Eligibility

All current NTU users with a valid NTU network account may apply for a blog.

Approval is on a case-to-case basis and must fall under academic, research or administrative purposes.

The following groups are not eligible:

• Alumni including those from NTU.
• Former NTU staff or students.
• NIE staff and NIE students.
• RSIS staff and RSIS students.

Apply for a blog

The following details must be provided upon application. Applications with incomplete or missing details will be declined. Click on the text below for more details. For student organisations, please click here.

1. What is the blog’s purpose?
   Provide a brief description of what the blog will be used for. This will help us decide whether to approve your application. Blogs that are ‘personal’ in nature (e.g. an online diary about day-to-day life happenings and musings) will be declined. 
2. If approved, your suggestions for blog address?
   Blog address refers to the suffix after blogs.ntu.edu.sg/. Example: blogs.ntu.edu.sg/xxxxx. You may provide more than 1 suggestions. Do note that once we had created the blog, further changes to the blog address is not guaranteed. For more information, please read the section on “About Blog Address” below this list.
3. What is the title of the blog?
   The title of the blog correlates with the blog address. For example, if the blog address is blogs.ntu.edu.sg/ai-lab, the title should be “Artificial Intelligence Lab”. The blog has a separate tagline for short descriptions or slogans – but we don’t require this detail for processing. Blog admins may amend this title after blog creation.
4. Will you be designing and developing the blog?
   Blog admins are usually the one developing the blog. If you are engaging students to design and develop the blog, they will need to be blog admins. Blogs are provided as-is. Installation of custom themes and plugins are not allowed. Access to server files is prohibited. 
5. What is expected ‘live’ date?
   We may review the blog after the stipulated ‘live’ date. If the blog has not been developed at all, we will proceed to delete it. 

About blog address

Please adhere to the following limitations for blog address.

• 5 characters minimum.
• No spaces and no dots (only hyphens and underscores are accepted).
• All lowercase (small letters).
• As descriptive as possible.

For course blogs, the format will include course code, academic year and semester. Example: blogs.ntu.edu.sg/az1101-1920s2 (course AZ1101, AY 2019/2020, semester 2).

For student organisation blogs, the address will include “sao-“. Example: blogs.ntu.edu.sg/sao-xxxxx.

Course blog

Course blogs are academic blogs that are meant to supplement and not replace the University’s learning platform. Official online learning should still be done through NTULearn. Course blogs at Blogs@NTU must not be static. It should have elements of teacher-student or student-student participation, collaboration, and learning opportunities.

Faculty are expected to manage and be responsible for their own course blogs (including all associated student blogs).

Please click here to request for a course blog.

Student Project/Group Blog

To request for student project/group blogs, please download and populate this excel file template.

Once completed, please email us the excel file as well as the URL of the main course blog. All columns must be completed. We do not require students’ matriculation number. The general standard URL for student project/group blogs is coursecode-academic year semester-group number – e.g. az1101-2122s2-g01 (course AZ1101, AY 2021/2022, semester 2, group 1).

Student Organisations

NTU student organisations should approach Student Affairs Office (SAO) who will submit your request to us upon approval. All applications sent directly to us will be routed to SAO. We are not able to accept non-NTU applications.

Application

The following details must be included in your application. SAO may request for additional info for processing.

1. Admin email: Organisation’s role-based email (e.g. president’s email). Admin email must not be removed. 
2. Blog address: Must include prefix “sao-” (e.g. sao-xxxxx). Blog address may not be changed after creation.
3. Blog title: Official organisation’s name. This may be amended by blog admins later. 
4. Blog admins: Provide 1 or 2 nominated student emails (must not be role-based emails). 

Example:

Handover

Outgoing blog admins must conduct a proper handover to the new team. These could be done by adding administrator roles to assigned users. Once the new team has been added or has control over the blog, they may then remove outgoing user accounts as administrators. If a handover was not conducted, the new committee should approach SAO for assistance.

For advice and enquiries, please email saoso@ntu.edu.sg. For technical enquiries, please read our Q&A and online Guides. 

