Blog is short for weblog. A weblog is an online journal that can be updated regularly and is intended for general public consumption. Blogs generally reflect the personality of the author or the Web site.

This Wikipedia entry covers the history of blogging, the various types of blogs and their uses in mass media.

OIT’s blogging service is open to all students, faculty, and staff at UMass Amherst. To activate your blog, just go to blogs.umass.edu and log in using your NetID (OIT Account user name) and UMail password - your blog is waiting for you.

Your blog’s URL is http://blogs.umass.edu/NetID/ Where NetID is the NetID (OIT Account user name) you use to log in to edit your blog. Note: We cannot change the URL for your blog.

UMass bloggers are each allotted 50 MB of space. If you require more space, we recommend using UDrive, where you can store up to 250 MB worth of files. Your UDrive files can be accessed on or off campus.

Instructors who already have a course Web site account can log in with their course Web site NetIDs and passwords. Note: To log in successfully, the course Web site account must have the UMail service associated with it.

Don’t have a course Web site account? Go to the OIT Account Management Office (A113 LGRC) with your UCard.

Many departments already have a UMail account that they use for department-wide functions (e.g., as a contact email address on a department Web site). We recommend that staff members use this account to log in to Blogs at UMass Amherst and to create a blog for their department.

If, for some reason, this account is not appropriate for blogging purposes, please come to the OIT Accounts Desk in A113 LGRC (Monday - Friday 8:30 a.m. - 4:45 p.m.) For security reasons, you must be there in person. Don’t forget your UCard!

Blogs at UMass Amherst use WordPress Multi-User (MU), an open source blogging platform used by many other colleges and universities. For more information, see http://wordpress.org.

To get help, contact the OIT Help Desk (413) 545-9400 or fill out an online Help Request. You can also visit the WordPress web site.

If you do not want your blog to be included in this directory, on your blog Dashboard, go to Options > Privacy and select "I would like to block search engines, but allow normal visitors."

By changing this setting, your blog will be removed from the directory and will be prevented from being found by Google and other search engines.

WordPress is open source, so a majority of the themes were created by volunteer developers (Thanks!). While a majority of themes are bug-free, some may have errors we didn’t catch.

If you’re having a lot of trouble with a particular theme, we recommend that you choose another, simpler theme from the list.

We are not allowing people to create and upload their own themes and/or to modify existing WordPress themes. To make your blog your own, we suggest that you use the customization options included in almost all of the default themes.

Find a theme you really like? Because WordPress is open source, volunteer developers the world over have developed WordPress themes and offer them for use through an open source license. If you find one you really want us to install, please contact the OIT Help Desk. We will review your request and respond to it via email.

Please contact the OIT Help Desk and let us know. We will then review your request to ensure it meets our technical requirements and respond via email.

Your UMass blog is not private. Blogs are public Web sites that can be viewed by anyone with Internet access.

Use caution when posting personal or sensitive information on your UMass blog, as this information can be viewed and shared by the public. Please refer to OIT’s Acceptable Use Policy for more information.

The import feature does not appear to work with the new Google-based Blogger.com.

As a work-around, you can create a WordPress.com account, import your Google-based Blogger.com account to it, then import your WordPress.com blog to Blogs at UMass Amherst. (whew!)

We are working on an easier solution for this problem.

You will be able to update your blog for six months after your graduate. When these six months have passed, you will no longer be able to write posts, nor will your blog be accessible as a public Web site. We recommend that you Export your blog and save it to your computer before these six months have passed, otherwise your blog will be deleted permanently.

To back up your blog, log in to your blog and go to Manage > Export > Download > Export File. WordPress will create an XML file for you to save to your computer, which will contain all your posts, comments, custom fields and categories.

In order to delete one blog posting, log in to your blog, go to Manage > Posts. Here you can see each of your posts. Click Delete next to the post you’d like to delete. Note: A deleted post cannot be retrieved.

In order to delete your entire blog account, log in to your blog, go to Options > Delete Blog. On the Delete Blog page, select “I’m sure I want to permanently disable my blog, and I am aware I can never get it back or use blogs.umass.edu again.” Then click Delete my blog permanently. An email will be sent to your UMail account containing a link. Clicking on this link will permanently delete your blog account. Please keep in mind that your UMass Blog account can never be retrieved once you've deleted it permanently.

If you encounter problems, submit an online Help Request.
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Contact the OIT Help Desk at 545-9400.