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Last revised October 31, 2017. Download a PDF version of this page. 

Create / personalize profile

Maintaining an (internal) profile is important as it allows members of the community to find and learn about you. In addition, the external profile (e-portfolio) pulls data from the internal profile.

1. Go to http://community.mis.temple.edu/ and login using your Temple AccessNet id and password. If the password does not work, please visit http://accounts.temple.edu.
2. Hover on Hello, … (on the top right) and hover on Profile, and then click Edit My Profile to access your community profile.
   1. Complete Temple University affiliation, Contact Information, and Office Hours in the ‘Base’ profile. Faculty and staff should ignore student specific settings (e.g., Major, Minor, etc.). They will automatically disappear from your profile. Click Save Changes on the bottom. Note: Faculty are required to provide contact information and office hours.
   2. Click Professional Details to add Skills and Interest, Twitter URL, and LinkedIn URL. Ignore the student specific settings. If E-portfolio URL is blank, leave that as is for now. Click Save Changes on the bottom.
   3. Add or update an avatar by clicking Change Profile Photo. Next, click SELECT YOUR FILE to upload a professional high-resolution picture. FYI – If a picture file size is 1 MB or larger, it is usually a high-resolution picture. Next, crop the image using the cropping handles. A typical avatar shows the face, collar, and top of the shoulders. Click CROP IMAGE to complete.
3. To see the results, hover on Hello,…, and click Profile, View. Click one of the Skills and Interests. You will see others who have similar interests.

Create /maintain an e-portfolio

Creating and maintaining an external profile – termed e-portfolio – is important because it promotes the department brand. Because the external profile is on the Internet and is automatically search engine optimized, it also increases your personal visibility.

1. Create a new e-portfolio site by hovering on Hello,…, Sites, and click Create a Site.
2. Use the following convention for the Site Name. The site name is the URL – uniform resource locator – also known as Internet address – so it should be easy to remember. Do not use punctuation such as dashes or underline characters:

• First initial followed by last name (e.g., jfox for Josie Fox)
• If that does not work, then try full first name followed by last name (e.g., JosieFox)
• If that does not work, then try full first name, middle initial and last name (e.g., JosieMFox).

3. Use your full name (e.g., Josie Fox) for the Site Title. The site title is important because that is how Google and other search engines will locate you.
4. Ignore the other options and click Create Site. Congratulations! You have created a site on the Internet with a permanent address. The address will look like http://community.mis.temple.edu/Jfox. Google will immediately start indexing. In about a week, assuming you added enough content, try searching for your name.
5. Click on the URL of the new site to visit it.
6. Add the URL of the new site to the internal profile (see item 2.b in the section Create / personalize profile). This step is needed to link your picture to your e-portfolio.
7. Next, you will further personalize the e-portfolio.

Personalize the e-portfolio

1. Hover on the site name (at the top of the screen near the left) and click Dashboard.
2. Activate the faculty/staff theme by hovering on Appearance (on the left near the middle) and click Themes. Hover on the Faculty/Staff e-portfolio theme and click Activate.
3. Visit the site by clicking Visit site.
4. If the front image is blurry, Connect with Me is missing LinkedIn or Twitter, or if Contact Information and Office Hours are missing on the left, see the instructions for “Create / personalize profile.”
5. Add content
   1. Biography and home page
      1. Click New (at the top) and then Page. Title this page “About” or “Biography.” Copy and paste a biography into this page. Important: Before pasting from Microsoft Word, click on the editor toolbar to ‘turn on’ conversion of content to plain text. This step will avoid messing up the look of your site. Click Publish on the right to save and publish the page.
      2. Next, set this new page as the default front page. Hover on Settings (on the left near the bottom) and click Reading. Select A static page on the right next to “Front page displays”. Select the Biography page as the Front page.
   2. Provide links to your courses. The courses will automatically display in the left sidebar of the site.
      1. Hover on the site name (at the top of the screen near the left) and click Dashboard.
      2. Click Links on the left and then click Add New.
         1. For Name type in the course number and name (e.g., MIS2502: Data Analytics).
         2. For Web Address provide the URL of the course.
         3. Select “courses” for the category. If the category does not exist, click Add New Category to create the category. Important: You must use the exact term “courses” for the category.
         4. Ignore the other options and click Add Link on the top right.
         5. Visit your site and click the + sign next to the left sidebar widget titled COURSES to check the result.
         6. PROJECTS and PRESENTATIONS widgets are also available. Use the above procedure to add links to your presentations or projects (use the exact term “Projects” or “Presentations” as categories).

