Group Projects Using WordPress

WordPress can be used effectively to structure and host group project work in your academic program.

Options for approaching group assignments using WordPress

1. Create a single program site that hosts both individual posts as well as group posts. This is the simplest approach and is a good option if your focus is on creating content as opposed to learning web development skills. An example of this approach is Visualizing Microbial Seascapes https://sites.evergreen.edu/vms/, Fungi of Evergreen https://sites.evergreen.edu/fungi/. A shared category structure can provide rich ways of browsing/grouping related content.
2. Create a separate site for each group. This would allow students to have more flexibility with changing the look and feel of the site (if you wanted that) or they could all be based on same template. An option would be to have students post their individual posts here as well as the group post, or to post to an additional individual site. An example of this approach was used by Terroir https://sites.evergreen.edu/terroir/winter-student-work/.
3. Each student gets their own site for posting individual posts and then group posts are authored on shared all program site. Individual sites could be based on a template and individual posts could be aggregated to the all program site using a syndication plugin. Visualizing Climate Change is using this approach. The student individual blog template used is here http://blogs.evergreen.edu/vcctemplate/ and the program site that will host the group projects is here https://sites.evergreen.edu/vcc/

Workshops to get students up and running

• Based on which option faculty choose will determine how much time is needed to spend in workshops
• Any options using site templates and auto-generation of sites means less time walking students through WordPress configuration settings
• A workshop tutorial will be generated customized to your assignment details