Some useful information to refer back to:

• If you don’t already have your own news listing you can set up your own news feed
• News article creation FAQs
• News article creation – information about each field

Creating a new News article

In your news listing, click on More news

Click on Add new article

The new article creation form will open.

Key information screen

The first page you will see is the Key information screen. There is mandatory information to complete on this page.

Add your title

Note! This is your news headline and should be no longer than 80 characters. It will appear at the top of your published article and in news listings.

Add your teaser

The teaser won’t show in the article itself but will display in various other places throughout the news channel as a way of enticing readers to click on your article. The teaser will be visible in news listings and in the main College top-level news pages.

Tip – this should be 2-3 enticing words to draw readers in. Some examples: New prototype, global epidemic, volunteers wanted, staff award, new service.

Add your summary text

This will not display in the article itself but it will be used in your news listing.

Note! The text should be no longer than 150 characters.

Tip – rather than write a new summary, you may wish to copy and paste the first few sentences of your news article text. Just make sure you also include the first few sentences in the article content area as well!

Can appear on College news site

You have the option to include your news article in the main College news listings. All articles will default to not appearing on the College news site unless you uncheck the tick-box.

Upload your image.

Tip – if you do not have an image, ignore this step and an automated generic image will be used.

Click on upload and select the image you wish to use in your article.

Note! The size of the image must be at least 700 px x 484 px.

Use the image size slider to adjust the size of your image to an appropriate size.

Click Preview and click on each image in the four pages to adjust the size to the dimensions you want.  A red boundary around an image suggest you need to edit adjust this image to make it fit the space available. There are nine images in total that you need to check. This is a temporary situation until the new design is live. For more information on this please read the images question in the FAQs

Once you have adjusted each of the different nine image previews, click on Generate.

If you have added an image, please add some image alt text

Note! The alt text should describe the image. E.g. a doctor pointing at an X-ray

If you would like to add a caption that appears across the bottom of your image please add the text in the image caption field.

Note! Image captioning is new functionality, previously unavailable in the old new design. As a result, the image caption will not look optimal in the article generated.  Once the new design goes live in September, captions will look a lot better.  It is advisable not to include captions at this point.

Author -  the author field defaults to the creator of the article.

Author search – You can change the author and/or add additional authors. To change or add additional authors type in the correct full surname and click ‘search’. Select the correct person from the list of suggested people and click add. Repeat as required.  You must include at least one author.

What will all of this key information look like when it is in the new design?

The Key information that you add in this first screen will appear in your news article as follows:

Click next page to begin adding categories.

Categories

The second page is where you add category information. There is mandatory information to complete on this page.

The category will reflect the overarching structure of the News site, broadly mapping content to Faculties or the College-wide category, ‘College and Campus’. Multiple categories can be selected for cross Faculty stories.  When the new design is launched, a link to the Faculty homepage for the categories you’ve selected will be added to the ‘more’ section of your article automatically.

Note! You should ensure the primary Faculty is at the top of the list of categories as this could affect where the article is displayed on the main College news site if it is selected for display there.

Click on your selected category and use the arrow buttons to move your chosen category to the selected area. You can choose to select all categories using the ‘select all’ button. To deselect a category, click on the category or categories and use the left pointing arrow button to move the categories back to the unselected area.

Tip – you can select two or more categories by holding down the shift key whilst clicking on your chosen categories.

Sub categories

If relevant, please select a sub story. The sub category maps stories to departments (options for category to be determined based on selection of category, e.g. Aeronautics can only be selected as a sub category if Engineering is a category). The sub categories you’ve selected will be added to the ‘more’ section of your article automatically.You can select more than one sub category.

You can select and deselect sub categories in the same way as categories.

If you would like to suggest additional categories, please contact Peter Gillings (p.gillings@imperial.ac.uk)

Story type

Select the relevant story type for your article. The story type selected will affect where the article is displayed on the main College news site if it is selected for display there. You can select and deselect story types in the same way as categories.

The story type organises stories into:

• News (content about the College’s work that is timely and offers readers something new
• Features (content that is less timely – e.g. an interview or profile, or an in-depth view of a particular event/development – or not directly relevant to the College’s activities, e.g. an account of a charity event)

A story cannot be both news and a feature. The default story type is news.

Sub story type

If relevant, select a sub story type or types.  Sub story types offer more detail about the format or style of content, e.g. Profile, Award, Video.  On the main College news site, sub story types will be used to signpost content types to readers browsing the main listings.

You can select and deselect story types in the same way as categories.

Note! The options for sub story types are determined based on your selection for story type.

If you would like to suggest additional story types, please contact Peter Gillings (p.gillings@imperial.ac.uk)

Tags

Add tags to your article by typing in the tag word or choosing a tag from the list of possible tags by clicking on the ‘see all tags’ button. You may add multiple tags to your article.

Tip – Tags offer insight into the overarching content of the story and provide opportunities to group stories by theme. The tags selected for your article will display at the bottom of your published article in the new design, enabling users to jump to other news content with the same tag.

