Choices, choices

Current Blogs

• The Administrative Law '07 Blog
• The European Community Law '07 Blog
• The Law and Games '07 Blog
• The UM Law Ideas Blog (requires password)
• The UM Law Information Technology Blog (requires password)

Wikis

• The Copyright Experiences Wiki
• The UM Law Software Project Wiki
• The First Steps Wiki ("a communal workspace for collecting and eventually sorting ideas for a proposed one or two day introductory program for incoming UM law students").
• The Arbitration Project Wiki (requires password)
• The Online games seminar design wiki (requires password)
• Our private work space (requires password).

Older Stuff

2006

• The Bradley Business Blog (Fall '06)
• The International Finance '06 Blog
• The Internet Law '06 Blog
• The Jurisprudence '06 Blog
• The Self-study Blog (requires password)

Earlier

• The Administrative Law Class Blog (Fall 2005)
• The Bradley Business Blog (Fall 2005)
• The EU Law '06 Blog
• The Internet Law Class Blog (Fall 2005)
• The LL.M '06 Seminar Blog
• The National Security Law '06 Seminar Blog
• The Trademark Law '06 Blog

How to have your blog or wiki hosted at umlaw.net

The umlaw.net domain is available to any administrator, regular faculty, writing instuctor, or adjunct faculty member at the University of Miami law school who wishes to host a blog or a wiki related to the mission of the University of Miami School of Law (broadly defined). While well-suited for a blog related to a class, a legal issue, teaching, a law school committee, or to a subject area of the law, this resource is probably not best suited for purely personal blogs that are not predominantly law-related. Requests from authorized student groups will also be considered on a case-by-case basis. Other web-based (server-side) tools may also be available on request.

We use the current version of Wordpress for blogs. You can find out more about Wordpress from the Online Manual.

We use the current version of MediaWiki for wikis. You can learn more about MediaWiki from the MediaWiki Handbook.

Instructions for requesting and creating a blog

Send an e-mail request for a blog to webmaster@umlaw.net. In this message, please include the following information:

1. Your name, as you would like it to appear on the blog.


2. Your telephone number (the number will not be published on the blog, but is needed in case tech support needs to contact you).


3. The course you will be teaching, or the nature of the other UM Law-related activity.


4. The email address you would like users of your blog to use to contact you regarding blog-related matters. Depending on how you set your preferences, this e-mail address may be used by the blog software to send you blog-related information from your site.


5. A site name for your blog. This will be the first part of the URL that readers will use to reach your blog (e.g. yourblogsitename.umlaw.net). The site name that you select will replace "yourblogsitename". Your site name can be as long or short as you wish but only alphanumeric characters and dashes are allowed. If the site name you select is already in use, you will receive a return email suggesting some alternatives. Site names are not case-sensitive, the system treats all letters as lowercase. You can use capital letters in your site name or when referring to your site to make it easier to read or remember, but the system will treat everything as lowercase.  We strongly recommend using the last two digits of the year as part of the name, eg. estates06.


6. The blog's actual name: this is the name that will appear in large print as the blog's title on its homepage, and most internal pages too. (E.g. "Smith's Criminal Law Class")


7. Your user name as you wish it to appear on the blog. Only alphanumeric characters and dashes are allowed. User names are case-sensitive: capitals will be recognized as distinct from lower case. (e.g. Smith, or JDoe).


8. A password for your user name. The password must be at least 5 characters long. We strongly recommend using a unique password of at least eight characters with a combination of letters and numbers or other characters. Please note that passwords ARE case-sensitive: secret and Secret and seCret are three different passwords.


9. A "theme" defines the look of your blog.
   
   We  can choose from a number of themes. Tthe list below has some which we know work (to preview the themes, click on the links).  In addition you can select any theme in use by another blog listed above.
   • Default Wordpress Theme 
   • Any theme listed in the Wordpress.org list of featured themes 
   • Borderline Chaos 
   • Boxy But Gold 
   • Grimelda 
   • Journalized Winter 
   • SCP Flex 
   • Stylish Blue Modern 
   • Wordpress Classic 
   If you have a favorite theme that is not on the list of preferred themes above, it may be possible to use it, but only if
   (A) it is in the public domain or a free license is available, and
   (B) you can provide precise information as to where the theme can be downloaded.


10. Posting State what initial posting policy you wish to have on your blog from among the following options relating to posting and identification:

    
    Authoring (Choose one)

    1. I will be the only author
    2. I will share authoring with one or more people (please include contact info for them, and their user name and password)
    3. Anyone who registers on the blog, including students, can post front-page articles, but they won't appear until I approve them

    Commenting (Choose one)

    1. No comments on blog postings allowed
    2. Before a comment appears an administrator must approve the comment
    3. Readers can posts comments at will

    Identification of commentators (chose one)

    1. Before a comment appears comment author must fill out name and e-mail
    2. Before a comment appears comment author must have a previously approved comment (others will be held for approval)
    3. Before a comment appears comment author must fill out name and e-mail AND must have a previously approved comment (others will be held for approval)
    4. Identification is optional: anonymous posting is allowed

    If you are in doubt, we recommend starting with a policy that you are the only author, and anyone can comment without requiring your manual approval, but names and email addresses are required.
    
    You will be able to change the posting policies at any time from the "options" menu of the administrator control panel.


11. Choose an email policy:
    1. E-mail me whenever anyone posts a comment? (yes/no)
    2. E-mail me whenever a comment is held for approval? (yes/no)

If your email request is not promptly acknowledged as received, please call Michael Froomkin at 305 284 4285. Please allow three business days from acknowledgment of receipt for installation to take place and for the new web site's domain name information to propagate to your internet service provider. [Note: response time may be substantially slower during academic holiday periods.]

Once the blog is created, you will be sent an email with further instructions as to how to log on to it, how to customize it should you wish to do so, and how to create blog posts. The basic interface is very simple, much like a stripped-down version of Word, and you should find it very easy to use.

You are the blog administrator. By default when your blog is set up, you are the only one that can post information on the front (or main page) of the blog. You will, however, be able to grant posting privileges to others if you so choose.

Wikis

The procedure for requesting a wiki is basically the same as steps one through eight for a blog. Please note that we do not provide any themes other than those shipped with the default install of MediaWiki.

Important Note

A blog or wiki created pursuant to this request will produce web pages that are publicly accessible and can be viewed by anyone with Internet access. It is possible to provide a very limited form of password protection, using a single shared user ID and password to block public access to your blog or wiki, but anything more than a very basic level of security will require you, as blog/wiki administrator, to take on a substantial amount of administration of permissions.

Ver. 1.2 (rev. 8/2/06)