University Blog Service
Last Updated: February 18, 2013 @ 1:58 pm
Next Review Date: 01/01/2014
Service Manager: Jennifer M Coast
Governance Group: None
Document Status: Published
Key Metrics
- Availability: 99%
Overview
The University Blog Service is available for use by facult, staff, and students for non-course-related purposes. The service uses WordPress MU, a multi-user version of the WordPress blogging platform. Blogs can be created for individuals, groups, projects, or departments. Additional information about this service can be found at http://www.utexas.edu/its/blog/.
Review Process
This document defines the practices that Information Technology Services (ITS) will use for the University Blog Service service. The details of this document may be reviewed and amended as required, or at least annually, to accurately reflect business and service needs.
Time Conventions
Unless otherwise indicated, business hours are from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, excluding holidays and reduced schedule days.
Scope
The following user communities at the university are the intended recipients for the University Blog Service service: Faculty, Staff, and Students.
Service Criticality
This service has been identified as Important, based on the ITS Critical Services Assessment Criteria. Please refer to the Critical Services Assessment Criteria for more information on the assessment methodology. The University Blog Service is not Category-I certified. The University Blog Service does not meet FERPA requirements for use by faculty within their courses.
Service description
A recent version of the WordPress MU software is made available to the intended customers. For this service, recent is defined as six months. The login process is encrypted and uses EIDs for authentication.
| Blog platform | A single installation of the WordPress MU (multi-user) software that supports multiple blogs for multiple users, published to http://blogs.utexas.edu. |
| Themes | A pre-determined set of themes for users to select. This service does not provide custom themes for individual users. |
| Storage | Each blog has a maximum of 10 megabytes of storage space for storing documents (.doc, .pdf, .xls, .ppt, etc.) and multimedia (png, jpg, mov, wav, etc.). WebSpace is the ideal storage location for large documents and media. |
| Statistics | An administrative tool for blog owners to view basic statistics like hits and popular pages. |
| Spam Protection | Protection from comment and trackback spam. |
| Plugins & widgets | A pre-determined set of plug-ins and widgets. This service does not provide custom installed plug-ins or widgets. |
Supported Computing Environment
The WordPress MU software will be upgraded on a regular basis following these criteria:
- A stable production upgrade version of WordPress MU has been released for at least two months. Exceptions will be made for security upgrades.
- The stable production upgrade version of WordPress MU is compatible with all required plug-ins (especially SSL and LDAP).
It is important to note that the University Blog Service is not Category-I certified.
For the latest information on tested systems and a complete list of supported procedures, refer to the ITS Web site: http://www.utexas.edu/its/blog.
Intended users
The University Blog Service can be used by faculty, staff, and students.
Technical support
Both Tier 1 and Tier 2 technical support is available during normal business hours. Routine requests are typically addressed within one business day.
Tier 1
End users should start with Tier 1 technical support. Any user can call the ITS Help Desk at 512-475-9400.
Tier 2
Departmental support staff and the ITS Help Desk may escalate issues to Tier 2.
Maintenance
ITS will notify customers about both scheduled and unscheduled maintenance using the ITS Services Status page of service availability and service delivery issues. Services may not be available during the maintenance periods.
Normal Service Availability
The University Blog Service is designed to be available for customer use 24-hours-per-day, seven days-per-week, 365 days-per-year (24/7/365) excluding scheduled maintenance times. Routine requests (for example, creating a new blog for a project) are typically addressed within three business days.
Scheduled maintenance
Scheduled maintenance may occur weekly on Wednesdays between 6 p.m. and midnight. To the maximum extent possible, installation of service, application, and security updates will be performed during scheduled maintenance.
Unscheduled maintenance
Unscheduled maintenance tasks that require service downtime will be announced as soon as possible on the ITS Services Status page.
Change notification
ITS will notify customers using the ITS Services Status page of service availability and service delivery issues for the University Blog Service.
Dependencies
The University Blog Service is dependent on the uTexas Enterprise Directory (TED), ITS MySQL Service, ITS Virtual Services as well as the campus network and related systems. The availability of those services will have a direct impact on blogsthe availability of the University Blog Service.
User responsibilities
Subscribers (users) of the service and identified owners/administrators agree to be aware of and adhere to the university's Acceptable Use Policy.
University Blog Service subscribers agree to:
- Not post or store any Category-I data in the University Blog Service.
- Provide critical information to ITS in a timely manner when requested for purposes of resolving subscriber issues.
Data Persistence
Personal blogs (based on EID) will remain active for six months after departure from the university. This provides users time to establish a new blog, notify readers, and export blogs.utexas.edu content to a new blog.
Blogs created for departments, teams, projects, or workgroups will be subject to deletion after one year of inactivity.
Cost of Service
Cost information for this service can be found on the University Blog Service web site.