Custom domain

For security reasons, we no longer accept custom domain requests. Custom domain refers to a unique web name that is reflected in the link or Uniform Resource Locator (URL). For example, “ntu.edu.sg”, “google.com”, “campuspress.com”.

Expert advice

We are not able to provide expert advice on specialised topics such as:

• Recommendations for plugins, themes, features, functions, etc.
• Search results ranking.
• Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).
• Google Analytics and web metrics.
• Domain registration and management.
• Electronic Direct Mail (EDM)/email marketing campaign.
• MailChimp integration.
• External websites access and management.
• Programming and troubleshooting web technologies like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc.
• Formidable Form plugin customisation and troubleshooting.
• Advice on cybersecurity.

The above list is non-exhaustive. These topics require extensive knowledge, specialised experience and/or certification.

How to login

To login, you must have a valid NTU network account.

There are 2 ways to access the login page:

• Click on the Log In link at the top left corner of the blog.
• Append “/wp-admin.php” to the blog address. For example, blogs.ntu.edu.sg/xxxxx/wp-admin.php

You may also be asked to login when clicking a URL that leads to a ‘private’ blog.

Steps to login:

1. Click on the Use NTU ID button to proceed.
2. You will be routed to NTU’s authentication page.
3. Key in your NTU username (without domain/email suffix) and password.
4. Click the LOGIN button.

Correct examples:
Username: xyz123 (for students) or zander.xy (for staff)
Password: ********

Wrong examples:
Username: xyz123@e.ntu.edu.sg (email suffix) or STUDENT\xyz123 (inclusion of domain)
Password: ********

If successful, you will be routed to the blog. If unsuccessful, please go to our section on “Can’t login“.

NIE staff/student login

For NIE staff and students, please use your NIE network ID and the password. Do not use your NIE email username to login unless it is the same as the network ID.

Steps to login:

1. Click on Use NTU ID button to proceed.
2. You will be routed to NTU’s authentication page.
3. Key in your NIE network ID and password.
4. Click the LOGIN button.

If successful, you will be routed to the blog. If unsuccessful, please go to our section on “Can’t login“.

Can’t login

If you are able to login successfully, but are not able to access a specific blog, please request the blog administrator to register you to the blog. If the blog administrator is not able to add users to the blog, please ask them to report the error.

If you are unable to login successfully, please try the following checks:

1. Verify that your NTU username and password is valid and correct.
2. Ensure that the username field does not have the domain or other suffixes.
3. Empty your browser’s cache and browsing history and try to login again.
4. Completely exit the browser (closing tabs is not sufficient – close all windows of the browser) and try to login again.
5. Try to login using the incognito* or private* browsing mode.
6. Try to login with a different browser.
7. Try to login with a different computer or device.

If you were able to login succesfully, the issue is likely to be with your original browser or device.

Should your attempts still fail after completing the above steps, please connect to the NTU VPN (if you’re not on campus). Normally, connection to the NTU VPN is not required as NTU’s authentication process should enable access outside the NTU network.

If you can successfully login only when connected to the NTU VPN, then there is a technical issue with NTU’s authentication process and not with the blog platform itself. In this case, please submit a ServiceNow ticket.

If all the above steps were unsuccessful, please report the error to us. Thank you!

Errors

Login error refers to an attempt to access the Blogs@NTU platform without any success. If you are able to login to Blogs@NTU dashboard but are not able to access a specific blog, this is an access issue. Please make a request to the blog admin to add you to the blog.

Here’s a few common reason for login errors. Click on the text below to find out more.

Error reporting

To report an error, please contact us with the following details:

• Your NTU email address.
• Blog link that you were trying to access.
• Screen captures or video grab leading to the error.
• Error messages (if any).

Alternatively, you may make an appointment with us to troubleshoot the issue together. To make an appointment, please contact us indicating your preferred date and time. We could meet you online via MS Teams or at our office during office hours.

