Communications & Marketing
Last Updated: 2015.09.29
Office of the President Website
Help Documentation
OVERVIEW
The president’s website was overhauled in September of 2015. It still uses the main Skidmore
Theme but the interior layout is much different than anything used on the website before. A
“blog” or “news” system has been setup so that each Statement, Speech, Video, Photo Gallery or
In the News article is created and added to a RSS feed which is then parsed on a few different
pages.
This help document assumes you have basic knowledge about OU Campus such as logging in,
navigating OU, uploading images, and creating new pages.
HOMEPAGE
The homepage is broken up into two different sections, the top introduction and the bottom
“blog” feed. The top introduction can be edited right in OU Campus just like a regular page. The
bottom “blog” feed is explained further down this help documentation. This section pulls in the
last three “blog” entries based on the most recent date (any category). The fourth item, Why It
Matters, is permanent and if it needs to be updated, please contact Jonathan Volks in
Communications & Marketing Department.
Top Introduction
Navigate to the president's homepage (http://www.skidmore.edu/president/) and log into OU
Campus using the hidden link. Check out the page and begin to edit it. When it pulls up in the
website editor, you should be seeing a table with two columns, first is the text and the second is
the picture. Note that the picture will most likely not be the size it normally looks, this is okay.
Update the text with whatever you would like. If you are replacing the image, delete and insert a
new one in the same column. The picture dimensions should be 384px X 350px. The text name
is an H1, under that is an H2, under that is a horizontal rule, and under that is just regular text. Be
sure to save and publish it when you are finished.
THE “BLOG”
The “blog” (used loosely as it’s a set of articles under a category hierarchy ordered by date much
like a typical online blog) is setup using five different categories, Speeches, Statements, Photo
Gallery, Video and In the News. The pages that are using this system are:
http://www.skidmore.edu/president/ (pulls in last three)
http://www.skidmore.edu/president/speeches/ (pulls in only speeches)
http://www.skidmore.edu/president/statements/ (pulls in only statements)
http://www.skidmore.edu/president/media/ (pulls in video and photo gallery)
http://www.skidmore.edu/president/in-the-news/ (pulls in only In The News)
Adding a New Article
Step 1) Log into OU Campus using any the hidden link on any page, then navigate to
/president/blog/. You’ll see that the blog folder has a list of folders with years, choose the year
that you are adding an article to. Most likely this would be the current year, but it’s possible you
may want to add an article from a previous year.
Step 2) Click on the green “New” button near the top of the page and select the one titled
“President’s Blog”.
Step 3) Fill in the Page Title, Description, Keywords, select category and enter in the filename.
The file name should start with with numeric values of the month and date then followed by the
title. An example: 0905-academic-year.pcf, this article titled Academic Year would have a date of
September 5th. Be sure to only use letters, numbers, dashes, and underscores and the file name
should always end in .pcf
Step 4) Before we get into the content, lets update the properties for the RSS feed. Move your
mouse over the file you just created, the word “Edit” will appear. Move your mouse over edit and
a drop down appear. Choose the RSS option.
There should be one item that has the same title as you entered in the previous screen. Click on
it.
Here you can change the title, description if you wish. They will be the same as the previous
screen you entered. Leave the field “link” and “author” alone. Choose a date and time, if left to
auto then it will choose the current date and time. The time is not displayed any place.
If you have a thumbnail to use with the article, you can upload it under the “media content” part.
Click on the green “Add” button. Enter in a title (it’s not displayed anyplace but is required). On
the file, click the document icon.
This will bring up “Choose a File” screen that is used when uploading images throughout OU
Campus. If the image you are using has already been uploaded, navigate to it and select it. If it
has not, then navigate to /president/blog/2015/images/. (year folder could change if adding an
older article). Click on the “upload” button in the top right hand side and upload the image (just
like uploading images on other pages in OU Campus).
Once finished, choose the save option at the bottom.
Step 5) Click on the edit button to begin editing the page. Note that the image, title and date
WILL be incorrect, these are just placeholders. All that information is what you just entered into
the RSS feed. When the page is published, it will be correct.
Add any text or images to the page that you wish. Remember the date and title will already be
displayed so you don’t have to enter them again.
When you are finished, click save.
Step 6) Publish, click on the green publish button near the top of the page. Note that this may
take a few minutes. Once it’s published, you are finished, Congratulations!
Editing an Existing Article
When editing an existing article, it’s important to remember that you may need to edit the article
in two spots, the article content itself and the RSS Feed. The article itself is just the content. The
title, short description, date, category and image are part of the RSS Feed.
To edit the content
Log into OU Campus and navigate to the page that you wish to update. Check out the page and
click the edit button. Update the page with what updates are required. Save it and press the
green publish button again. The image, title and date are just there as placeholders, just ignore
them.
To edit the RSS Feed
Log into OU Campus and navigate to the page that you wish to update. Check out the page by
clicking on the lightbulb and move your mouse over the “edit” button, click on RSS Feed.
Click on the title of the item.
Update the Title, Description, Publish Date / Time, Media that you may need to update. If you are
changing the category, in the Extra XML, have ONE of these options.
<ouc:category>Statement</ouc:category>
<ouc:category>Speeches</ouc:category>
<ouc:category>Photo Gallery</ouc:category>
<ouc:category>Video</ouc:category>
<ouc:category>News</ouc:category>
Save the changes and then click on “Rebuild Feed” when you are finished. Rebuilding the feed
may take a few minutes.
To Delete an Article
To delete an article, log into OU and navigate to the page that you wish to delete. Check the
page out by clicking on the lightbulb and hover over “File”. Select “Move to Recycle Bin”. This will
delete the page and the RSS item for that article. If you uploaded any pictures specific to this
article, be sure to repeat the same process by navigating to that file in the image folder and
deleting it.