Create/ manage the e-portfolio menu

1. Hover on the site name (at the top of the screen near the left) and click Dashboard.
2. Hover on Appearance (on the left near the middle) and click Menus.
3. If a menu does not exist, click create a new menu.
4. Check the box next to Header Menu for “Display location.”
5. Use the boxes on the left to add items to the menu. Most sites should include About (or Biography) and Current Research (or Projects).
6. Click Save Menu on the right when done.

Research options

There are three options for displaying research. 1. Create a page, next copy and paste citations from a resume, and finally link the page to the menu (see above). This is functional but will not look as good as the next two options. Nor will your research be featured on the departmental home page. Instead, consider the next two options 2. Display a nicely formatted list of current research, which will also automatically appear on the MIS home page. 3. Feature a few research projects on a specially formatted ‘highlights’ page that also links to above nicely formatted list.

Display a nicely formatted list of research projects

1. Add the research
   1. Hover on New and click Post at the top of the screen.
   2. Type in the title of the project for the title of the post (e.g., ‘Generating and Justifying Design Theory’).
   3. In the main body of the post, include an abstract, link to the actual article or leave blank.
   4. In the box labelled “Add New Custom Field” (located below the editor, if you don’t see the box, click “Screen Options” on the top right)
      1. Select Author and type the author(s) in the Value field (e.g., ‘Munir Mandviwalla and Richard Watson’). Click the button Add Custom Field to add the field.
      2. Repeat the process and Select Citation for the new custom field and type the citation in the Value field. (Include only the publication details, exclude the title and authors, e.g., ‘MIS Quarterly Executive, 14:1, pp. 17-37, March 2015.’)
   5. Select Research in the box labelled “Categories” on the right. If the category does not exist, create it. Important: The exact term ‘research’ is required for the category name.
   6. Repeat the above steps for the most recent research projects or publications from the last few years.
2. Display the research
   1. Hover on New and click Page at the top of the screen.
   2. Type in the following required title: “Research”
   3. On the right, in the box labelled “Page Attributes” select All Research Page for the “Template” option.
   4. Leave the body of the page blank.
   5. Click Publish on the right to save and publish this page.
   6. Click View Page on the top.
3. Feature the research (there are four major steps to this process).
   1. Create a category
      1. On the left of the Dashboard, click Categories
      2. Type in following required name: “Featured”
      3. In the dropdown labelled “Parent Category”, select Research
      4. Click Add New Category
   2. Chose the research (posts) to feature
      1. On the left of the Dashboard, click All Posts
      2. Hover over the selected research and click Quick Edit.
      3. Select the Featured category. (which will be located under the Research category)
      4. Click Update on the right to save.
   3. Create a page to display the featured research
      1. Hover on New and click Page at the top of the screen.
      2. Type in a descriptive title (e.g., Current Research or Featured Research)
      3. On the right, in the box labelled “Page Attributes” select Research Page for the “Template” option.
      4. Leave the body of the page blank.
      5. Click Publish on the right to save and publish this page.
      6. Click View Page on the top.
4. Showcase the research on the main department home page
   1. No action required, this is automatic! If you have completed item 1 above then your research will automatically display on the home page. Please wait 24 hours for the display to update. After 24 hours, send a note to misdept@temple.edu.

Advanced Use

Learn WordPress to customize your site. Temple has a site license to Lynda.com, access via http://lynda.temple.edu and after you have logged in, check out the following tutorial: WordPress 4 Essentials

Last revised February 21, 2018. Download a PDF version of this page. 

Create / personalize profile

Maintaining an (internal) profile is important as it allows members of the community to find and learn about you. In addition, the external profile (e-portfolio) pulls data from the internal profile.

1. Go to http://community.mis.temple.edu/ and login using your Temple AccessNet id and password. If the password does not work, please visit http://accounts.temple.edu.
2. Hover on Hello, … (on the top right) and hover on Profile, and then click Edit My Profile to access your community profile.
   1. Complete Temple University affiliation and Contact Information. Click Save Changes on the bottom.
   2. Click Professional Details to add Skills and Interest, Twitter URL, and LinkedIn URL. If E-portfolio URL is blank, leave that as is for now. Click Save Changes on the bottom.
   3. Add or update an avatar by clicking Change Profile Photo. Next, click SELECT YOUR FILE to upload a professional high-resolution picture. FYI – If a picture file size is 1 MB or larger, it is usually a high-resolution picture. Next, crop the image using the cropping handles. A typical avatar shows the face, collar, and top of the shoulders. Click CROP IMAGE to complete.
3. To see the results, hover on Hello,…, and click Profile, View. Click one of the Skills and Interests. You will see others who have similar interests.

