I wanted to write up a quick post about posting to this website. Sometimes we, as facilitators, help our students publish their blogs. Maybe they write them in a text document and ask us to perform the technical task of publishing them or perhaps we type as they dictate. However it happens here is a quick tip to make sure the student, not the facilitator, gets the author credit.

When you make a new blog post it will be attributed to who ever is currently logged in. As I write this post it has already been set to display me as an author, but we can change this! Let’s say that I’m logged in as myself (Drew) and I want to change the author of the post to the student I’m writing it for.

Setting the Author While Writing

Once you’ve written the post (even after you’ve published it, but best to do this first) you’ll want to scroll to the bottom of the main text input area and find a box titled Author. If you don’t see it, you’ll need to turn it on:

At the top right of the edit post screen (or any backend screen for that matter) you’ll see a tab called Screen Options. Click that and it will drop down.

Each of these items under show on screen is a “meta box” that can be toggled on or off. Make sure the check box next to Author is checked. Now move down the page and find the Author meta box:

Simple change the drop down box to the proper person! Then update/publish the page.

Changing past posts

You can use the above method for changing the author of any post, but there is an easier way. First navigate to All Posts by clicking Posts in the blogs dashboard, be sure you are in the correct blog when doing this!

You will see a list of all posts with the author along side. If you need to change a single post just hover over the post title, a few more options will appear under it, you’ll want to select Quick Edit.

Click that to expose the quick edit menu.

Here you will have the same Author drop down menu, just change the author and click Update.

You can also click the check boxes on each post who’s author you wish to change and click on the Bulk Actions drop down and select Edit. This will give you a similar option box as pictured above but when you update it it will change all selected posts in bulk.

Why Should You Care?

When a post shows up on the activity feed it comes along with an author’s name, the post title, and the blog name. This can cause some confusion if you don’t know the student’s blog name, it might look like you are suffering from some split personality issues and having radically different reflections on the same week.

It also makes searching for a student’s blog post more difficult because if one searches for an author’s name it wont pull up the posts you’ve written.