Contribute and the modifications made by SFU (known as "Smart Templates") may be a new software for you. These activities are designed to encourage you to explore this software. Since individual users will have access to different pages, these tutorials are a general introduction, designed to help you identify the needed areas in your own environment. When you open Contribute, you should have access to the page you will be responsible for maintaining or contributing to, as well as a test environment. We created this test environment so that you would have an area in which you can make edits and changes on web pages that are not public.
Completing these activities will give you a general understanding of how the smart templates work. After completing these activities, you should be able to:
Take a moment to look at the different sections of your screen. What are the titles of the different sections? Print out the images of the main page, and highlight the sections you are responsible for.
In the Contribute Software, navigate to Academic Programs and then to Distance Education. Look for a yellow bar with a warning near the top of the window. What does it say?
Click on five buttons or links on a chosen page. What happens after each mouse click? Do items move? Can you enter new text somewhere? Is there a drop-down menu that you can use?
Open a page in Contribute
Open the same page in your internet browser. Is the space used differently? Are some things visible on the Contribute page and hidden on the "live" page? Why?
Browse to a page that you wish to edit. Compare the tool bar before and after you select the EDIT button.
Choose some text and make it bold, or italics.
Make a list
You can add links (URL's) to outside sites, to pages under the www.sfu.ca domain, word or PDF documents and images.
Print out the image "edit a page" and highlight where you can do each of these tasks.