Create / maintain an e-portfolio

Creating and maintaining an external profile – termed e-portfolio – is important because it promotes the department brand. Because the external profile is on the Internet and is automatically search engine optimized, it also increases your personal visibility.

1. Create a new e-portfolio site by hovering on Hello,…, Sites, and click Create a Site.
2. Use the following convention for the Site Name. The site name is the URL – uniform resource locator – also known as Internet address – so it should be easy to remember. Do not use punctuation such as dashes or underline characters:

• First initial followed by last name (e.g., jfox for Josie Fox)
• If that does not work, then try full first name followed by last name (e.g., josiefox)
• If that does not work, then try full first name, middle initial and last name (e.g., josiemfox).

3. Use your full name (e.g., Josie Fox) for the Site Title. The site title is important because that is how Google and other search engines will locate you.
4. Ignore the other options and click Create Site. Congratulations! You have created a site on the Internet with a permanent address. The address will look like http://community.mis.temple.edu/jfox. Google will immediately start indexing. In about a week, assuming you added enough content, try searching for your name.
5. Click on the URL of the new site to visit it.
6. Add the URL of the new site to the internal profile (see item 2.b in the section Create / personalize profile). This step is needed to link your picture to your e-portfolio.
7. Next, you will further personalize the e-portfolio.

Personalize the e-portfolio

1. Hover on the site name (at the top of the screen near the left) and click Dashboard.
2. Activate the Graduate e-portfolio theme by hovering on Appearance (on the left near the middle) and click Themes. Hover on the Graduate e-portfolio theme and click Activate.
3. Visit the site by clicking Visit site.
4. If the front image is blurry, Connect with Me is missing LinkedIn or Twitter, or if Contact Information is missing on the left, see the instructions for “Create / personalize profile.”
5. Add content
   1. Biography and home page
      1. Click New (at the top) and then Page. Title this page “About” or “Biography.” Copy and paste a biography into this page. Important: Before pasting from Microsoft Word, click on the editor toolbar to ‘turn on’ conversion of content to plain text. This step will avoid messing up the look of your site. Click Publish on the right to save and publish the page.
      2. Next, set this new page as the default front page. Hover on Settings (on the left near the bottom) and click Reading. Select A static page on the right next to “Front page displays”. Select the Biography page as the Front page.
   2. The following only applies to Graduate students who are teaching or who want to highlight specific projects/presentations: Provide links to courses you are teaching (do not use this capability for courses you are taking). The courses will automatically display in the left sidebar of the site.
      1. Hover on the site name (at the top of the screen near the left) and click Dashboard.
      2. Click Links on the left and then click Add New.
         1. For Name type in the course number and name (e.g., MIS2502: Data Analytics).
         2. For Web Address provide the URL of the course.
         3. Select “courses” for the category. If the category does not exist, click Add New Category to create the category. Important: You must use the exact term “courses” for the category.
         4. Ignore the other options and click Add Link on the top right.
         5. Visit your site and click the + sign next to the left sidebar widget titled COURSES to check the result.
         6. PROJECTS and PRESENTATIONS widgets are also available. Use the above procedure to add links to your presentations or projects (use the exact term “Projects” or “Presentations” as categories).

Create / manage the e-portfolio menu

1. Hover on the site name (at the top of the screen near the left) and click Dashboard.
2. Hover on Appearance (on the left near the middle) and click Menus.
3. If a menu does not exist, click create a new menu.
4. Check the box next to Header Menu for “Display location.”
5. Use the boxes on the left to add items to the menu. Most sites should include About (or Biography) and Current Research (or Projects).
6. Click Save Menu on the right when done.

Research options

The following is only applicable for doctoral students. There are three options for displaying research. 1. Create a page, next copy and paste citations from a resume, and finally link the page to the menu (see above). This is functional but will not look as good as the next two options. Nor will your research be featured on the departmental home page. Instead, consider the next two options 2. Display a nicely formatted list of current research, which will also automatically appear on the MIS home page. 3. Feature a few research projects on a specially formatted ‘highlights’ page that also links to above nicely formatted list.

