PDF When you set up an Edublogs blog with multiple users you have the ability to assign and control what other users can do in the blog depending on the tasks you want each user to be responsible for. You need to consider carefully what role you assign other users since Administrators are able to remove other users, including you, and editors can delete content.
The five roles a user can be assigned in decreasing level of responsibility are:
- Administrator – can do everything including complete power over posts, pages, plugins, comments, choice of themes, imports, settings, assign user roles and are even able to delete the blog.
- Editor – is able to publish posts/pages, manage posts/pages, upload files, moderate comments as well as manage other people’s posts/pages.
- Author – can upload files plus write and publish own posts.
- Contributor – can write own posts/pages but can’t publish them.
- Subscriber – can read comments and write comments.
The diagram below summaries the responsibilities of each role:
Please note when using Edublogs Blog & User Creator feature:
- Users are automatically added as Administrators.
- To create multiple student blogs you add yourself as co-administrator by changing selection to Yes in the Add Admin field.
To be able to access Edublogs Blog & User Creator Feature you need to be an Edublogs supporter.
Changing User Role
You change the role of users in your blog dashboard by going to Users > Authors & Users.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Setting up blogs for your students? You may find these posts useful:
- Creating Student Accounts Using One Gmail Account
- Tips On Blogging With Students
- Share Your Advice on Using Student Photos on Blogs
What role(s) do you assign the different users when setting up class and student blogs, and why?
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Your discussion of roles is very timely for me since I’m trying to figure out what is the right solution for students. These are 30 college students building internship (work) portfolios in Edublogs campus.
I want to allow students to change their blog title, password, manage posts, pages, etc.
It seems if I make them Administrator then they don’t have access to their Profile anymore and cannot change their password.
If I make them only Editor then they cannot change their Blog title. I would prefer Editor because I don’t want the students creating new blogs.
Any ideas?
@Una Ability to adjust profile and password is part of edit own profile so they would be able to do regardless of which role you assign them. An administrator can do everything you can do. Unfortunately as you point out an Editor can’t adjust settings.
Hard question — ability to change theme and title is important for being able to personalise their blog for sense of ownership. Perhaps you could give them Administrator access or provide it as required?
I am wanting to set up a classroom book blog similar to this one
http://kidsbookblog.edublogs.org/
I have a teacher blog with edublogs and created a book blog within my same account. How do I set up , or can I, a password that is unique to the book blog so that students don’t have access to my personal teacher blog? Do you have a blog post that might help me do this?
@singintchr I’d probably create usernames for your students and then add them as users to your book blog. Each student will be given their own password to access the blog and can’t access your personal teacher blog since you haven’t given them access.
I’m sorry to ask another question, but in order to add them as a user, do they have to have a blog within edublogs? Is there around this? I’m not sure I want to deal with individual blogs on my first go-round.
Hello,
I’ve read your post, but I just wanted to double-check to make sure… If I create blogs for my students where I am a co-administrator with them, will their posts and comments be sent to me for moderation?
In other words, I would like to be able to have the opportunity to approve or not their posts before they are shown, but I want them to still have a total stand-alone blog from mine. That’s what you wrote about right? I just wanted to check.
Thank you.
@singintchr Always happy to have questions and yours are giving me lots of food for thought. You can add people just as users however at the moment you would need to use the sign up link on the Edublogs main page — when you go to set up their account you just select username only. Unfortunately this only allows you to create one username at a time. Once their username is created you then add each user to your blog.
@Kris Good question which I’m clarifying with James. My understanding is that notification is only sent to the email address used to create the blog and is the email address shown on the General Setting Tab. When you set up student blogs their email address will be the email address the notifications are sent to. However you change the email address to yours.
Sue Thanks for the reply and info on password. I like the editor setting also because the interface is much cleaner than the administrator interface. I guess I’m looking for something in between the two. I do want to empower the students and let them control the look & feel of their blog/pages but I don’t want to overwhelm them with all the bells & whistles of the administrative interface. Even after several weeks working with the administrative interface, I get confused with where to go to do something. I’d rather not force all of this on the students — I’d prefer to see them focus on their content. Cheers,Una
Sue, I love your diagram of the responsibilities of each role. May I have your permission to include that in my handout? I will of course credit you.
