Department Publications

Departments that produce regular newsletters or magazines can use the Michigan Tech Magazine template to digitally display their publications on their departmental website. You can refer to the College of Business Impact Magazine as an example. Interested departments should contact webmaster@mtu.edu to get set up. Additional training beyond the regular editor training is required for all new users needing to create department publications. The department’s web liaison should reach out to webmaster@mtu.edu to request access and training for new users.

Setting up the Issue

1. Within the publication folder on your site, copy the /issue-template folder.
2. Rename this copied folder for the issue you are creating, keeping issue-template at the beginning of the name, for example issue-template-2018, to prevent the content from accidentally publishing to the live website.
   1. If you do not use issue-template in the folder name, you must keep the file checked out and unpublished until the publication is ready to go live and you will not be able to fully preview the issue.
3. Upload the accessible pdf of the publication, if there is one, into the pdfs folder in your main publication folder and publish it.
4. In the /stories folder, update the folder names for the stories in your issue.
   1. Remember to keep the folder names short, use keywords, and avoid connector words such as “and,” “on,” or “the.”
   2. Delete extra story folders that are not needed.
   3. If more story folders are needed, use New > Folder.
5. Create a New > Publication Story in each of the story folders.
   1. Enter the story Title only.
   2. Leave Description and Keywords blank.
   3. Keep index as the filename.
   4. Once created, return to the Pages List View.
6. Edit the _nav.shtml file in the /stories folder.
   1. Create a bulleted list, listing each story title in the order they appear in the publication, starting with the cover story.
   2. Link each story to its corresponding index file in the story folders.
7. Edit the _nav.shtml file in the issue folder.
   1. Change the Current Stories link to go to the _nav.shtml file in the issue’s /stories folder instead of the one in the template’s folder, if needed.
8. Edit the _props.pcf file in the issue folder. Check it out, go to Properties > Parameters.
   1. Update the Site Meta Title.
   2. Update the Section Title.
   3. Update the Section Breadcrumb.
9. Edit the index.pcf file in the issue folder.
   1. In Properties > Parameters (file must be checked out to you), update the following fields:
      1. Title
      2. Description
      3. Keywords
      4. Page Meta Title
      5. Breadcrumb
   2. In the Main Content region, update the path within each URL to be this issue folder, except the very last one.
      1. The last URL should be pointing to your main publication archive page, typically the parent of this specific issue folder.
10. Create a Vertical image of the cover of the publication, at least 1200 px wide, that will be used in the publication information section and in the archives listing.
11. Edit the _props-mag.pcf file in the issue folder. Check it out, go to Properties > MultiEdit Content.
    1.  Publication Issue Title
    2. Publication Issue Date (used to order the issues on the publications homepage)
    3. Publication Issue Image and Description (the vertical1200 image created previously)
    4. Issue Information Text that will appear next to the image and PDF button at the bottom of the issue.
    5. Issue PDF select the PDF file that you uploaded for this issue.
12. Add content for each story.

Adding Story Content

The story content is added to the index.pcf file that was created in each story folder. If you copy and paste content, be sure to turn on the Paste as Text option in the toolbar.

1. Edit the Parameters (check out the file, Properties > Parameters).
   1. Set the Published Date to a date around the publish date of the publication (use the same date for all stories in an issue).
   2. Set the times of each story in order so that the earliest time is the last story in the publication and the latest time is the cover story. You could use one-hour increments.
   3. Save.
2. Edit the MultiEdit Content.
   1. Select an Author from the dropdown list.
      1. If the author is not in UMC, choose None and enter the author information in Guest Author.
      2. All stories must have an author. Listing a specific person is best, but the department name can be used if there is no specific person.
   2. Enter Keywords for your story.
   3. Skip Categories and Academics, DOI, and DOI URL.
   4. If desired, enter up to two URLs to Michigan Tech News, Unscripted, Magazine, or your publication stories to appear as related stories at the bottom. There will always be four related stories and the system will generate the remaining stories.
   5. If you want a video in the banner at the top of the page, enter the video URL in the Banner Video URL field. If you use a video here, you must still insert an image in Banner Image 1 to be used on the issue homepage.
   6. Create up to four Banner images and select the banner1200 or banner1600 images to appear in the banner at the top of the story in the Banner Image 1, Banner Image 2, Banner Image 3, and Banner Image 4 spaces.
      1. Image Description and Caption are required for each image. The description is the alt text and the caption will appear when the user clicks the i icon that will be above the image.
      2. If no Banner images are included, the issue homepage will show a black card with the gold Michigan Tech logo for those stories.
   7. In the Extras, you can do several things.
      1. Enter researcher user IDs in Associated Researcher Username. This may be used in the future to add story links to faculty personnel information.
      2. Enter a Superior Ideas project URL in the final field to display information about the project at the end of the story.
      3. Skip the Social Media Image field and Image Description.
   8. Save.
3. Enter the introductory sentence or two in the Intro Content region.
4. Enter the story content in the Main Content region.
   1. This can include links, images, and snippets as on a regular web page. Consider adding links to pages like degrees, programs, and faculty profiles where appropriate.
   2. There are additional snippets available that can only be used in publications—About the Researcher (Automated and Manual), Inline Aside, and “-outside” classes for Image with Caption. For more information about the common snippets used in publications, please see the News/Unscripted documentation Snippet section.
   3. You should generally leave 3-4 paragraphs between visual elements in the body of the story.
5. Once you have entered all of the content for your story, be sure to preview it.
6. Publish the story.

Reviewing the Publication

1. Publish the _nav.shtml file in the /stories folder.
2. Publish the _nav.shtml, _props.pcf, and _props-mag.pcf files in the issue folder.
   1. If you did not include issue-template in the folder name DO NOT publish the _props-mag.pcf file. This will make the issue populate on the homepage.
3. Preview the index.pcf file in the issue folder to make sure the story images and text look correct. This can only be seen once the stories have been published.
   1. If you did not include issue-template in the folder name you will not see the information text after the stories.
4. Provide the issue-template-xxxx URL to anyone who needs to review and approve the publication.

Completing the Publication

1. Edit the index.pcf file in the issue folder to add a hidden header image.
   1. Go to Properties > MultiEdit Content.
   2. Select an engaging banner image from one of the stories that would populate when the issue is shared on social media.
   3. Include an Image Description.
   4. Do not turn on any options in Parameters!
2. Once the template publication all looks good, update the Publish date on each individual story (See Step 1 of Adding Story Content) to yesterday’s date, unless you are backfilling an old issue of the publication.
   1. If you are backfilling an old issue, the date should already be around the time the original publication was sent out.
3. From the Edit tab on the index.pcf file in the issue folder, in the Main Content region, update the path within each URL to remove “issue-template-“.
4. Publish the index.pcf file in the issue folder.
   1. Note, after changing the paths in the previous step there will be no content on the page.
5. Rename the issue folder to remove issue-template-.
   1. The name should now be reflective of the issue and should match the three URL paths you set on the index.pcf file in the issue folder.
6. Wait for all content to publish.
7. Review the publications homepage on your departmental website to make sure the new issue appears correctly.
   1. Troubleshooting tip: If not all the stories are showing up, try publishing the index.pcf file for the missing story, wait two minutes, then publish the issue index.pcf file.