Everything you need to know about creating, editing and deleting articles from the committee hub.
Go to the Committee Hub news
Firstly, you'll need to head over to the Organisations Admin area, where you can select the Committee Hub organisation from the list. Select the News option and you'll be taken through to a list of current articles.
If the link above doesn't work, you can access the Organisation Admin by:
- Navigating to the main union site
- Selecting the cog icon
- Selecting Organisations Admin
No articles showing?
It may be that the news area appears empty - this is because the existing articles have expired. Change the filter to show Current and Expired articles to see the full list.
Add a new article
Select the option at the top called 'Add new article'. This will take you through to a form that you'll need to fill in for your article. Use the guidance below to complete this section.
Title
This is the title of your article. Keep it short and sweet, and make sure it's clear. Something like 'Booking rooms on campus' is fine. Avoid overly long sentences like 'How to use our processes and forms to book a lecture theatre or venue'.
Byline
By default, this will likely be your name. You can leave it how it is, or you can remove it - it won't display on articles, so it doesn't matter particularly. However, you may find it useful to know who has uploaded a certain article.
Leader
The leader text is a short piece of introduction text that will appear beneath the article title. Keep it brief, only use it to provide more context for your article. Below are the recommended lengths and the maximum lengths for this text.
You can use the inbuilt function within your word processing software to check the character length, or you can use an online tool such as Character Count Tool. Please note that it is the character length with spaces that you're looking at.
- Recommended length: 150 characters
- Maximum length: 256 characters
What's the difference between the recommended length and the maximum length?
The recommended length is what will look best on the site, and the maximum length is the point at which the text will cut off. Aim for the recommended length where you can, but you can extend it to the maximum length if needed.
Display period
Leave this as the default, which is the date of creation + one week. It doesn't matter what the expiry date is set to, the article will still pull through to the site even if it has expired, but only if the 'Show in archive' checkbox is ticked.
If you want your article to appear on a specific date, you can set the display period to a date in the future.
Show in archive
Make sure this is ticked! This is what ensures that your article still pulls through to the site even after it has expired.
If you only want your article to appear for a set period of time, for example if the information is only relevant for a few weeks of a specific year, you can leave this unticked. This may be useful for an article about freshers fair or student group elections, where the information is likely to be different the following year.
View permission
Set this to everyone. The articles will only pull through to the committee hub, so there's no risk of other people seeing them.
Allow comments
Leave this unticked. No need for people to clog up the page with queries, concerns or inane chat.
Enable sharing
Leave this unticked. All this does is add social links to the page, and they'll look ugly.
Enable ratings
Leave this ticked. This will enable students to provide feedback on the article and give you more insight as to how your articles are performing.
Tags
These control where each article pulls through to. By select a tag, you're telling the article to appear in that area. This is great for instances where something may cover more than one area - for example, an article on providing a risk assessment for an event may fall under health and safety as well as events.
Image
Leave this empty. It won't pull through anywhere.
Body
This is where the main portion of your article will go.
URL of alternate web page
This replaces your body content and instead redirects users to a link of your choice. Avoid doing this - it creates a poor experience for the user who will be unexpectedly taken out of the site. If you need to point people through to another page, do so by writing an article, providing context, and adding a link.
This article is approved
Leave this ticked to publish the article immediately. If you need time to check it over or have it proofed or approved by another member of your team, leave it unticked and come back to it later.
General guidance
- If you're pasting in content from another document, use the short cut CTRL + Shift + V (or CMD + Shift + V on a Mac). This will paste your content in without any of the original formatting. While this may seem counter productive if you've already spent time formatting your content, it's really important. When you paste content in from other areas, it often carries styles with it that you don't want and can lead to errors on the page. Paste it in using the shortcut above and reformat it using the tools within the MSL editor.
- Avoid PDFs and other downloadable documents where you can. If you can put the content on the page itself, do that - it's much better for accessibility, and it's much better for the experience of your students. Unless it's a form, it doesn't need to be a separate document.
Edit an article
Once you've adjusted the filter, you'll have a full list of all the articles on the hub. To edit one, simply select 'Edit' then make the changes you need. Don't forget to save your changes when you're done.
If the article will require reapproval, untick the 'This article is approved' option before you press save.
Remove an article
To prevent an article from appearing on the site, you'll want to edit the article and uncheck the box for 'Show article in the archive when the display period has ended'.
Turning this off will keep the article on the system but stop it from appearing beneath any of the sections. If at a later point you decide you'd like to bring the article back, it's a case of going back into the settings and turning 'Show article in the archive when the display period has ended' back on again.