Website Frequently Asked Questions
To request a new UMF subsite, a subsite you will be responsible for developing and maintaining, please contact Tom Donaghue: donaghue@maine.edu He will submit a ticket to System Web Tech and ask them to build you the shell of a subsite. Next, he will build out your homepage a bit, send you instructions on how to access your new subsite and provide you with a Web Best Practices document.
See more on the page about Websites.
Contact Tom Donaghue: donaghue@maine.edu He will submit a ticket to System Web Tech and ask them to completely delete your subsite.
Note: Once your subsite is deleted, there’s no going back. All of your content will be gone forever.
Contact Tom Donaghue: donaghue@maine.edu He will add a new user to your site and provide them with instructions on how to access your site.
Note: While we can provide student-workers with Editor access to your site, Marketing does not train students to do the work. We simply have nowhere near the staffing capacity to do that. You are responsible for training and overseeing the students’ work on your subsite.
This comes up a lot and it looks more dire than it actually is. It almost always means you’re trying to access your WordPress site from off campus and are not using a VPN client to do so.
To access your UMF WordPress subsite from off campus, users first need to download and use the secure VPN client. After download and installation, WordPress users log in to the VPN client first (wait a few seconds) and then access their subsite as usual.
If you have not already installed the University System VPN, follow the instructions at https://vpn.net.maine.edu/.
If you need assistance setting up the VPN, contact the IT Help Desk help@maine.edu or call them 1-800-696-4357.
The use of the VPN client resolved a significant security issue and was announced by IT Services in September 2021.
The VPN is not needed when users log in to WordPress from on campus.
Contact Tom Donaghue: donaghue@maine.edu and please provide the URL of the page in question in your email message so he can find it. The UMF website is currently at more than 1,200 pages and growing — and that does not include the content residing on myCampus. Without having the URL, tracking down a specific page with an error can take hours.
Contact Tom Donaghue: donaghue@maine.edu and in your message, please provide the URL of the page where the dead is found — don’t just send the dead link itself. This will help Tom find it, and he can either remove it or try to fix the dead link.
Note: Many external-to-UMF websites change URLs to specific pages all the time, especially government sites, college and uiniversity sites (including the massive UMaine System site), news media sites and non-profit organization sites. For this reason, we recommend being selective about what you choose to link to.
This usually means you uploaded an image file that is ginormous. The web is built for speed and large image files will slow a page from loading, especially in mobile. And if you have several of them on a single page, it’ll slow it even more.
How can I tell if my images are huge? Go to your subsite’s Media Library and find the image(s) from the slow-loading page. Click once and it’ll show the size. If it’s larger than 600KB, it’s too big, regardless of how nice it looks on your page. We’ve seen images placed on slow-loading web pages that are from 2MB to 11MB! — and sometimes many of those were placed on a single page. Those images always need to be reduced in size (file size) before adding to your page.
In the past, Marketing arranged for a professional photographer to come to campus several times a year for portrait sessions of faculty and staff. We are currently working to streamline that process by working with the Provost’s office. Please stay tuned for more details.
As for your photo on myCampus, that is handled by Monica Campbell, whose office produces the staff ID cards. Her office is in the Olsen Student Center, and you can reach her at monica.campbell@maine.edu
Marketing has nothing to do with myCampus. There is a myCampus Committee who handles all things myCampus. Please email them at umf-mycampus-portal-committee-group@maine.edu
Contact Us
Tom Donaghue
Senior Marketing & Advertising Manager and webmaster
Marketing & Communications
101 South Street
Farmington, Maine 04938
tel 207-778-7129
TYY (via Maine Relay Service) dial 711
donaghue@maine.edu
Mailing address:
Marketing & Communications
111 South Street
Farmington, Maine 04938