简体中文
EnglishAre views on blogs.ed official University of Edinburgh statements?
Updated
No. According to the disclaimer on blogs.ed, any views expressed in media hosted on the service belong to the contributors. They should not be taken as approved or endorsed by the University, and they do not necessarily reflect the University's views on any particular issue. This applies across the network of staff and student blogs, so a post on blogs.ed is a personal or project-level contribution, not an official University position.
What the disclaimer covers
The statement on the blogs.ed homepage sets out three limits on how posts should be read:
- Ownership of views: the views are those of the contributors who wrote or produced the content.
- No endorsement: the content is not approved or endorsed by the University.
- No institutional position: the content does not necessarily reflect the University's views on any particular issue.
The wording applies to "media held on this service," which is broader than written posts. Images, audio, video, and other files uploaded to a blog fall under the same statement.
Why this matters when you read or cite a post
blogs.ed hosts a large, open network: the homepage reports 9,652 blogs and 12,358 users, with public blogs viewable across the service. That scale means posts range widely in purpose and tone, from course reflections and research notes to student diaries and teaching theme introductions.
For a reader, the practical consequence is that a blogs.ed post is not a citable University statement. If you need an official position, policy, or institutional comment, treat the blog as the author's own account and look for the University's formal publications instead. For a blog author, the disclaimer means your post is attributed to you rather than to the institution, so claims and opinions sit with the contributor.
Where the statement sits and what else is on the page
The disclaimer appears in the page content of the blogs.ed homepage, alongside the service's main entry points:
| Element | What it offers |
|---|---|
| Create a blog | Qualifying University members can create their own blog instantly |
| Get help | Support with creating or updating a blog, and with using WordPress |
| Log in | Existing users sign in using EASE |
| Search all blogs | Search across the whole blog network |
| News and announcements | Updates about the Academic Blogging Service, plus a public Microsoft Teams team and a mailing list |
The presence of a help route matters for the responsibility question in a practical way: if a post contains something that needs correcting or clarifying, the author can use the WordPress help options to update it, and readers who want context can check the news and announcements channel for service-level updates.
A quick way to judge a post
Ask two questions before treating a blogs.ed post as authoritative:
- Is the claim about the author's own experience or opinion? Then the post is a legitimate first-person source, subject to the disclaimer.
- Is the claim about University policy, decisions, or official positions? Then the blog is not the right source, because the service explicitly says content is not endorsed by the University and may not reflect its views.
The distinction is the same one the disclaimer draws: blogs.ed is a connected learning community for staff and students, and its posts carry contributor views rather than institutional ones.