Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Simple Sites has many features, but also has limitations. Please read Is Simple Sites Right for Me? to find out if the service will meet your needs.

Anyone with a UCSD active directory (AD) account can create a site or blog. This includes faculty, staff, and students. You can create multiple sites.

Any active employee (faculty and staff) or student can log in with their Active Directory (email) username and password. Affiliates can use the service if the department has created an affiliate AD account. If you are an applicant, a former student, or a former employee, you will not be able to log in.

Go to the UCSD Sites home page and click the “Create a Site” button. You will need to login with your Active Directory (email) username and password. Follow the on-screen prompts.

Official student organizations need to register with the Center for Student Involvement. Once that is done, they qualify for a registered hostname (yourorg.ucsd.edu).

We are using WordPress, which is an open-source web content management system for simple sites and blogs.

UCSD Sites uses Active Directory (AD/email) usernames so your real name is associated with your site or blog. The very nature of blogging is sharing information with the world. When you publish an entry on your UCI Sites website, you are essentially posting on a public website. Anyone who knows the address of your website can see it and share the link with others.

If you want to publish content and keep your identity private, consider a commercial service like Blogger, LiveJournal or WordPress.com.

That being said, if you would like to create private posts, there is an option within WordPress to create “private” posts that require a password. You may also block search engines from finding your blog. You can change the privacy settings under Settings > Reading.

We often get questions about features that are available on self-hosted WordPress sites versus what is offered on UCI Sites. We have created a comparison table to help explain the differences.

IT Services covers all of the costs to use this shared service. There is no cost to individual users.

There is no limit on the size of websites hosted through UCSD Sites. However, official campus and School of Medicine departments and programs qualify for the full-service campus CMS.

We use managed hosting with CampusPress. They offer technical support 24/7. If you have questions about the service or our policies, contact the UCSD Sites team.

That’s a great question! Hosting your website on UCI Sites can be a great way to have free, stable, secure hosting. You will no longer have to worry about patching or troubleshooting themes and plugins. However, the plugins and themes we have available will likely be different than what you are using now. We also pay for 24/7 customer support from our hosting partner, CampusPress.

You can export your Posts and Pages and import them into UCI Sites, making it possible to add your content quickly. You will also have to add your users and assign them roles, choose and configure a theme, and enable and configure the plugins we have installed. You cannot install themes or plugins. For a simple site, this should be fairly straightforward. For a complex site, it will take more work, but can still be worth the effort. The more familiar you are with WordPress, the easier this will be.

If you are creating a new site or doing a major redesign, starting the work on UCI Sites will be the easiest of all. If you are working with a designer, as long as they have a UCInetID, they can be added and work with one of our existing themes. Divi is a robust theme and page builder. It is highly configurable if you have specific design needs. You can also choose another theme and use custom CSS to customize it to fit your site’s needs. We always recommend using UCI Branding guidelines.

Contact us if you have questions. We’re here to help.

You cannot install plugins on UCSD Sites.

UCSD Sites is a managed WordPress hosting service. All of the plugins and themes have been chosen for security and stability for use in higher education by our vendor CampusPress. Each plugin has gone through strict code review to make sure it will ensure a stable and secure system.

If there is functionality that you need, contact CampusPress who will try to find a solution within their existing suite of plugins. Let them know what you are trying to do with the plugin. There is often a way to achieve what you need with what is already available.

It can take being a little more creative, but the benefits far outweigh the risks of having your website crash or be hacked due to poorly written or insecure plugins.

UCSD Sites is offering one theme that is accessible and provides UC San Diego branding.

You cannot edit existing themes or install new ones.

UCSD Sites is a managed WordPress hosting service. Our vendor, CampusPress, has chosen and vetted all of the plugins and themes security, stability, and accessibility. The default theme has gone through strict code review to meet all of these requirements.

