In the coming months, the University-wide Blogs at Penn State service is being replaced by Sites at Penn State, a service powered by WordPress that will give users a more intuitive Web-publishing interface, a larger selection of well designed and modern themes, a streamlined workflow, and a more popular and widely-used platform.
Rose Pruyne, project manager for the Sites at Penn State project, shared, "Transitioning to Sites at Penn State will provide all users with a faster, better and more effective Web-publishing experience."
Sites started as a pilot two years ago and has since matured into the official University-supported Web publishing service that can be used to create blogs, ePortfolios, and course, department, unit or organization websites.
The Blogs at Penn State service, which Sites at Penn state is replacing, has begun a phasing-out process that will conclude with a shutdown of the service on Aug. 18.
As of May 12, users will no longer be able to create a new blog or site using Blogs at Penn State. Current Blogs at Penn State users will still be able to add and edit content for their existing sites on Blogs through Aug. 18. After this date, blogs and sites built on Blogs at Penn State will no longer be available for editing, publishing or commenting on the Web.
Current users of Blogs at Penn State who wish to keep their sites will be able to migrate their content from Blogs to Sites using the process outlined in a step-by-step guide provided by Sites at Penn State.
In the coming months, the Sites at Penn State team will be sending out more information to current Blogs users about how to transition into Sites at Penn State, as well as reminders about important dates in the shutdown of Blogs at Penn State.
Support Resources:Sites at Penn State documentation and support: http://sites.psu.edu/support/
Sites at Penn State training resources from Information Technology Services Training Services: http://ittraining.psu.edu/
Discussion forum in the Sites at Penn State Yammer Group: https://www.yammer.com/psu.edu/#/threads/inGroup?type=in_group&feedId=3046974
Step-by-step migration tool guide: http://sites.psu.edu/support/
Lynda.com Wordpress video tutorials: http://www.lynda.com/SharedPlaylist/47f3725a39b749ce931d6577a2a139d9?org=psu.edu