Janetta Garton
Please help me. I am traveling with teens over seas and I would to have a blog to have teens and parents receive information from me and give them the opportunity to leave comments.
Do I have the right ideas?
Secondly, how do I notify the families or invite them to be members of this blog. I do not want the gmail 1 account as I do not wish to preview and read all of their comments prior to posting.
I look forward to your responses
@Una Please let me know how you go as your students progress with their blogs.
@Janetta Sure not a problem – go for it. James sent me the diagram which I fixed up and used because he felt people needed clarification.
@dkbookwoman1 So what you are looking at is using one blog for the travel?
All you need to do is send them an email with the URL for the blog explaining to them what is a blog and how to leave comments. They don’t need to be members of the blog to post comments unless you restrict comments to members only.
If you don’t want to moderate all comments just change your comment moderation to not moderating at all. You will still get emails saying that comments have been posted.
I noticed that now that I an author on another persons blog, that when I write a post there is no way to distinguish who wrote the post, me or the blog administrator. Is this dependent on the blog theme or something?
For example, I just posted (my user authority is set to “author”) a test post. The reader can’t tell if I (Salty Saenz) wrote the entry or if the Blog owner (Frank) wrote it. Is there now way to have the account avatar and user name display with the post to indicate which user wrote the post entry? To me, if there are multiple users this should be a default setting.
Anyway to fix this other than remembering to include a signature entry at the end or beginning of each post? Or maybe I am just missing something?
Thanks (Frank and Salty)
Regarding student roles…
Last year my students (middle school) were Administrators. For them, the biggest draw was to let them design their site (pick their theme, add widgets) and then they were excited to use their blog and to comment on others’ blogs. This was done only with one class. Next year I plan to use blogs with 6 classes and we will see if we run into any administrative problems. I do have a master list of students’ usernames and passwords so that if I need to log in as the student I can. If a student changes his/her password, I will remove the link from our homepage until I’m supplied with the new password.
Students were responsible for reading and approving comments, but did not always remember to check if they had new comments, so that is something that we have to work into the routine. They know to alert me if they receive an inappropriate comment, but that did not happen last year.
It’s a process, and middle schoolers are good at circumventing the system, so we’ll see how it works in the coming year.
Nice Blog! It’s Very Helpful!
Hi Sue,
I have been looking for the right place to pass on this feedback, so this post is timely.
I am frustrated with 2 things – that if I allow students to be an admin of their own blogs, they can remove me as administrator, even when I created the blog. But if I downgrade them, even one level, they cannot make aesthetics changes to their own design template, which is a fairly fundamental change. It seems to me their should be something between these 2 extremes…
Thanks
I agree with Suz01 — it would be great to have a level in between administrator and editor that allowed for control over design and even privacy options in a school setting. No need to allow them to create other blogs but they can moderate their own. Thanks for listening.
Oh Sue, do you know that it has taken me nearly 12 months to work out these options and even then I did not understand them all. Sometimes I wish I was just starting now as the tips and posts you give are so useful to beginners and advanced users. Maybe, I would have less grey hairs!! if I had access to your posts when starting off. Thanks for sharing
@Salty and Frank Sorry but unfortunately whether the author’s name is or isn’t displayed is dependent on the theme. So the only solution is to either change theme or add a signature to the post.
@tilgunas Thanks for letting us know how you manage your students as adminstrators — sounds like a good method.
@hlnews glad our posts have been helpful
@Suz01 and Una Currently Edublogs is working on a new system for creating blogs with students. I’ve sent your feedback through and hopefully they will incorporate this into the new system.
@Murcha We have to thank James for this post. He sent through the diagram of the different user levels as he felt it would helpful. Glad you are finding the posts helpful — please feel free to suggest blog post topics you would like to see covered.
I love Edublogs!!!
At present I have my own personal blog, a reading blog for the school community and a class wiki……I want to develop my class blog so there is an home page telling readers what we are all about and then on the sidebar have all the names of the children in my class ..
