Blogging for Instructors

Description

This post is intended to be a starting point for instructors who want to start a blog.  It will be updated as needed.  Students looking for blogging information should visit "Blogging for Students".  Please note, Bentley currently does not have a mechanism in place to create personal blogs for students.

The blog software we have is TypePad (http://www.typepad.com).  For simplicity's sake all "administrative" changes (color scheme, layout, etc.) to the blogs will need to be handled by the ATC.

First steps
Bentley Instructors who would like a blog should fill out the "Request a blog" form below.

After 2 - 3 business days you should receive a response from the ATC with details on your new blog.  The response will contain:

• A link for your blog itself, which is a read-only link that people may visit just to view the blog.
• Passwords, if selected, to access the blog.
• Preliminary instructions on accepting the invitation(s) to blog.  The full instructions are available at http://blogs.bentley.edu/invite/invite.html.
• A link to TypePad (http://www.typepad.com), which is where you just login to post content to your blog.  Your login information may have been created when you accepted the invitation to blog.
• Any additional information that may be necessary.

Help
General Information on posting to the blog is available using TypePad's online Help system under "Posting to Your Weblog".  The "Out of Many, One" post will help place Bentley's blogging efforts into the wider framework of blogs, and explain why you've got two URLs to keep track of, per blog.

Request a blog
To request a blog please complete this information.

       

1. About you: Your Name: Email Address:

2. If you'd like a blog for a specific class, please tell us the: Course Number (e.g. IT101): Section (e.g. 002):

3. If you'd like to start a faculty blog, please tell us the: Blog name:

4. Would you like the blog to be included in a public directory of blogs? Yes  No

5. Would you like it to be password protected so that only people with the password can access it?  If so, please tell us what the password should be: Password: Confirm Password:

6. If this is to be a group blog (such as for a class or committee), please tell us the names and email addresses of the other authors.  We need this information to have TypePad send an invitation to author this blog to the other authors. For classes there is an easy way to provide us with the names and email addresses, using BannerWeb:     A. Log into BannerWeb and Find your class.     B. Select the "Detail Class list".     C. Just above the actual data there are two links that mention downloading the data into Excel. The first should say it includes email addresses, and is the link you'll need to select.  Download the file.     D. Open the file in Notepad or Word.  Copy and paste the contents below. Also, when we should send the invitations out?  This works best if you've notified the recipients to expect them, otherwise they are likely to discard the emails as spam. Date/Time:

7. Is there anything else you'd like us to know?