External User

These are users who are not from NTU, NIE nor RSIS. Vendors and external contributors would fall under these group. 

All external users must login via our NTU authentication system using a valid NTU network account. In order to do this, blog admin (not Library) would need to apply for a temporary NTU network account on behalf of these external users. To apply, please submit a request to ServiceNow. Once approved, blog admin may then add the external user to the blog. Click here on how to add users to the blog. 

Please note:

• Issues arising from vendor’s design and development must be routed to the vendor or resolved by the blog admins themselves.
• We don’t provide local or guest accounts for security reasons.
• NTU alumni are considered external user but may use their alumni network account; as long as it is still valid.

Access in China

As far as we know, there are no restrictions accessing Blogs@NTU from China. Therefore, login to NTU VPN is not required. Our vendor, CampusPress, had hosted many international schools in China without any issues. Should you or your user encountered issues accessing Blogs@NTU from China, please report the error.

Extent of service

Blogs are provided as-is. Users are expected to design, develop and populate content themselves.

We don’t provide the following services:

• Blog design and development.
• Populate content.
• Update content.
• Installation of external themes or plugins. Please use available themes and plugins.
• Troubleshooting for blogs using custom codes or scripts.
• Troubleshooting of user-created plugin errors  (e.g. Formidable Form).
• Funding for services or projects.
• Recommend plugins, themes, features, functions, etc.
• Provide cybersecurity reports.

Themes & Plugins

Installation of themes and plugins are disabled. Blog admins may request to activate existing themes* and plugins*. Access to server files is prohibited. However, blog admins may customised their blogs using custom CSS and the Divi theme*. Insertion of scripts is possible but not guaranteed. We are not able to troubleshoot errors arising from custom codes and scripts.

Design

We don’t provide in-house blog design and development services.

Blog admins may engage other NTU users to design and develop the blog. It is also possible to pay (using blog admin’s own fund) an external vendor to design and develop the blog. However, blog admin must apply for a temporary NTU network account on behalf of the vendor. Issues arising from the vendor’s design and development must be routed to the vendor or resolved by the blog admins themselves.

Use of NTU logo

Blog admins who wish to incorporate our NTU logo and branding into the blog must get prior approval from our Corporate Communication Office. Please adhere to their guidelines to ensure consistency and professionalism with our NTU brand. We will remove NTU logo without consulting the blog admins should Corporate Communication Office make a request.

Leaving NTU

Upon leaving the University and cessation of NTU network account, blog users will no longer be able to access the blogs. The blog may be exported and imported to an external WordPress platform (such as wordpress.com) in XML format. Media files must be exported, imported and relinked manually. These must be completed before the deactivation of the user’s network account.

We do not provide any support for external WordPress platforms including export/import and relinking services. Please note that external platforms may not provide the same theme and/or plugins.

Access after leaving

Upon leaving the university, staff and students may not be able to access the dashboard of their blogs as a valid NTU user account is required. Future additions or edits are no longer possible. We are not able to reactivate your NTU user account as this is under the management of CITS.

Before leaving

Please ensure that you had exported your blog before the cessation of your NTU network account.

Should you wish to remove your blog, please contact us your request using your NTU email. Do note that removed blogs are not deleted but archived – meaning, it will not be viewable nor accessible. It may take search engines some time to fully remove the visibility of public blogs at their search results.

Exporting your blog

You may export your blog in XML format and import it to an external WordPress platform (such as wordpress.com). You must be the blog admin to do this. Please note that media files (images, videos, documents, etc) must be exported and imported to the new blog manually. Pages and posts that linked to these files must be relinked to its new location.

To export, please go to Dashboard > Tools > Export.

We do not provide any support for external WordPress platforms including export/import and relinking services. Please note that external platforms may not provide the same theme and/or plugins.

Archival of blogs

Blogs that were inactive for 2 or more years may be archived. Archived blogs are no longer accessible nor viewable publicly (for non-private blogs). Blog admins may request to unarchive their blogs by sending us an error report. Please include the blog link and your NTU email address.