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EnglishHow to Browse and Search Blogs on blogs.ed
Updated
You can browse every public blog on the network from the View all public blogs link on the blogs.ed homepage, and you can search in two separate ways: Search all blogs covers the whole network, while Search this blog is scoped to a single blog you are currently viewing. Both search boxes sit on the homepage, alongside a Recent posts feed and a News and announcements section for the Academic Blogging Service.
What blogs.ed is
blogs.ed is the University of Edinburgh's Academic Blogging Service: a WordPress platform described as "Staff and student blogs for our connected learning community." The homepage reports 9,652 blogs and 12,358 users, so the network is large enough that browsing everything is rarely practical — search and the recent-posts feed are the faster routes.
One thing to keep in mind when reading: the service states that views expressed in hosted media belong to the contributors, are not approved or endorsed by the University, and do not necessarily reflect University views on any particular issue. Treat posts as personal or project writing rather than official University statements.
Browsing all public blogs
- Go to the blogs.ed homepage.
- Select View all public blogs. This opens the directory of blogs across the network.
- Use the directory to scan by blog rather than by individual post — useful when you want to follow a contributor or a course/project blog over time.
The directory covers public blogs only. Blogs that are not public will not appear there, so if you know a blog exists but cannot find it in the listing, ask the owner for a direct link.
Searching: network-wide vs. single blog
The homepage offers two search boxes with different scopes:
| Search box | Scope | Use it when |
|---|---|---|
| Search all blogs | All blogs across the network | You have a topic, name, or phrase and don't know which blog covers it |
| Search this blog | The single blog you are viewing | You are already inside a blog and want its posts on a topic |
A practical sequence: start with Search all blogs to find candidate blogs, open the most relevant one, then switch to Search this blog to dig through that author's or project's posts without leaving the site.
Search results depend on what contributors have published and made public, so a narrow phrase may return nothing even when a related blog exists. Try broader topic words before concluding the content isn't there.
Reading recent posts and service news
The homepage's Recent posts feed shows what contributors are publishing now, with author, date, and comment count. Examples from the feed at the time of writing include a Learning & Teaching Enhancement Theme post on pedagogies of supervision, a student's post on Python libraries for an audio machine learning course, and a Swiss-American student's account of discovering Edinburgh. The feed is a good way to sample the range of content — academic development, course reflections, and student life — without a specific search in mind.
For platform updates rather than content, use News and announcements, which carries the latest updates for the Academic Blogging Service. The service also invites users to join its public Microsoft Teams team or sign up for its mailing list to keep in touch.
If you want to publish rather than read
Browsing and searching are open to anyone visiting the site. Creating a blog is different: the homepage states that qualifying University members can create their own blog instantly via Create a blog. Existing owners log in through EASE, and help with creating, updating, or learning WordPress is available from the Get help link. If you are unsure whether you qualify, the create flow is the place to check — the public pages don't list eligibility criteria in detail.