I want them to be able to access the homepage and then (through password) their own name on the blog, to write posts or comment on other posts so….I keep trying but the left side of my brain refuses to co operate(thats my excuse and i am sticking to it) please help !
I am in the process of setting up a blog for my daughter’s teacher. Another parent in the class will be helping to update the blog. Should I set it up under my own user naem and add two users with the teacher as an administrator and the other parent as an editor, or should I set this up differently? If I do it this way can I set up another blog for another teacher using my same username and adding users in the same way? Does any of this make sense? Thanks,
Kristin
@Mrs Cunningham and @kristinds I believe that I have responded to both of you by email to explain in more detail but if I haven’t or you need further clarification please let me know.
I have set up blogs for each one of my students under Blog and User Creator, but I did not get passwords for each of the blogs I set up. Now my students can not log in. Could you tell me how to get passwords for them. Also, can I change the email address I used to set up my own blog as the administrator. I have too many emails coming to my school email and I can’t manage them all.
@dhteacher Are you still having issues with the passwords? Can you please email edublogs.support [at] gmail [dot] com with the user names?
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I am overwhelmed! All I want is a blog with no individual student blogs. Mine are 1st graders, so I suspect I will mainly interact with parents. I just want to post to my blog and have others able to respond on the same blog. What is my next step. I have an account.
All my students have been added as contributors. I notice that I am needed to approve every comment before it can be published, but the posts on the forum are going straight to the blog. I thought all the posts and comments had to go through me before appearing on the page. Is this correct? Please let me know if I am doing something wrong. If they are able to post without my screening, I have a problem. Thanks!!
Sue…I DID IT! Thank you so much for your wonderful blog to support us. Your tips have made a huge difference in the “user-friendliness” of the edublogs. You are truly a lifesaver for all of us at Georgetown Elementary School. Have a wonderful day. Theresa
i love this website. it is the absolute best.
Finally!! Now I can get started.
I have also set up blogs for each one of my students under Blog and User Creator, I am a subscriber, but I can not find the passwords for each of the blogs I set up. Could you tell me how to get passwords for them. Also, I change the email addresses from gmail to their own. Would they get a new notice from edublogs? How does it work?
Thank you
Sorry, I am sending this again because I forgot to check the notification box.
I have also set up blogs for each one of my students under Blog and User Creator, I am a subscriber, but I can not find the passwords for each of the blogs I set up. Could you tell me how to get passwords for them. Also, I change the email addresses from gmail to their own. Would they get a new notice from edublogs? How does it work?
Thank you
@sucapp Each student will have the password sent to the email address you used to create them. So if you used your gmail account they should be there. However there is a chance they have been put in your spam folder so suggest you check.
You can update their email address inside each blog by clicking on User and changing it in there. Probably easier to do as a class activity.
Hello,
I signed up my students as authors and I know they can post, but can they create a page of their own?
You help is fantastic!
Gracias
@sucapp As an author I believe they can write their own pages. Please let me know if that isn’t the case? Always happy to help.
Hi there,
Thanks for all this wonderful support. I was hoping you could help me. I so very new at this side of the internet!
I basically want my students to be able to do an online journal reflecting on their progress throughout the year and also a listening diary in which they discuss their listening throughout the year.
I’m thinking that I should add them as authors. If I set up a blog and add the students as authors, will they have their own page and I can browse through their writing?
I’m very open for suggestions or pointing me in the direction of where to look.
Thanks!
The better option would be to consider using categories on posts. So each student assigns the post with the category which is their name. Read this post to understand the difference between categories and tags and refer to this post to see the differences in posts and pages – scroll part way down the page to see how you can organise different classes using categories – its the same principal for students.
Thanks Sue.
I just want to clarify things in this old head.
I’m going to use one blog with categories for various year levels and their resources.
I’m going to add my students as authors and they can post to my blog under the appropriate category.
Does that sound right? This is so cool!!
jw
Yes JW that sounds right but now thinking whether you can set up students as subcategories for each year level and then put them as different links in the sidebar. Might be worth you asking this question in Edublogs forum.
