From CUNY Academic Commons

• How to create blog subscriptions – This post describes how to use two WordPress Plugins: Subscription Options and Twitter Tools Plugin.

From CUNY Academic Commons

Introducing Six Shortcuts

There are not that many commands that you need to know to write a wiki page, and most can be found on the Rich Editor, but in some cases it’s more efficient to know some shortcuts for formatting a wiki page.

While you can enter all these code in the Rich Editor, you need disable it to efficiently work with them. (There’s a hyperlink called “Disable rich editor.”)

Creating Sections

To create a section, simply add one to six equal marks (“=”) before and after your section heading.  Equal marks need to start at column one of your page (i.e. all the way over to the left).

• =My Main Section=
• ==My Sub Section==
• ===My Sub Sub Section===

• and so on…

The number of equals marks must be the same on each side. Font size gets smaller and colors change as you increase the number of equals marks. Max number of equals signs is six on each side.

Creating a Table of Contents

MediaWiki automatically creates a table of contents and places it at the top of your page if you have three or more sections.

If you don’t want a table of contents to appear, use the MediaWiki “magic” word __NOTOC__ at the top of your page, and the table of contents will be suppressed.

Bullet List

Have a list of items that you want to format with bullets? Simply add an asterisk before each one. Again, the asterisks must be in column one, (i.e. all the way to the left):

 
*Item one

*Item two

*Item three
 

This is rendered as:

• Item one
• Item two
• Item three

Numbered List

Have a list of items that you want to number? Simply add a number sign (#) before each one. Again, the number signs must be in column one, (i.e. all the way to the left):

 
#Item one

#Item two

#Item three
 

This is rendered as:

1. Item one
2. Item two
3. Item three

External Hyperlinks

The formula for an external hyperlink is an open square bracket, the url, followed by a space, then the word your want to appear as your link, and closed with a square bracket.

The following code: [http://www.loc.gov Library of Congress] will be rendered as: Library of Congress

Linking to Other Commons Wiki Pages

The formula for a link to another wiki page is two open square brackets, followed by the page name, and closed with two square brackets.

The following code:[[CUNY on ITunes U]] will be rendered as: CUNY on iTunes U.

If the page exists, you will link there directly. If the page does not exists, you will be prompted to create this page, a quick and efficient way used by many to create a new link and a new page.

Related Links

• Embedding Video in a Wiki
• Wiki Help Screencasts
• FAQ#How_do_I_upload_images_to_a_page_on_the_wiki.3F

From CUNY Academic Commons

By Tiago Pinhal – Creative Commons

What’s an RSS Feed?

Not sure what RSS Feeds are? Check out this link for more information. RSS is short for Really Simple Syndication. RSS feeds are common (among many other places) on the sidebars of websites. If you like a blog or website or a newspaper column and want to know when the next post occurs, you may subscribe to its RSS Feed (if available). RSS feeds let you know when content changes and help control the way your news is presented.

How to Create an RSS Feed on the Commons Wiki

Follow these instructions to create an RSS feed on the Commons Wiki:

• Identify the pages you want to include in your feed.
• Add them to the “News” category.
• Ideally, add them to another, unique category all your own, so that you can control what you feed out.
• Go to “Special Pages.”  (It’s under the Wiki’s Toolbox Tab, on the right sidebar.)
• Scroll down to NewsChannel and click on it.  It’s at the very bottom of the page.  Attached below is a snapshot of the screen you should see.

• Boolean logic applies here. When you add another category, it means that the wiki page needs to be in both categories. If add an exclude category, the article will not be in the feed if it is in that exclude category.
• When you are done, click on create a feed. You should see something like the following screen. (Your content will be under “Commons Wiki News.”)

• From here you can simply subscribe to the feed using an RSS Reader. There are many RSS Readers. This link rates them.
• Or, you can go the the top of your browser and copy the url. You can use this url to add the feed to your blog, website, or to a Commons Wiki page.

How to Display an RSS Feed on the Commons Wiki

You can now add RSS feeds to your Wiki pages! They can be feeds from the Commons Wiki or from anywhere else. Follow these simple instructions.

• Copy the feed url
• Edit the wiki page where you want the feed to appear
• Enter <rss>
• Paste in the url
• Enter </rss>

And you are ready to go.  There are a number of parameters which you may want to use which control how the articles are presented.  This is described by the author of the extension here. (See the section called “The rss tag.”)  You can even enclose 2 or 3 urls within the rss tags (separated by a “|”) and they will be displayed in columns.  

Related Links

• NewsChannel – this is the MediaWiki extension that lets you create RSS Feeds.
• RSSReader – this is the MediaWiki extension that lets you display RSS Feeds on Wiki page

From CUNY Academic Commons

From CUNY Academic Commons

First Steps

To register and get started on the CUNY Academic Commons, follow this
link
or just click on the “Join” image on the CUNY Academic Commons home page, under “Getting Started”:

Please note that the Commons is open to CUNY faculty, staff, and graduate students only. An active CUNY e-mail address is required to proceed. We cannot support undergraduate students or course websites at this time.

There are really only four fields that are required for initial registration. All the others are optional, and may be entered at registration time, or later (by editing user profile). Here are the minimal requirements to get started:

1. User Name: must not have spaces – example: JaneDoe
2. email address – must be an active CUNY e-mail address
3. Full Name
4. CUNY College – pick from drop-down list.  You can choose more than one college.
5. Role – faculty, grad student, alumnus/a, postdoc, other …

You also need to read the Terms of Service and agree to them to register.

Optional Fields

While it is not necessary to enter any other fields to register, it may be convenient at this point to enter more about yourself and starting building your Commons profile. Remember all this can be updated at a later point.

The following optional fields are available:

• Title
• Academic Interests
• Phone
• e-Mail
• Website Address
• Blog Address
• Twitter ID
• IM
• Linked-in ID
• Flickr ID
• youTube ID
• FaceBook Profile Link
• Delicious ID
• Skype ID
• FriendFeed ID

If some of this sounds foreign to you, don’t worry. If you don’t enter anything, the fields will not appear on your profile.

Profile Field Visibility

Please note that you can make these fields visible to the public, or to logged on members of the Commons, or to only your friends on the Commons. There is a “Visibility” hyperlink under each option field.  So, for example, if you want to make your phone number only visible to logged in members of the Commons, your would choose this setting:

Do I want a blog?

If you know that you want a blog, you need to provide a URL and a title. The title of your blog can be changed later, but the URL will remain constant. All blogs on the commons adhere to the following URL pattern: https://xxxxxx.commons.gc.cuny.edu – where “xxxxxx” is the node that you provide here. Try to keep your blog domain name a manageable length. This will be the url you’ll want people to use to read your stuff.

Can’t decide? You can always set a blog later. You can add as many blogs as you want. Choose whether your blog is indexed and  searchable on the web or private and only known to those who know your address. For more on this, see Blog Privacy.

Completing your Registration

Once you have filled out the fields above, you click on “Registration Complete” and if you have filled out the required fields correctly, you should see this page:

You may browse your computer for a suitable avatar and upload the image now, or later, or change it whenever you want.

Activating your Account

The Commons will send you an email to activate your account. Just click on the URL provide to finalize your registration. You are now a member of the Commons!

Sometimes the confirmation email inadvertently ends up going to your “Junk” email folder, so if you do not receive your confirmation, please check there.