WordPress

Branding Guidelines

Any website created for official university communications is required to follow the branding guidelines published by University Communications, including the following:

Accessibility Requirements

NC State University is committed to providing a barrier-free IT environment to all people. WordPress is a recommended technology for creating accessible websites. However, you must still follow basic accessibility best practices as you create content, including the following:

  • Every post and page must have a title.
  • Use headings to denote sections of your posts and pages.
  • Add alternative text for images when adding them to posts and pages.

The university IT Accessibility Coordinator periodically leads workshops on WordPress and accessibility. You can learn more and register for the next available workshop in REPORTER. For additional information, contact OIT Design & Web Services.

Learning to Use WordPress

There are several resources available for learning how to use WordPress.

The WordPress Codex is “the online manual for WordPress and a living repository for WordPress information and documentation.” The Codex has extensive information for all aspects of WordPress, including getting started guides, best practices for content editing, as well as developer resources.

WordPress.org offers a knowledge base, which contains all kinds of information ranging from how to author posts, to what the user roles and permissions are. The knowledge base is a bit newer than the Codex, and is a bit easier to navigate and read through articles.

If you prefer a more audio-video learning experience, the following guides are available:

The Office of Information Technology at NC State also offers training courses to faculty and staff.

Editing on WordPress

WordPress was designed originally as a blogging software, but it has evolved into a complete content management system, allowing those with little to no experience building web sites to easily develop dynamic, professional-looking sites to fit a variety of needs.

Learn more about editing here →

Self-hosting WordPress?

Cthulhu

Install Cthulhu, the campus WordPress plugin distribution tool: https://wp-updates.oit.ncsu.edu/repositories

After installing the plugin, go to Settings > Cthulhu and add the relevant repos. The following are the most useful ones:

  • https://wp-updates.oit.ncsu.edu/pkg/oit
  • https://wp-updates.oit.ncsu.edu/pkg/ucomm-public
  • https://wp-updates.oit.ncsu.edu/pkg/itecs

Key University Assets

If using Hillsborough (or a derivative of it), the Brand Bar will be automatically pulled. If using non-NC State theme, grab the NC State Brand Bar plugin for easiest integration.

NC State MARS is critical for Unity ID login—and thereby forcing anyone to go through Two Factor automatically.

NC State Blocks are handy if using a block-based site.

As web font is now Roboto, pull that directly from Google Fonts.

People/Directory Plugin

If using non-standard setup of People/Directory, tying publications to faculty is a little more complicated, as it links via SPR for the person, not UnityID. To find the AID, get the person on Citation Index, and right-click, select View Page Source. Near the bottom of the page, search for “SPR Author ID”. That will lead to a number–that’s the number you need to tie that person’s citation record to them.

It will looks like this:

console.log(“SPR Author ID for Samira Syal (srajesh): 57710“);

Input that number on your People edit page.