Display a nicely formatted list of research projects

1. Add the research
   1. Hover on New and click Post at the top of the screen.
   2. Type in the title of the project for the title of the post (e.g., ‘Generating and Justifying Design Theory’).
   3. In the main body of the post, include an abstract, link to the actual article or leave blank.
   4. In the box labelled “Add New Custom Field” (located below the editor, if you don’t see the box, click “Screen Options” on the top right)
      1. Select Author and type the author(s) in the Value field (e.g., ‘Munir Mandviwalla and Richard Watson’). Click the button Add Custom Field to add the field.
      2. Repeat the process and Select Citation for the new custom field and type the citation in the Value field. (Include only the publication details, exclude the title and authors, e.g., ‘MIS Quarterly Executive, 14:1, pp. 17-37, March 2015.’)
   5. Select Research in the box labelled “Categories” on the right. If the category does not exist, create it. Important: The exact term ‘research’ is required for the category name.
   6. Repeat the above steps for the most recent research projects or publications from the last few years.
2. Display the research
   1. Hover on New and click Page at the top of the screen.
   2. Type in the following required title: “Research”
   3. On the right, in the box labelled “Page Attributes” select All Research Page for the “Template” option.
   4. Leave the body of the page blank.
   5. Click Publish on the right to save and publish this page.
   6. Click View Page on the top.
3. Feature the research (there are four major steps to this process).
   1. Create a category
      1. On the left of the Dashboard, click Categories
      2. Type in following required name: “Featured”
      3. In the dropdown labelled “Parent Category”, select Research
      4. Click Add New Category
   2. Chose the research (posts) to feature
      1. On the left of the Dashboard, click All Posts
      2. Hover over the selected research and click Quick Edit.
      3. Select the Featured category. (which will be located under the Research category)
      4. Click Update on the right to save.
   3. Create a page to display the featured research
      1. Hover on New and click Page at the top of the screen.
      2. Type in a descriptive title (e.g., Current Research or Featured Research)
      3. On the right, in the box labelled “Page Attributes” select Research Page for the “Template” option.
      4. Leave the body of the page blank.
      5. Click Publish on the right to save and publish this page.
      6. Click View Page on the top.
4. Showcase the research on the main department home page
   1. No action required, this is automatic! If you have completed item 1 above then your research will automatically display on the home page. Please wait 24 hours for the display to update. After 24 hours, send a note to misdept@temple.edu.

Advanced Use

Learn WordPress to customize your site. Temple has a site license to Lynda.com, access via http://lynda.temple.edu and after you have logged in, check out the following tutorial: WordPress 4 Essentials

Last revised August 27, 2019. Download a PDF version of this page. 

New for fall 2019

• Manage all your sites on the new integrated Instructor Dashboard (login to your e-portfolio, click Dashboard)
• Create new or create from existing course sites. Note: The Create from Existing capability may have challenges with course sites created prior to spring 2019.
• Archive, delete, and transfer (to other instructors)
• Use the new Grades & Points option to directly upload student grades and check PRO points. Note: To check points of students enrolled in pre-fall 2019 courses, navigate to the respective student’s e-portfolio and click the validate option next to their badge.
• Setup the instructor dashboard to directly accept assignment submissions into your Owlbox. Owlbox is a Temple provided secure cloud drive, more at http://OwlBox.temple.edu. 

Introduction

Course sites on the Temple Community Platform (TCP) use a professional theme based on the Genesis framework. See: https://community.mis.temple.edu/simplecourse/ for an example of how we use Genesis to provide a responsive, mobile friendly, multi-browser, secure, and ADA compliant experience for instructors and students.

Based on extensive testing with award winning instructors, the design incorporates best practices that replace the syllabus with a simple student centered learning approach that takes advantage of the web. The use of a standard template improves the student experience by making it easier to find content across different courses.

Basics

Pages vs. posts: Use pages for static content (e.g., schedule, grading policies, and assignments), and posts for dynamic content (e.g., announcements, weekly discussion question). This will allow you to leverage tools that expect to find static content in pages and dynamic content in posts.

HTML vs. PDF: Distribute simple one or two page documents such as assignments, grading policies, course details as HTML pages. HTML pages natively allow links to related content and are easy to update as you go through the term. Use PDF for relatively static long documents and slides. A PDF is easier to read when there is a lot of content and figures. PDF files are also multiplatform and more secure than native Word/Excel/PowerPoint files.

