Basic Training:
Learning the "basics" is all most people ever need. As a result it's also the longest session so if you sign up for this please make yourself available for three or more hours. Here a short list of items we will cover. The list is not complete because people usually ask questions about topics I didn't plan to include but often cover them anyway because it's useful information.
- How to log in and navigate to your pages.
- Content editor etiquette and Otis protocol.
- How to effectively use the WYSIWYG editor and tool box.
- Hyperlinks, which includes internal linking, external linking, and uploading and linking to documents.
- Images, which includes how to prep and upload images and add them to the page.
- Basic page creation including adding and removing pages from the menu.
- Basic page layout techniques.
Faculty Bios, Courses, and Advanced Microsite:
Creating/editing faculty bios and courses is fairly straight forward but we cover some important image handling techniques that aren't covered in basic training.
Advanced Microsite training is grouped together with faculty bios and/or courses because typically the same person or people add and maintain faculty bios that also maintain the rest of the department's site. Since faculty bio and course training goes so quickly we should have no trouble covering at least two topics in one session, maybe even all three. If you do not plan on maintaining a Microsite, please indicate that in the comments section of the signup form. Here's what's covered in the advanced Microsite training.
- What a Microsite is and why do we use them (the difference between a Microsite and any other area).
- Adding/removing pages to the site.
- Editing a Microsite menu.
- How to feature content (Spotlights, Events, etc.) on a Microsite homepage.
Slideshows, Videos and Spotlights:
Creating slideshows and/or Spotlights requires some knowledge of working with images. If you have and know how to use Photoshop, in even in it's most basic usage, you have that part covered. If not, we'll investigate what tools you have at your disposal and go from there. Spotlights can feature a single image, a slideshow, a video, or possibly a combination of media types. Here's what's covered.
- Preparing images for a slideshow, including thumbnail versions.
- How to use your slideshow on your homepage or embed it on a basic page.
- How to embed a video on your page. (Videos must first be uploaded to YouTube or Vimeo)
- How to create a Spotlight and feature it on your homepage and randomly in the right sidebar of your microsite and throughout the entire website..
Advanced Page Layout and Basic HTML:
In this session we will cover how create a page with some sort of layout. Typically all content added to a page will align itself to the left, this is not a bad thing but may or may not be suitable for all content. For example, you may wish to add content in a chart-like or spreadsheet-like layout. There are many ways to accomplish this on a web page, in this session we will cover the basic methods and try to avoid using raw HTML but you should be prepared to learn a few HTML basics. Here's what's covered.
- Aligning text around images.
- Using tables to create spreadsheet-like content.
- Basic HTML tags to work around short-comings of WYSIWYG editors.
- Touch upon responsive design basics, which has to do with designing you pages for view on mobile devices.
- Discuss the concept of templates, which we can provide for you so that you don't have to work to hard at creating your own complex layouts.
Create Forms:
In this session we will learn to create Web Forms. These forms are useful as "Contact" forms when you don't want to advertise your email address or want to create an RSVP form for your even. Here's what's covered.
- How to create the various form fields and make them mandatory or not as desired.
- How to make custom drop-down menus, radio buttons, or check boxes to allow the user make a choice or select one or more items in a list.
- How to assign the form to send submits an email address.
- How to run reports from your form.
Calendar Events and Spotlights:
Creating Events and/or Spotlights requires some knowledge of working with images. If you have and know how to use Photoshop, in even in it's most basic usage, you have that part covered. If not, we'll investigate what tools you have at your disposal and go from there. Events and Spotlights can feature a single image, a slideshow, a video, or possibly a combination of media types. Here's what's covered.
- How to create an Event and feature it on your homepage, in a Spotlight, and randomly in the right sidebar of your microsite and throughout the entire website.
- How to create a Spotlight and feature it on your homepage, microsite or randomly in the right sidebar.