Course Blogs

Hello!  Welcome back returning OCAD U students and hello to all the new students!  We thought we would take the opportunity to explain some of the details surrounding blogs where professors have chosen to use this service for their course.

How do I login?

  • Login here with your OCAD U user name.  Your user name is not your full OCAD U email address, just the first part of it before the ‘@’.

How do I find my course blog?

  • Not all professors have chosen to use the blog service for their course.  Most will clearly state to you that they are using a course blog in class or announce it on OCAD U’s learning management system, Canvas.
  • Once a professor has added your student username to a course blog, you will receive an e-mail from this system notifying you.  Additionally, once you are logged into this service, any blogs you have been added to will appear in your ‘My Sites‘ list in the toolbar at the top of all pages.
  • You can try searching for blogs using the blog directory.  It is best to try searching for the title of the course.

Why is the URL for my course blog the way it is?

  • The URL’s for course blogs reflect how the course is identified in OCAD U’s back-end systems, which contain course and registration information for almost 44,000 courses past, present, and future.  We have standardised on this format to make blogs easier to create and locate.
  • It is a combination of course code, semester, duration, and section number.
  • ie.  GART1B06-FW201602-04 translates to:
  • ‘GART1B06’ is the course code
  • ‘FW2016’ means Fall/Winter 2016.  Btw, although much of winter bleeds into 2017, we still call it Winter 2016
  • ’02’ means the course runs during the fall only (Fall 2016).  ’01’ would mean the course runs for the entire ‘year’ or fall AND winter in this case (Fall/Winter 2016).  ’03’ would mean the course runs in the winter portion of the fall/winter semester (Winter 2016).
  • ‘-04’ is the section number for the course.

More information on this service?

  • You can find some further information about OCAD U Blogs from the service landing page at http://blog.ocad.ca and the About page.

Have a great year!

Video Tutorials Now Available!

New to Blogging?  We have just made available a fantastic selection of tutorial videos that explain how to use WordPress – the software powering OCAD University Blogs.  All users have access to these videos, streamed directly from any blog dashboard.  Just click on the ‘WordPress Video Tutorials‘ link in the ‘Dashboard‘ section of your Dashboard menu:

Video Tutorials

Advertise (or Hide) Your Blog

Perhaps you want to make your blog completely private and require login to view content?

By default, all new blogs are publicly viewable and appear in the “Updated Blogs”, “New Blogs”, or “Active Blogs” lists at http://blog.ocad.ca.

Blog administrators can modify blog privacy settings via the Dashboard -> Settings -> Privacy.