The University Blog Service offers a number of features:

• URLs that are under the utexas.edu domain
• The ability to set blogs as publicly viewable, or privately viewable to a specified group of users
• Customization with one of 40 available themes
• The ability to track blog traffic through statistics

Faculty and staff can automatically create a blog from the University Blog Service page by logging in with their UT EID username and password. Departments, groups, teams, and workgroups can submit a request to have a blog created for them.

Faculty should be aware that the service does not meet the FERPA requirements for hosting Category-I data, and therefore the University Blog Service should not be used for academic purposes. Faculty who want to use blogs in the classroom should consider Blackboard 9, which launched on May 26 and is FERPA compliant.

The University Blog Service has been successful in a limited pilot program for the past six months, with over 200 new blogs created by a variety of university groups and individuals. The service uses WordPress MU, a multi-user version of the WordPress blogging platform.

If you encounter any difficulties with the University Blog Service, please contact the ITS Help Desk at (512) 475-9400.

]]> http://blogs.utexas.edu/blog/2009/06/01/university-blog-service-launches-today-june-1-2009/feed/ http://blogs.utexas.edu/blog/2009/03/13/server-maintenance-march-14-2009/ http://blogs.utexas.edu/blog/2009/03/13/server-maintenance-march-14-2009/#comments Fri, 13 Mar 2009 16:46:08 +0000 http://blogs.utexas.edu/?p=31 On Saturday, March 14, 2009 from 6:00 a.m. to noon, maintenance will be performed on the server that hosts the university blog pilot program. All blogs hosted on blogs.utexas.edu will be unavailable during this maintenance window.

Up-to-date information on this maintenance effort is available at any time on the ITS Services Status page, http://www.utexas.edu/its/alerts/. Also, the ITS Help Desk will be available throughout the maintenance window on Saturday to field any user calls.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

]]> http://blogs.utexas.edu/blog/2009/03/13/server-maintenance-march-14-2009/feed/ http://blogs.utexas.edu/blog/2009/03/10/ut-austin-blogs-to-go-production-april-6-2009/ http://blogs.utexas.edu/blog/2009/03/10/ut-austin-blogs-to-go-production-april-6-2009/#comments Tue, 10 Mar 2009 16:08:50 +0000 http://blogs.utexas.edu/?p=23 Information Technology Services (ITS) would like to thank all the current blogs.utexas.edu bloggers for participating in the Blog Pilot Program. The program has been a success, with over 200 new blogs created by a variety of university groups and individuals.

On Monday, April 6, 2009, the Blog Pilot Program will planned to expand to become the University Blog Service. ITS will open up the service to any faculty and staff who would like a university blog. The production launch of blogs.utexas.edu actually occurred on June 1, 2009.

The launch of the University Blog Service will not affect any of the blogs you created as part of the pilot program. You will still be able to access and edit these blogs in the same way you did during the pilot. However, depending on the settings you selected for your blog, visitors to the Blog Service Web site at blogs.utexas.edu may be able to view the URL to your blog, and the general public will be able to view the site.

If you are still testing content for your site, you may want to remove your blog site from the Updated Blogs and Recent Posts lists on the University Blog Service site.

Adjusting the Privacy Settings for Your Blog

1. go to the  blogs.utexas.edu Admin Dashboard
2. click the Settings tab on the right side of the page
3. click Privacy to display the Privacy Settings page
4. select the “I would like to block search engines, but allow normal visitors” option
5. click the Save Changes button

After April 6, 2009, if you encounter any difficulties with your blog, please contact the ITS Help Desk.

]]> http://blogs.utexas.edu/blog/2009/03/10/ut-austin-blogs-to-go-production-april-6-2009/feed/ http://blogs.utexas.edu/blog/2008/08/25/hello-world/ http://blogs.utexas.edu/blog/2008/08/25/hello-world/#comments Mon, 25 Aug 2008 21:20:21 +0000 gsims Welcome to blogs.utexas.edu. This is the first step in establishing an enterprise blog service for the University of Texas at Austin. During this initial phase, Fall 2008, we are limiting participation to select staff and departments for the purpose of appropriately scaling the hardware and tuning the software for wider campus adoption.

Want a few more details? Check out the Blogs and Wikis Project Description and don’t hesitate to let us know if you have any questions.

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