This is outside of the scope of what we offer with managed hosting on UCSD Sites. All of the themes installed on UCSD Sites must go through a strict code review from our web host vendor, CampusPress. Furthermore, they must meet our branding and accessibility requirements.

You will use your Active Directory (AD) username and password to log in. Usually, this is the first part of your email address before the @ sign.

After you are no longer an active student or employee, you will not be able to log in to edit your site. We recommend exporting the site’s content to another service like WordPress.com. They offer robust WordPress hosting and have plans for personal to business use. If you can no longer log in to your site because you graduated or left UC San Diego, contact us and we can export the site for you.

All users must have an Active Directory (AD) account to be added to your website.

• If you are an administrator of a site, you can add anyone with a UCSD AD account and assign them a role. 
• If your department has a Group UCInetID, you can also add this type of account.
• Learn how to add or invite new users to your site.

If the person does not have a UCInetID

• If you are working with other academics outside of UCI, you can request a Sponsored UCInetID.
• If you are hiring a consultant to help build your website, you can have your Human Resources department add them as a Contingent Worker. Learn more about Contingent Workers.

Any person with the administrator role on the website can add you as a new user. If you do not know who the administrators are, contact the UCSD Sites team. Our network administrators can look this up for you. They can also add you but will need permission from an existing administrator to make sure you should be granted access.

Unfortunately, we have not been able to get mobile WordPress Apps to work with UCSD Sites. We believe this is due to our login method. We do not have a fix for this at this time and recommend using a web browser to edit your blog.

If you have created a site and no longer want it, you can delete it at any time. We have instructions to help you. Before you delete it, make sure to export the content if you want to preserve your work.

Yes, on UCI Sites it is possible to use a custom domain for your site, such as sitename.bio.uci.edu instead of the default address you get when you sign up, like sites.uci.edu/sitename/. We use Domain Mapping to map your custom domain to your individual site. The custom domain is an alias to the site. Your original domain will still work and will be what you see when you are logged in.

Requirements

• The domain requestor must be a faculty or staff member at UCI.
• The website using a custom domain must represent a UCI department, school, research lab or organization.
• All custom domains must be sub-domains or nested sub-domains of uci.edu
  • If the website belongs to a specific school, it should be a sub-domain of that school, for example sitename.bio.uci.edu
  • Only one domain will be allocated for each site. We cannot accommodate multiple custom domains.
• The website must be set up with public visibility. Custom domains do not work for private or password protected sites.
• Top-level subdomains like ‘sitename.uci.edu’ require approval from a campus committee and have strict guidelines which will significantly lengthen the time frame. See the UCI Subdomain Guidelines for more information and to request a top-level subdomain. If you don’t need a top-level subdomain, consider a nested subdomain as these generally don’t require approval and will speed up the process.
• Existing Domains – If you are moving your current website and want to keep your domain, this move will take over the whole domain. If you have applications or other content that is not moving over, we do not recommend this method. We will also need to carefully schedule the move after hours to make sure site is not impacted by any downtime as DNS and SSL are updated.
• It can take a few days to complete the process as we need to request and install a new SSL certificate and map the domain. There will be a short time (approximately one hour) when the SSL certificate will not work. For new domains this is not an issue, but if you are transferring an existing domain we will try to schedule this after hours to cause less disruption.

Learn more to request a custom domain.

We do monitor sites for change activity. If your website has not been updated in more than 2 years, it may be archived. We will try to contact the administrator of the site to ask if the site is still being maintained. If we do not hear back or the site is not updated, we may archive the site. We will keep the site in an archived state. We can reinstate it upon request.

Your access to editing the site is provided by your UCInetID. While you are a current student or active employee, you should have access to your site. However, after that time, you will no longer be able to log in to make changes. We can export your site’s content upon request. Learn more about UCInetID Deletion Policies.

You can try using the Safe Redirect Manager Plugin. Be aware that sites that have not been updated in 24 months will be archived. The redirect method is a temporary solution.