Word.Emerson is a hosted, networked installation of WordPress (separate from WordPress.com) where the Instructional Technology Group (ITG) creates sites used for teaching and learning. These blogs are available to members of the Emerson community upon request.
See ITG's beginner's guide to using Word.Emerson for hands-on instructions.
WordPress sites can be used to create blogs, websites, journals, and more. Faculty have the option to have a single WordPress site per course (with or without student contributions) or multiple sites for each student or group of students in a course.
Upon faculty request, ITG creates blogs for you and/or your students, adds users, and provides themes and plugins for users to customize their blogs. If needed, we can also try to customize blogs further through theme and plugin research.
Accessing Word.Emerson
Go to word.emerson.edu and log in with your Emerson username and password.
Requesting a blog on Word.Emerson
Faculty must submit a request for a blog on Word.Emerson through our self-service tool. Since this is a manual process, we recommend you send us your request as soon as possible.
Learning about WordPress
ITG offers one-on-one faculty training on a per request basis. We recommend that you schedule a consultation and training before getting started with WordPress to ensure that the blogs are properly customized for your needs and that you are comfortable using the platform. We also offer the following guide to getting started with a WordPress blog.
In addition to the support that ITG provides, we also recommend the following resource for learning about WordPress:
- Although the features aren't exactly the same between WordPress.com and the WordPress hosted on Word.Emerson, answers are often available at support.wordpress.com.
If you need help with WordPress here is a list of what's supported:
Supported:
- Blog creation for curricular use.
- Adding users to blogs.
- Curating supported themes and plugins that users can use to customize their blog.
Best Effort:
- Upon faculty request, we will try to customize blogs through theme and plugin research.
- We will add new themes on request, but they should be accessible. A good way to find them is by filtering WordPress themes by the accessibility-ready tag.
Not Supported:
- Personal blogs.
- Access to edit blogs is limited to those with an active Emerson account.
- If blogs are inactive for longer than 1 year, they will be deleted.
- For student organization blogs and/or departmental blogs, try websites.emerson.edu via Web Services.