UT Shield

University Blog Service

University of Texas at Austin

Welcome to the University Blog Service
The University Blog Service (UBS) is a managed WordPress Multisite platform available for use by current students, faculty, and staff (for non-course related purposes) at The University of Texas at Austin. Sites can be created for individuals, groups, projects, or departments.

Have a question? Service documentation and request form can be found in the UBS service catalog. Alternatively, you can submit a request through ServiceNow by emailing us at help@sites.utexas.edu.

, Filed Under: maintenance, News

Gutenberg Editor Is Coming!

UBS will be updated to WordPress 5.1.1 on May 23rd, 2019. You’ll notice a handful of changes throughout your Dashboard but one that we want to share is the new Page/Post editor called Gutenberg.

It’s a big change from the current, “Classic” editor you’re familiar with so far. The Classic editor will continue to be available by default for all current and new sites. Site Administrators are welcome to try out the new Gutenberg editor at any time by logging into the Dashboard, clicking on Plugins in the left hand menu, then deactivating the “Classic Editor” plugin.

, Filed Under: maintenance

Maintenance Outage

The University Blog Service will undergo an upgrade on December 18th, 2018 from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM. During this time the service may be unavailable.

Check the IT Maintenance Events Calendar for more information.

If you have any questions, please contact the UT Service Desk at 512-475-9400. Thank you!

, Filed Under: Did You Know, Plugin Documentation

Wave of the Future: Google Analytics

First published on January 28, 2015. Updated on November 29, 2018.

This post will walk you through getting your site up with Google Analytics and properly configured. Let’s get started!

Before beginning, please be sure to review the best practices policy for the use of analytics on campus. Ensure that you have the following before beginning to configure your blog site:

• Site administrator credentials for a University Blog Service blog
• An email address that is not hosted on UTMail

First, create a Google Account. This can be your own personal Gmail/Google account if you have one. For departmental blogs or sites with multiple administrators, we do strongly recommend that a new Google Account be created for the group and that the credentials be shared in Stache with fellow administrators.

Next, log into the Google Analytics page, http://www.google.com/analytics/web, using the blog’s Google Account.

• Click “Sign Up”

• Fill out the New Account details using your blog information

• And select “Get tracking ID”

screen-shot-2017-02-09-at-3-23-32-pm

Next log into the Dashboard for your WordPress blog site, then:

• Click on “Plugins” in the left hand menu.
• Look for a plugin named “Google Analytics for WordPress by MonsterInsights.”
• Click on the “Activate” link under it.

The Dashboard will refresh once the plugin had been successfully activated. At this point the plugin will need to be configured to follow the best practices for Google Analytics use on campus.

• While still in Plugins, find the Google Analytics for WordPress by MonsterInsights you just activated and click on Settings.

settings
• Click “Authenticate with your Google account” and provide the email used to create your google analytics profile, then click “Allow” to allow the plugin to access your Google account.

• Select your site from the “Pick a Profile” dropdown and click “Complete Connection”.

 

complete connection

• You will get a message that it is finishing up and you will be taken back to your site. You will be on a page called Insights.

• Scroll down and click “Save Changes”.

Insights

That’s it! You’re done! After a short period of time Google Analytics will begin to collect information and you can view your Analytics from your Google Account. If you should have any questions, please send an email to help@sites.utexas.edu

NOTE: On August 9, 2018 Google Analytics for WordPress changed ownership from Yoast to MonsterInsights. This article has been updated to reflect this change.

If you already had Google Analytics activated on your site, please follow these instructions to re-authenticate:

  • Log in to your site dashboard
  • Open the left hand menu item, “Insights” (formerly called “Analytics”)
  • Follow the instructions to re-authenticate with Google Analytics

Resources from the plugin Developer:

, Filed Under: News

SSL Only Available on UBS

Starting today, all site administrators now have the ability to force visitors to view their site over HTTPS!

There is much discussion from Google as well as the US Federal Government as to why you might want to consider it. Least to say when it comes to Google search rankings, those that are HTTPs only get a little boost. This is how you do it.

Getting Started

SSL only is configured on the server on a per site basis so you must activate it for each of your sites individually. Fortunately it’s real simple

To enable this feature on your site, log into your Dashboard and click Settings -> SSL

In the resulting page you will see a “Go ahead, activate SSL!”. Click that button and you’re done! Browse your site and ensure that all content is displaying as you expect.

Encountering Issues?

You may notice images not appearing, styling not being applied, Javascript not running, or your site not behaving as expected. This is likely because there are hard coded references to these resources in your website. Changing them from ‘http’ to ‘https’ will address the issue. If you encounter further difficulties, please submit a ticket to help@sites.utexas.edu for assistance.

, Filed Under: Did You Know

Improve Contrast Issues with Twitter Timeline Embeds

We recently had a user write in who wanted to share a tip about how to handle a common accessibility problem when embedding Twitter: Minimum Color Contrast.

I have been working to increase our accessibility scores and was able to improve the Twitter color contrast on our other sites by visiting the “set customization options” at https://publish.twitter.com/# where you can choose a higher contrast color for links.

I also shared instructions with all the Twitter content creators on how-to make images accessible,

https://help.twitter.com/en/using-twitter/picture-descriptions

–Sarah Snow, COLA

The good news is that you can do this on UBS using WordPress oEmbeds!

oEmbeds are a set of powerful features that allow you to integrates 3rd party sources into your site without the need for a plugin. One such oEmbed for Twitter which allows you to embed Tweets, profiles, lists, collections, likes, or Moments. In this post, we’ll look on how to embed Twitter into your pages, posts, and widgets. Then we’ll look into different approaches to how to check for color contrast.

Step one: Which Twitter Account do you want to use?

For this demonstration, we are using the UT Austin Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/UTAustin

Step two: Where do you want to embed it?

Create or edit a post or page and ensure that the editor is in the “Visual” mode. Then paste the Twitter URL onto a line all by itself.

Using Twitter oembeds in the WordPress post editor

You’ll know it’s working because the Twitter feed will “pop” in automatically.

Step three: Publish!

Done!

Now, how do you address color contrast issues that come up?

Step one: Grab your embed code from Twitter

  • Visit the Twitter Publishing page
  • Enter your Twitter feed URL into the field titled “What would you like to embed?”. In our example, we are using – https://twitter.com/UTAustin
  • Click the right-pointing “Next” arrow
  • Select the display option that you want

Step two: Addressing the Color Contrast Issue

This is the tricky part as you’ll need to know what color scheme you’re using, and trying a few things to determine what works with your design AND is color accessible. Twitter gives you the option of light and dark backgrounds, in addition to the option to to enter your own color codes for links. There are a number of tools out there to help with this decision. One tool that I like is contrast ratio.

Step three: Embedding

This will be a little different from the steps that we outlined previously as we won’t rely on the Twitter oEmbed.

  • Once you have selected your color codes on the Twitter Publishing page, click on “Update”.
  • You’ll be prompted with an embed code. Copy this embed code and go back to the page or post where you are posting your Twitter feed.
  • Be sure you’re in “Visual” mode in the editor and paste that code.
  • Click Publish
  • Once you publish you’ll be able to view your embed just like when using oEmbeds!

Accessibility is a large and encompassing topic that covers a large range of issues but taking it one step at a time can take you a long way in ensuring your website is accessible!

Here are some additional resources to help you as you learn more:

Color Contrast, Beyond the Basics

Twitter Accessibility

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