Following are some general notes on the configuration of this WordPress site.

Plugins

Add From Server

Workaround for uploading large media files via sftp, then adding from server filesystem.

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.

Duplicate Post

Add ‘Clone’ feature to ease creating a new post by modifying an existing post.

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.

SyntaxHighlighter Evolved

Included to enable better code highlighting in posts See the Site Guide page for examples.

Table of Contents Plus

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

TablePress

Convenient interface for editing the calendar as a table.

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”
  • set “New User Default Role” to Student
  • set custom permalink structure to /post_id/postname

Roles

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

Theme

The Fukasawa 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 “Personnel” to keep it private.