Free blogs for the University of Nottingham Ningbo
Introduction
Weblogs at the University of Nottingham Ningbo is provided by Information Services as a free service to all staff. All staff with an email address at Nottingham.edu.cn can sign up instantly and be blogging in minutes.
About Blog
A blog (short for weblog) is a personal online journal that is frequently updated and intended for general public consumption. Blogs are defined by their format: a series of entries posted to a single page in reverse-chronological order.Blogs generally represent the personality of the author or reflect the purpose of the Web site that hosts the blog. Topics sometimes include brief philosophical musings, commentary on Internet and other social issues, and links to other sites the author favours, especially those that support a point being made on a post.
The author of a blog is often referred to as a blogger. Many blogs syndicate their content to subscribers using RSS, a popular content distribution tool.
Get a Blog
Anyone can read our blogs. However, only staff of the University of Nottingham Ningbo, China are able to publish or ‘post’ on a blog. Use of these blogs requires authorisation from a relevant department / divisional representative.
If you would like to set up a blog on our server, please email a relevant department / divisional representative (usually your Head of Division) and ask them to email their authorization to if you already ARE a head of Division you may send your request to the Head of Information Services.
Your use of blogs at UNNC is managed by the terms of the UNNC Code of Practice which is available on the UNNC IS Website.
Project Information
We use WordPress multi-user for running our blogs. It is often used for Universities, Blog networks, Newspapers and magazines as well as blog hosts, where it serves tens of millions of hits on hundreds of thousands of blogs each day.
With our recent installation of the latest version of WordPress MU, we have installed several dozen themes that support customizations through things like header image uploads, changing colours and fonts, and modifying sidebar widgets. We unfortunately do not have the ability to allow our users to securely write or modify their own themes, but we continue to look for solutions for this oft-requested feature.
Why Blog?
There are many reasons to have a Blog but the value in a teaching environment is that you can use a Blog to create an online resource that your students can access from anywhere and use that to link together lots of other resources in a simple and (relatively) intuitive way.
Examples of Academic based blogs can be viewed at:
and
and
Just a small word of warning, not all experiences of Blogging are entirely positive. A good review of this is at:
Also you assume some responsibilities when blogging to respect others. A useful guide has been published by the Registrar of UON:
There are countless ways for Nottingham students to express their views about the University, their experiences and their friends. Many of these are helpful and productive aids for learning as well as for social networking.
However, you need to be aware that anything you post (however innocently intended) on your own blog, web page or on Facebook or similar sites, may be seen as potentially defamatory or libellous.
Any statement you publish may be legally actionable. Even comments which simply contain factual inaccuracies can potentially cause loss or damage to individuals or jeopardise their safety. You may be personally liable for the consequences. Also, you might want to think about how your web presence might look to a future employer.
You also need to remember that you remain subject to the University’s regulations covering acceptable standards of behaviour; IT facilities usage; harassment and bullying. In the event of a serious breach of these regulations, on Facebook or elsewhere, the University will not hesitate to take action which could lead amongst other things to withdrawal of your IT access, and to a fine or suspension (or even in the most extreme case to expulsion) under the University’s Code of Discipline for Students.
So, do think carefully before posting comments about others.
Dr Paul Greatrix
Registrar
These comments are obviously targeted at Student use but the general advice applies to all members of the university.
But contentious use aside, Weblogs offer a innovative and fun way to communicate with the world, enjoy!