I have added student blogs to my blog page but forgot to change the No to a Yes for me to be administrator. How can I change this now that they have been created?
Thank you,
Raffaele
Raffaele – The easiest solution would be to do it as a class activity and show them how to log into their accounts to add you as a user using the email address that you used to create your account.
Hi there!! I have been reading all the wonderful tips and I am finally trying to be brave enough to ask my question. I have created a blog and added my students as subscribers, however I got a new student and am not able to add him on . My blog now says I need to be a supporter to add users on. I also am wondering if they are the subscriber how is it that they have a password and are able to change things on their page? I am sorry I am very confused about how the student blogs will work. I created them way back in Oct. and I am still hesitant to use them because I am not able to understand who has what role. I thought I created only me as the administrator and the students as the subscriber. Please help me get started.
AK
Hi AK – You should be able to add your student. Just go to the main Edublogs homepage and click on Sign up – then when you create just choose gimme username rather than blog. Then inside your blog dashboard, click on user and then scroll to bottom of page and where it says add user you need to add the email address you used to create their account.
If you created their blogs using the Blog & user creator than currently they will be set at administrator status on their own blogs.
Ginny here (the one who did the comments thing, which is ironic considering the pretty darn basic level of question I have):
I’ve had a class blog for several months. From ‘my’ home page (http://paisiespage.edublogs.org) kids use the blogroll to access each others’ blogs and write comments.
When I set it up, I used one log-in and one password for all 115 of us; it was just easier than trying to get emails for everybody (and the gmail+ thing is okay but the emails rarely show up in my gmail inbox so I could never confirm anything).
Last week one bright student discovered he could change and delete other kids’ blog work. Not surprising it happened, but frustrating. So my question: Is there a way for the kids to keep each of their blogs but to now make them responsible for getting a log-in and setting their own password? I am afraid I won’t be able to be administrator on all of them? (I had one of my savvy kids make a whole new blog, but when I wanted him to add me as a user and click administrator, he said he can’t do that without being a Supporter?)
Another (stupid) thing. I now understand the gmail+ thing, but I didn’t when I set it up and so most of my students contact emails are “paisie” and not “gpaisie” (my gmail account includes my first initial, and their blog contacts don’t). When I tried to go back, one by one, and insert a ‘g’ in front, I should get an email confirmation at my gmail account for each student. Only about 1 in 5 show up, so I wind up trying again, and again, and again…
So: I want the blog to look the same but be ‘unsabotage-able’ by all the users.
Hi Ginny, interesting scenario. Since there is an issue with their emails due to “gpaisie” and you aren’t receiving all the password resets. I would be quite time consuming if there is 115 of them to go through, fix up emails and do password resets so they can use their existing usernames.
The best solution I can think of would involve them each using their own email address. Can they use their own email address?
Hello, Sue!
We have recently been stopping by your website occasionally and find lot’s of thoughtful, forthright commentary by both you and your friends. We have just now logged in to this comment page and look forward to many insightful entries to come! Best of luck in your projects and dreams! Your Friends at The TerraMadre Foundation
Thanks for the feedback. I’m glad you find the tips and advice useful.
Hi Sue
I am setting up students as contributors of their class blog using gmail account. They are not ready for their own blogs yet but are keen to have their own individual avatars so that they appear when they leave a comment. Is this possible and how?
Cheers
Vanessa
Hi Vanessa, sorry for slow response. If you add them to your blog as contributors they can click on their Profile tab > Avatar and upload their own avatar. Sue Wyatt has just written an excellent post on Avatars that you might like to check out – you can check it out here
Hello,
I’ve been reading all the previous posts trying to understand what I should do. I’m new to the whole blogging thing! I need students to be able to make comments, add posts and upload pics/avatars in the class blog (comments, posts and pics have to be approved by me before publishing). It is very important that my students should not be able to create their own blogs either.
My school does not allow students to have email so I will have to use the user creator to add students. Am I correct that they should be set to “contributor” status to suit these specific requirements?
I also would like to become a supporter with the option to cancel at any time. Is this allowed?
Please clarify! Thanks!
