Author: Brian Burchett

Adding Students as Contributors to a sites.nd.edu WordPress Site

Brian Burchett

Go to sites.nd.edu and look for the login link on the lower left hand side navigation:

Choose the option to Log in with NetID/Okta:

If it is not selected by default, click on My Sites:

You should see your blog(s) listed.  Choose the Dashboard of the blog that you wish to add users to:

In the Dashboard view, select the Users dashboard on the left:

At the top of the screen, click on Add New:

Add New User.  Select the desired role.  (Your students may need to be authors, rather than contributors.)

WordPress will display a message indicating that an invitation has been sent to this new user:

Repeat these steps for each student.

Students need to look for an email invitation to join the sites.nd.edu WordPress site.

That email may end up in the Spam folder.

The sender will be: sites.nd.edu <webgroup@nd.edu>

The subject line will read:

“[Notre Dame WordPress] Activate netid ” — where netid is replaced the student’s netid

After students click on the invitation link to confirm, they will be sent a second email which will contain login instructions.  Since they use Okta, these instructions are not needed, unless a student registers with a non-ND email address.

WordPress roles:

Administrator — you

Editor — possibly a TA, or if you are co-teaching, your colleague

Author — possible role for students, depending on the types of activities you want them to engage in.  

  • Authors can write, edit, and publish their own posts.  They can also delete their own posts.  
  • Authors can view comments that are pending review, but they cannot moderate, approve or delete comments.
  • Authors cannot access site settings, plugins, or themes.

Contributor — possible role for students, again, depending on the types of activities you want them to engage in.

  • Contributors can add new posts and edit their own posts, but they cannot publish their posts.
  • Contributors cannot upload files, which means they cannot add images to their articles.

Subscriber —

  • Cannot write posts or view comments.
  • Subscribers can read posts and leave a comment.

This information is also available in the ServiceNow Knowledge Base database as article KB0018827.

Testing Comments

Brian Burchett

This is a blog post to allow me to test settings for posting comments.

First, log in to your sites.nd.edu blog as admin, and go to the Dashboard.  Select Settings.  Then Select Discussions.

Make sure “Allow people to submit comments on new posts” is checked.

Make sure “Automatically close comments on posts older than _____ days” is not checked.

If this does not solve the problem, or if it only solves the problem for some blog posts (possibly posts made after you have changed these configuration settings, there is one more thing that you can do.

While you are still logged in to the Dashboard, go to All Posts.

Select one or more blog posts that are not allowing comments:

Find the pull-down menu that says Bulk Actions.  Change that to Edit, and click Apply:

This will pop up a contextual menu that you would otherwise not be able to see.

Make sure Comments are set to Allow.  Click Update.

Comments are now allowed for all blog posts that you selected.

This information is also available in the ServiceNow KB database as article KB0018826.