The process for installing your own WordPress site on OpenShift is described below.

Create an account on OpenShift

The first step is to create an account on OpenShift by Redhat. This is a cloud service provider which offers a free tier for hosting a limited number of open source software applications.

  1. Visit the OpenShift website
  2. Register a free tier account.
  3. Confirm the email you used to register your account (check your inbox, or spam folder and follow the instructions.)

Install the OERu WordPress image

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  1. Login to OpenShift (Username is the email account you used to register).
  2. Click the Add Application… button
  3. In the Instant App section choose WordPress 4
  4. Enter a sub-domain name for the public url of your WordPress site. This is associated with your account name and will be the url you use to visit your WordPress site. It is a good idea to pick a short mnemonic or acronym related to your course.
  5. Set the Source Code field to the url of the Github repository for the OERu WordPress image: https://github.com/oeru/openshift-wordpress (The OERu has created a source code image of WordPress for OpenShift which includes the OERu theme plugin.) Leave the branch/tag field untouched.
  6. There is no need to change any of the other settings.
  7. Scroll down and click on the “Create application” button.
  8. It will take a few minutes for the installation setup process to complete. Wait until the screen changes to display the username and password for your database. Most learners will not need to configure their database at any time. Should this be required, you can retrieve the username and password from your administration console.
  9. The first step of your installation is complete.

Setup your WordPress administration details

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This is a simple process to setup your administration login details for WordPress to complete the installation

  1. Login to OpenShift and go to your “Applications tab”.
  2. Click on the link of the WordPress application you installed in the previous step.
  3. From the application management window, click on the WordPress application link. This will launch the next steps for completing the setup of your administration login details.
  4. Choose the language for your WordPress installation.
  5. Choose an Administration username. This is the username which will provide access to the full administration privileges of your WordPress site.
  6. Choose a password and retype (you will need to remember your password)
  7. Enter your email address.
  8. Scroll down and click on the “Install WordPress” button.
  9. This will direct you to the login screen for your WordPress application.
  10. Enter your Admin username and corresponding password.
  11. From your Dashboard you will be able to visit the site.
  12. One setting you will want to verify after a fresh installation (remember to use WordPress’s Save Changes button after changing each configuration page on the Dashboard):
    1. Settings… Permalinks should be set to Post name
  13. Logout of your WordPress (hover your cursor over your username on the top right-hand side of your screen, and select “Log Out”).
  14. Go back to the url of your WordPress site. Append “wp-admin” after the public address of your site – this is needed to access the login page. (For example “http://mycourse-mackiwg.rhcloud.com/wp-admin”) Bookmark this page so you don’t forget the login url.

Run the script to harvest your outline of WikiEducator pages

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These instructions cover the process for running the script and creating the navigation menu in wordpress

  1. Go to your course outline page in WikiEducator. Use the Edit Source feature to open the wikitext of your outline and at the top insert:
    {{#widget:Snapshot|url=http://mycourse-mackiwg.rhcloud.com/}}
  2. Adjust the URL in the widget text above for the WordPress site you created. Save the modified page.
  3. At the top of your course outline page there should now be a Request snapshot button. When clicked, it will pop up a dialog box where you must supply your WordPress username and password. Then click the Push snapshot to WordPress button. This will queue your snapshot request. Please be patient. It will take several minutes for the script to process your course. (In fact rather than just waiting around, if you have confirmed your email address in the WikiEducator Preferences you will receive an email when the script successfully completes.)