You now have your own blog/website on LCC’s new scholarly commons.  The commons is called OpenLCC.net and student blogs/websites are located at Voice.openlcc.net.  (there’s a directory of the more than 150 student blogs so far – it’s a bit disorganized and not pretty but that’s because it’s a work-in-progress).

Getting Started

By now you should have received an email to your LCC student email – the Gmail based account that uses an address like   userid@mail.lcc.edu, not your Desire2Learn email/messaging.  If you don’t see your email welcoming you to your Voice.Openlcc.net blog, check in the spam folder.  Sometimes Gmail places the message in the spam folder (we’re working on that).  To get to the Spam folder, click on it. On the left side below where the Inbox is listed, there’s a “more” button. Click the more down arrow and a list expands with Spam folder listed.  When you find the email, it will give you a link to your blog/website, a link you can use to login to your blog/website and get to the “backend/dashboard”, your userid, and a password.  If by some chance you can’t find the email, then here’s how you can do it those things yourself:

• Your website/blog is located at  http://voice.openlcc.net/userid  (be sure to replace the “userid” part with your LCC issued user id).
• You can log into your blog in either of two ways.  Depending on the theme used for your blog, you may be able to login from the public front page, just like you do for the compsys17.econpropph.net site.  OR, you can add “/admin” to your website address to get to a login screen, as in:  http://voice.openlcc.net/userid/admin
• Your userid will be your LCC issued userid.  This is the same userid you use to access LCC systems as well as compsys17.econproph.net
• The password for your blog/website is unique to that site. It is NOT the same one you use for compsys17.econproph.net.  (I’d like to synchronize them, but that’s a whole ‘nother level of coding that we haven’t done yet).  Your password was sent in the welcome email to your LCC Gmail-based student email.  If you don’t have that email or have lost/forgotten it, then click on the “Lost Password” link at the login screen. A new email and password will be generated for you and sent to your LCC Gmail-based email (check Spam folder if you don’t see it right away).

For more detailed instructions on logging in to your site, see http://voice.openlcc.net/help/2017/01/25/how-to-log-into-your-site/

Changing Your Display Name or Profile

By default, when you create posts or pages on your site, your blog will list your userid as the “author” of the post. You can change this to your first name, your last name, or a nickname/pseudonym of your choice.  For instructions on how to do that or how to change your password, see:  http://voice.openlcc.net/help/2017/01/25/how-to-change-your-profile-display-name-password-or-avatar/

How to Write a Post

Writing a post on your own blog/website is a bit more complex than posting to the course hub, but not much.  Instructions are here:  http://voice.openlcc.net/help/2017/01/25/how-to-write-a-post/

How to Do More on Your Blog

We are in the process of adding more instructions for how to do various tasks on your blog. Instructions are available at http://voice.openlcc.net/help.

Coming soon are instructions for how to add images or videos, how to copy & quote material from other websites, how to make links, and how to change the look/feel of your site.  Actually most of these tasks are pretty easy and relatively straight-forward if you check the menus and toolbars in the backend/dashboard of your site.  Your blog/website is pretty standard WordPress installation. WordPress powers over 27% of all websites worldwide. So there’s a lot things you can learn to do just by Googling “WordPress how to…..” .