Before I spend time setting up Lyceum I have a few questions. I am trying to set up a blogging system for a school. I installed WordPress MU on our ISP server, but I am struggling with passwords and I am still not sure how to set up a hierarchical system such as: School Main Blog Teacher student student Teacher student student Can this be done? Security of student ID's is a big issue. We can use initials or alias for student names. The ability to limit who can read blogs and post blogs is also important. Lyceum may be what I am looking for to manage hundreds of student blogs. As usual, public school don't have the resources to hire a knowable database manager or web master to implement important technologies. So, it falls on someone like me who wants to learn how to use technology to improve teaching and learning. If this works I may get 4 or 5 school systems in our area, western MA, to use Lyceum. Thanks for your help Jim W
I don't believe lyceum really has any hierarchy at all (jjb can correct me if I'm wrong). I'm not even sure I understand the need for the need for the structure you describe. The structure in lyceum by default is like this: Portal page (often with a listing of all blogs, or popular blogs, etc.) blog blog blog blog You could remove the blog listings from the main page (portal.php), and create a custom list of blogs from there. Student blogs could be completely unlisted if desired, so that they are only known to friends and people the students have informed about their blog. Otherwise, I don't believe there is a way to restrict viewing a blog. Posting is completely separate, however, and that can be locked down to either certain email addresses. Example: our state issues email addresses to all students, and that domain name could be used to restrict only those who had attended public school in the state. You can also disable user registration completely, so that only accounts you create specifically can create content.
After writing all that, I realized I may have misunderstood what you were asking. If you were looking for a way to have the following scenario, it would work fine in lyceum: -a teacher user who could monitor and edit (supervise) other specific blogs -students who could post things to a specific blog (and comment on others)
To do this, one would create blogs with the teacher as the owner, and then give the students lower privileges on the blog/s.
Welcome to Lyceum. I also am not sure what you are describing. Are you talking about permissions? If so, do you mean for users?
On Lyceum, each user can be given arbitray permission on arbitrary blogs. so, a teacher could be the editor(admin) on the Algebra blog and with 50 submitter-only students on the same blog.
Meanwhile... those SAME 50 students can each be the admin of their own personal blog.
Meanwhile... the principle is the admin of the "school happenings" blog, and 50 teachers are only submitters, and ONLY registered users can comment.
Meanwhile... a teacher is admin on the biology blog, 10 GT students are editors, and 50 other students are submitters. (the ruthless class system in our nation's schools... sigh)
Regarding permissions for reading, that will take some hacking but is very possible.