Following are some notes on the initial configuration of this WordPress site for use for submitting student work.

Plugins

Add From Server

Allows instructors to add  very large media files uploaded via sftp.

Author Avatars List

Used to generate the Student List page.

Co-Authors Plus

Enables multiple authors to be assigned to a post, allowing multiple students in a group to edit content. Note: the author list shown will only be correct if the theme PHP is edited; even though this plug-in is supported by Automattic, the integration isn’t very thorough.

Display Posts Shortcode

Used to generate a simplified post feed on the Recent Posts page.

Duplicator

Enables backing up the entire site to an archive file.

EWWW Image Optimizer

An attempt to protect the site storage a little against the huge unscaled images which students tend to upload.

MathJax-LaTeX

Enables in-line mathematical notation.

Members

Included to enable limiting the allowed readers for individual posts, plus better role management.

Shibboleth

Provides Andrew ID login federation.

Simple Custom CSS and JS

Used to apply simple formatting tweaks via CSS without editing the theme.

SyntaxHighlighter Evolved

Included to enable better code highlighting in posts. See the Site Help page for examples, or the plugin homepage.

Table of Contents Plus

Used to generate the sitemaps (e.g. Page Index and Post History pages) plus indices for individual long posts.

WP User Avatar

Enables setting avatar images locally without requiring Gravatar.

General Settings

  • turned off “Attempt to notify any blogs linked to from the article”
  • turned off “Allow link notifications from other blogs (pingbacks and trackbacks) on new articles”
  • turned off “Comment author must fill out name and email”
  • turned on “Users must be registered and logged in to comment”
  • turned off “Email me whenever Anyone posts a comment”
  • turned off “Email me whenever A comment is held for moderation”
  • turned off “Comment author must have a previously approved comment”

Roles

  • Editor role renamed to Instructor
  • Author role renamed to Student and slightly extended
  • Contributor role deleted

Theme

The Fluxipress theme was chosen for its simple look and grid-based front page, as this site is expected to support several dozen student authors and each assignment may result in a dozen or more posts.

Page Settings

  • Content permissions set for “Student List” to keep it private.