Distributing documents: Use OwlBox / OneDrive / Dropbox to distribute documents such as slides from a shared folder on your computer by inserting a link directly into the relevant page on your course site. This allows for simple updating without having to go through the pain of re-uploading. Easily secure the content at the end by deleting the shared folder.

Use of links: When content such as readings are available on the web, provide the links directly on the schedule page. To students readings are things that they have to do on a schedule so providing links in the context of the due date will provide the best experience. If you have many readings with complex instructions on how to access, it can also work to place the list on a separate page with a link to that page from the schedule. Important: The convention today is that links are inserted as descriptive titles such as: A descriptive title. Do not insert links as: Link 1, or Click here.

Design

Home page – Schedule: On a day to day basis, students only care about ‘what is next’. Therefore, the design is focused on the schedule as the home for all day to day course content. To best service the students add links to all the slides, reading, and assignments directly into the schedule.

Tip: If the schedule table starts behaving oddly, select the entire table and click the eraser icon in the editor several times to remove all extraneous formatting.

Announcements: Use announcements to announce schedule changes, new guest speakers, weekly discussion questions, and anything else that is dynamic.

Projects: Create a separate page for each assignment/project. Add a link to the assignment in the schedule on the due date.

About

Place all ‘syllabus like’ content such as course details, course materials, grading policies as pages under the About menu (exclude the schedule, assignments, and readings). Since this content is infrequently used, placing it under the About menu produces a clean design focused on the schedule and assignments.

• Course details: Add a short one or two line abstract about the course as well as learning objectives and the course meeting schedule.
• Course materials: Include a short description and links to required course content such as books and reading packets.
• Grading: Provide a breakdown of your grading percentages. Some instructors also provide a grading rubric and policies on academic dishonesty.
• Gradebook: If you are using it, this should be a direct link to the Community Gradebook.
• Instructor: Provide a direct link to your Community e-portfolio.

Next Steps

Create a course: Login to your e-portfolio, click Dashboard, in the Courses box, click Create New to start a new course or Create from Existing to copy over a previous course. This will start the course creation process. You will need to know the course and section number. Important: Please only use the course and section number assigned to you. Click Owlbox to set up the course to accept assignment submissions. 

Note: Please contact your course coordinator to determine whether you should create your own site from scratch, or whether they will transfer one to you. 

Community e-portfolio: Add the course to your Community e-portfolio. See the faculty/staff Sites document for instructions.

Publish on TU Portal: Add the course link to TU Portal. This will allow newly registered students to easily find your class site.

1. Browse to: https://tuportal.temple.edu/web/home-community/my-courses
2. You will see a list of courses assigned to you
3. Click Add LMS next to your course
4. Select Non Canvas LMS and choose Fox MIS community
5. Paste in the course URL

DO’s and DON’TS

Images and graphics: Please use the “alt=ABC” tag for all images, in which ABC describes the image (Wikipedia example). The alternate text is used by screen reader software for blind persons, required for ADA compliance, and improves search engine performance. It is therefore important that you take a few extra seconds to enter the alternate text each time you insert an image.

Duplicate content: Avoid duplicating content (e.g., repeating deadlines in multiple pages) and similarly avoid duplicating external links (e.g., external data source). Duplication creates a long-term maintenance challenge. If you avoid duplication, students will quickly get trained to look in the right spot for the information they need.

Multiple links: Provide redundant links from different parts of your site to relevant course content. For example, rather than duplicating a due date on multiple pages, place links to your schedule so that the students get trained to always look at the schedule for the due date.

Tables: Avoid formatting the tables including changing the height and width of columns and rows. For example, dragging the mouse to change column width tells WordPress that you want a specific width, which may look okay on the current browser/screen, but will likely be messed up on other devices. To remove extra Table formatting, use the Eraser icon in the editor.

Advanced Users

Accept assignments into Owlbox: Setup Owlbox and the instructor dashboard to directly accept assignments. 

Schedule posts in advance: Schedule in advance, announcements, in-class activities, or discussion questions so they automatically display on a certain date. This is a feature of WordPress posts – edit the Post, locate the Publish box on the right and change the Published On date to a future date.

Large schedule: If you need more space, Edit the schedule page and change the Layout Settings to the last option on the right. This will remove the sidebar on the right and provide a full width page.

WordPress and Genesis: Learn WordPress and Genesis to experiment with new learning techniques and to gain fine grained control over your course. Temple has a site license to Lynda.com, access via http://lynda.temple.edu and after you have logged in, check out the following tutorials:

• WordPress 4 Essentials
• Learning Genesis for WordPress