Sisu@UT

Sisu@UT website address: https://sisu.ut.ee

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Sisu@UT is meant for creating websites related with university studies and research purposes. This is a convenient tool for preparing learning modules, learning objects, own home pages, web pages for projects and conferences. Websites can be created by UT teaching staff members and other employees with username for the university’s computer network.

The created websites can be:

• Public on the web – accessible at a specific URL address, found in category and topic lists, found by search engines.
• Anyone with the link – accessible at a specific URL address, not found by Google.
• Private – accessible only for compilers or content editors if signed in to Sisu@UT.
• Site visible on system frontpage – public website’s logo and part of the title is shown among recently added websites on Sisu@UT front page.

Public websites can be viewed in browsers without entering Sisu@UT.

To create websites you have to sign in with Sisu@UT.

To create the new website:

1. Enter Sisu@UT - click the link UT username 

Enter Sisu@UT at https://sisu.ut.ee with the UT username and password using the link UT username. Non-university staff who do not have the UT user account for access to the computer network can ask for a username by contacting eope@ut.ee.

2. Click on the button CREATE YOUR SITE

3. Enter the end of the web address of your website (last part of URL address)

It should be related with the content of the website, but it must be unique – it is not possible to create two websites with similar web addresses (this is controlled by the system and if your selected address is taken, you’ll see a respective message). The end of the web address must contain at least three characters and must not include punctuation (except for underscore).  If you already know that you want to create several websites of the same topic, you may distinguish them by numbers in the web address (e.g. geography1, geography2, etc.). 

By default, the website is created as private – initially the website is only visible for you and for those Sisu@UT users to whom you have explicitly granted the right to access it. When you have completed the site, you can make it public by changing its visibility settings in the Setting tab.

4. Agree with the terms and conditions of use

Before creating the website, you have to confirm that you will use the created website for academic, research and administrative purposes and you will take responsibility for the proper and legal use of its contents.

5. Click the button Create your site

You will receive an automatic email message your site has been activated and you can enter the created website right away.

Choosing a theme

First you should choose the suitable theme template for your website. The theme will determine the general design of the site – colors, layout of the header image, content and menus.

The themes can be selected in the top menu Themes.

You can choose between 8 main themes of the university and one without design (UTClean). For each main theme, it is further possible to choose between several color options in the drop-down menu.

For example, if you choose a theme in which the menu is by default placed horizontally, between the header and the contents, you can reposition it to the right or the left side (depending on the template). This can be done by choosing Build – Manage – Layout (see next chapter).

In the chosen theme you can change the layout yourself. Read more about that in the chapter “Designing the website”.

Designing the website

The selected template can be configured, but this requires knowledge of the cascading style sheet code (CSS). For example, it is possible to change the colors, header image, etc.

The easiest way to change the style code is to use Google Chrome as your browser, press F12 on the keyboard; in the window that opens at the bottom of the screen click first the magnifier (or arrow) button and then the area of your page that you would like to change.

In CSS window (on the right at the bottom of the screen) you are shown the style code of the object, which you should activate with your mouse and copy to the Sisu@UT window, which opens at the bottom of the window – Further details – custom css. To see the result of the changes and continue to use the customised style, you have to save it (Save) and after saving, publish it (button Publish), which makes the design visible to others as well.

Replacing the header image

Usually users want to change the banner of the website, i.e. the image at the header of the web page.

To do so, first upload an image in a suitable size to Sisu@UT (tab Images in the style window), then copy the following paragraph in the Custom CSS window and replace the bold part with the address of your image.

#header-container {
background: url(/sites/default/files/sweaver/sweaver_image_12906.jpg) center no-repeat;
}

You will find the address in the style window under Uploaded images.

Layout

The layout of the website can be configured in the top menu Build – Manage – Layout.

This enables you to change the layout depending on the theme: 

1. You can decide the position of the menu. For example, to move the primary menu to the left side, you simply have to drag it to the place you want, using the mouse. In the example, the right-hand side is not available for the template (information on red background – This theme does not support this region). This means that an object placed in this region will not be visible afterwards. If you want to have several menus on the website, you can use the mouse to drag a secondary menu widget to the website.
2. You can also add other components (widgets) to the page. Widgets are seen in the scrollable menu above the website layout window. Widgets can also be added or created (Add New Widget). Drag the widget with the mouse to the suitable region of the layout window.
3. In the drop-down menu Site section at the top of the page you can specify for each element where the respective menu or widget is placed:

• on the website’s front page only (select Front Page)
• on each page of the website (select All sections)
• on quiz pages only (select Quiz)
• etc.