In partnership with the CSUSM History Department, the Library Technology Initiatives and Development (LTID) department is providing History Master's degree students with access to the Wordpress content management platform. You may use these web-based applications to create websites to support your final thesis projects.
Below you will find information on contract agreement, support from LTID, best practices, resources, and a list of all current history student websites.
Getting Started
- Please use the form located at Website Request Form for History Master's Students to request the creation of a Wordpress site.
- LTID will provision your site within 3 business days and provide you with information on accessing your new site.
- It is your responsibility to learn how to use Wordpress. LTID does not provide website customization, content editing support, website design, or training on the use of the software.
First Steps with WordPress
Best practices and your responsibilities as a site owner
- Please be aware that network disruptions or unexpected system outages may result in loss of work. We recommend regularly saving your work
- Wordpress will autosave a draft every minute.
- If you perform a password reset, please adhere to campus requirements for valid passwords. This information is available on IITS Username & Password/Passphrase reset, under the "What Makes a Valid Password?" section.
- Creating accessible content is your responsibility. There are a number of resources on campus and on the web that can help you this important aspect of publishing content on the web.
General Design - guidelines provided by CSUSM IITS
Introduction to Web Accessibility - W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
What you can expect from LTID Support
Site Availability and Backups
- LTID is committed to providing the highest possible availability for all systems. In addition, each site is securely backed up on a regular schedule and backups are retained for an extended period of time.
- In the event of a site outage, LTID will ensure that your site is restored to service as quickly as possible.
- LTID employs the same server data center, system monitoring, and backup processes as used by IITS.
- LTID is not able to support the retrieval of content lost due to network disruption, computer crashes, or other computing problems. LTID will perform a full site restore only in the event of a problem with a campus webserver or database system.
Security
- LTID will upgrade as soon as possible the Wordpress core system and installed addons when security updates are available.
- Upgrades that provide feature improvements will also be applied but at a lower priority.
- Network and system security is managed by IITS.
Addons for WordPress
- You may request the installation of additional Wordpress addons. We will make every effort to fulfill your request. However, LTID reserves the right to deny requests (we will provide an explanation).
- LTID will not accept any requests that install additional software to our webservers.
LTID Plugin recommendations
- Timeline plugins:
- For WordPress, we recommend the free version of these plugins. All plugins have a Pro version, but the free version should work for your needs.
- Mapping plugins:
- For WordPress, we don't recommend the Mapping plugins available at this time. We recommend adding the QGIS files to the server and creating an iframe within your website. This process can take up to three days to develop. So please get in touch with LTID as soon as possible to access SharePoint to add your files.
LTID Support Portal
- LTID Support Portal
- Support hours are
Mon - Fri 8AM - 5PM - We will respond to tickets within 1 business day
- For urgent matters please email hpower@csusm.edu, svisintainer@csusm.edu, and your instructor. All three above have access to your website and can help in any way needed.
Useful Links for Students