot be found: An error message will appear: “The user with email address user27@wooster.edu could not be found.” Delete that user and check the Roles for the other users before clicking Submit. 
6. Repeat for additional users.

Support Videos

Support videos are available on voices.wooster.edu that will show you how to use many features of the WordPress platform. At your Dashboard, click “Video Tutorials” in the left sidebar to see tutorial options.

Other Blog Features

• Comments
• Media
• Links
• Widgets and Sidebars
• Writing and Editing