MsB
Hi Ms B, I would probably make them authors because contributors can’t upload images where as authors can. But neither will be able to publish own posts.
In terms of creating their accounts I suggest youuse the gmail method. Regardless of whether you are an Edublogs supporter or a free user – if you only want to create usernames you will need to use the main sign up page. Before you go to this page make sure you log out of your account. You will need to create each student account one at a time.
Once the student usernames are created you add them to the blog by going to:
1. Free Edublogs users – go to User and scroll to bottom of page adding one at a time
2. Edublogs supporter – got to User > Add user and add in batches of 15
I suggest you do consider becoming a supporter because features like this threaded comment plugin while enhance your ability and that of your students to respond back to comments. You can sign up to be an Edublogs supporter for a month, 3 months or year. Once signed up just click on cancel subscription if you want to stop payment. Follow all instructions on the Supporter Tab.
Hi Sue,
I was practicing with setting up different types of users on my new class blog missnichols.edublogs.org and I noticed that pending comments can be seen by all users, even those registered as subscribers only. Is there any way to set the pending comments to be visible only to the administrator of the blog?
Under Discussion Settings, I have checked the box that says “An administrator must always approve the comment”, but pending comments are still visible to subscribers.
Thank you for your help,
Susan
@missnichols, Hi Susan, subscribers definitely can’t see those comments because most of the navigation menu isn’t displayed in their dashboard. A subscriber only has Profile, Tools and Stats. They won’t see Page, Post, Comments etc.
You need to log in as a subscriber to see this. Normally I will use a different web browser so that I can have my blog open in two different browsers as different users to compare.
Hello Sue,
I made a writing class blog for my students six months ago and have recently asked my colleague teacher to join the blog as an administrator. (so her role is now registered as an administrator.) I’m wondering how I can set the two administrators to receive e-mail notices when our students write comments on our blog. I receive e-mail notices, but my colleague teacher hasn’t received anything yet. Woud you please help me?
Thank you.
Tamiko
@Tamiko, Unfortunately the system is designed so that only one person can receive the email.
Who receives the email can depend on who writes the post. An alternative option would be for you to use a shared Gmail account; that way you could both check the emails in the inbox,
@Sue Waters,
Thank you for your prompt answer and advice. Creating a common Gmail account is a good idea. I’d like to try.
Thanks,
Tamiko
@Tamiko, Glad you liked the idea and once you are used to a shared inbox it is really cool to manage.
Hello,
I just used the Blog User creator to create Blogs for my Blog Castellano. I don’t see them in my Blog as Users, yet. Does that mean that they have to activate it once they recieve their email and then I can change their status: subscriber, editor, …etc.?
I also noticed that the Dashboard is different than before, would I be able to do the same things?
I also have Blogs that I created last year that I don’t need anymore, Can I delete those?
As you can see I have a few questions,
Thank you,
Susana Bukowski
@Susan The Blog & User creator is designed to create blogs and their usernames. It does immediately create them and the accounts don’t need to be activated by email.
It doesn’t add them as users to your blog. You will need to now add them using Add > Add User (refer to these instructions – http://help.edublogs.org/2009/08/24/adding-users-to-a-blog/ )
To delete the blogs you need to go to Settings > Delete blog, An email will be sent to the email address specified in Setting > General of each blog dashboard. You need to click on the link in the email to complete the process and delete the blog.
I do not know what I am doing on this website.
How do I create an edublog for my students to comment on? How do I post a question for them to answer?
@mcaffrey1970, Have you looked at our Getting Started with Edublogs information? – Located here http://help.edublogs.org/getting-started-with-edublogs/
Hi,
I have been using edublogs with my students for a year now. Last year we had them set as administrators, which was fantastic as though were able to take complete ownership of their blog. We have just realised, however, that this setting will allow them to edit other peoples’ comments, which might have consequences if they change other students comments on their blog – or ours. It seems as though the only option for avoiding this is to go to ‘author’ mode, but that will also involve many other restrictions. Is there any level where students can moderate but not actually edit a comment?
Thanks,
Mollie
@Mollie, unfortunately the ability to moderate comments is linked to the ability to edit them. So you can’t have one without the other.