There is no limit to the number of tags that can be used, but a maximum of four is recommended.

Tags that may be used regularly are:

• Research
• Education
• Students

Functionality is being developed to offer any news editor the opportunity to request that a new tag is added to the list – approval will be required from the Communications and Development Division.  In the interim, please contact Peter Gillings (p.gillings@imperial.ac.uk) if you wish to add a new tag.

Note! Tags should not be:

• People – names or positions
• Structures (e.g. faculty/department), but they may be titles of projects or partnerships involving the College
• Overly specific – i.e. a proposed tag is only likely to be applicable to a very limited number of stories
• Story formats (e.g. interview)

Click on next page to begin adding your article content.

How will all of this information about categories and tags look when in the new design?

Categories and Story types in the main news listing:

Categories, Sub categories and tags in a news article:

Content

To add the main text content to your news article click on ‘Click here to add content’ and the editor screen will open.

Add your article text into the editor window and then click submit when you are ready to save. Be careful not to click outside the editor window when editing, as this may cause you to lose your work.

If after you have saved your content, you would like to edit the text, you can return to the editor window by clicking on any text in the main text window.

You now have the option to publish your article.

If you would like to publish your article at this stage click publish

To add more information to your article click next page to open the links screen.

What will the article content look in the new design?

Links

Related college stories

Click add to link another College news story to your article – simply paste in the complete URL of a story in the College news system.  The URL should begin http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/

Related stories will appear within your article once the new design is launched to allow readers to pursue similar content.

Nominate – ticking this box will affect a very limited number of pages used by the Communications and Development Division in the new design and will have no affect on your own listings.  Therefore, please ignore this tick box.

Related links

Click add to link to another webpage (College or external) that is relevant to the information in your news article.  Add the complete URL of the website you wish to link to and the Title of the site you are linking to. The Title field will form the words that appear as your link.  Related links will appear within your article once the new design is launched.

Nominate – ticking this box will affect a very limited number of pages used by the Communications and Development Division in the new design and will have no affect on your own listings.  Therefore, please ignore this tick box.

Featured academics

Click search and add to link a member of College staff to your news article. By adding names of academics here, you will enable the article to be associated with their Professional Web Page (PWP), and once the PWP revamp project is complete, related new articles will feature on individual academic’s webpages.

Completing this section will have no visible impact on your actual news article.

Related multimedia

Click add to link published video and audio to your news article – simply paste in the complete URL of content in iMedia and the Title of the multimedia you are linking to. The Title field will form the words that appear as your link.  Related multimedia will appear within your article to allow readers to pursue similar content once the new design is launched.

Media mentions

Click add to link your news article to an external media source (e.g. a BBC online news story etc).  Add the publication date of the media mention and give the link a title.  Media mentions will appear within your article to allow readers to see related external news once the new design is launched.

If you would like to publish your article at this stage click publish.

To return to previous screens click on previous page or next page to continue to the next screen and add additional information

What will the of these links look in the new design?

 

Additional information

Publish

The publish date defaults to the date the article was created. You can select to publish the news article automatically at a pre-defined date and time.

Enter the date manually or click on the calendar icon to add the date.

Expires

To end date and remove the news article from your news feed you can set an expiry date (most likely to be used if you are using the News system for announcements that will go out of date).

Enter the date manually or click on the calendar icon to add the date.

Comments

If you would like to allow people to leave comments about your news article click on the comments allowed check-box.

Once you have selected to allow for comments a moderator will be added. The moderator will be notified when a comment has been left.

The moderator will default to the individual who created the article, but it can be amended to direct comments to a colleague.  Multiple moderators can be selected.

You can remove the default moderator by clicking on delete

To add more a moderators click on add moderators and enter the name a colleague who you would like to act as a moderator.

Note! Commenting functionality will not be operational until the new design goes live in September 2012, so it is recommended you do not enable this until then.

Funders and supporters

You can add details of funders or supporters of the research featured in the story.  The Communications and Development Division are currently collecting data for this section so content may not yet be available here.  If you would like to add a funder or supporter, please contact Peter Gillings (p.gillings@imperial.ac.uk).

Click on your selected funder or supporter and use the arrow buttons to move your selection. You can choose to select all options using the ‘select all’ button. To deselect a funder or supporter, click on the options and use the left pointing arrow button to move your chosen funder or supporter back to the unselected area.

Tip – you can select two or more funders and supporters by holding down the shift key whilst clicking on your chosen options.

Your selected funders or supporters will be added to the bottom of your news article when the new design goes live.

Click on publish to publish your story or previous page to return to the previous screen.

What will these look like in the new News design

Comments at the end of an article

Funders and Supporters in an article

Editing my article

Once you have published your new article you can go back and edit the information and content as often as you want.

Click on the news article you wish to edit and then click on edit article and the new article creation screens will open, allowing you to edit your information and content.

Once you have finished editing your article click update and your changes will be published.

Note! You do not need to click update for each page that you make changes on. If you are making changes to more than one page you only need to click update once you have finished making all of your changes. Whilst making your changes you can move between the pages by clicking previous page and next page.