Math & Statistics Website — Office Guide

A plain-English guide for department office staff to keep the website and department data up to date. You do not need to use any command line or “manage the server” — everything here is done in a normal web browser.

If anything looks broken, is missing, or you're unsure — stop and email Steven Moore (samoore@binghamton.edu). Don't worry about breaking anything; that's what he's here for.

Addresses will change at go-live. The two links above are the current (“staging”) addresses. Once the new site officially goes live, Steven will give you the permanent “”…math.binghamton.edu“” links. Everything else in this guide stays the same.

To log in to either one, use your Binghamton username and password (the same ones you use for email), unless Steven has given you a separate account.

The public math website content lives in this wiki. Editing it is like editing a shared document in your browser.

1. Go to https://wiki.mathmig.binghamton.edu.
2. Click Log In (top-right corner).
3. Enter your Binghamton username and password. Click Log In.

You'll know you're logged in when you see your name in the top-right and small Edit / pencil buttons appear on pages.

1. Browse to the page you want to change (click through the menus, or use the Search box).
2. Click Edit this page (or the pencil icon).
3. Make your changes in the text box.
4. Tip: click Preview to see how it will look before saving.
5. In the small Edit summary box, type a few words about what you changed (e.g. “updated office hours”).
6. Click Save.

That's it — your change is live immediately.

The wiki uses simple text codes for formatting. The most common:

There's a row of formatting buttons above the edit box too — select text and click B for bold, etc., instead of typing the codes.

The easiest way:

1. Edit any existing page (or the sidebar) and add a link to the new page: [[my-new-page|My New Page]] — then Save.
2. Click that new link. The wiki will say the page doesn't exist yet and offer a Create this page button.
3. Click it, type your content, and Save.

Naming tip: use lowercase and hyphens, e.g. ““spring-2027-seminars””. Grouping pages with a colon, like ““committees:hiring””, puts them in a “folder”.

1. While editing a page, click the image icon in the button row (this opens the Media Manager), or open it from the top menu.
2. Choose Upload, pick your file, and upload it.
3. Select the uploaded file to insert it into the page, then Save the page.

Keep photos reasonably sized (a few hundred KB is plenty for a web photo).

Only staff with wiki-admin rights can do this. If you have it, you'll see an Admin link (a wrench icon) at the top.

1. Click Admin, then User Manager.
2. Click Add (or fill in the “Add a new user” row).
3. Enter their login name, full name, email, and — for a brand-new account — a password. Assign them to the appropriate group.
4. Save.

Most Binghamton people can already log in with their campus username/password — you generally only need to create an account for someone without a Binghamton login. To give someone permission to edit a specific set of pages, ask Steven and he'll set it up.

Every page keeps its full history.

1. Open the page and click Old revisions.
2. You can view any earlier version, compare versions, and restore an older one if something went wrong.

Some things on the site aren't wiki pages — they come from the department database: the faculty/staff directory, course schedules, committees, graduate students, and room keys. You edit these in a simple web tool called the Data Editor.

1. Go to https://editor.mathmig.binghamton.edu.
2. Enter the username and password Steven gave you for the Data Editor, and log in. (You don't type a server name — it's already filled in.)

At the top there's a “Database:“ bar with links. Click the one you need:

• Department — faculty & staff directory, PhDs, semesters
• Base — course schedule, committees, course names
• Grad — graduate students
• RoomKeys / RoomKeysWhitney — room key assignments
• Archive is old, read-only history — you won't normally touch it.

1. After picking a database, click the table you want on the left (e.g. faculty).
2. Click edit next to the row you want to change.
3. Update the fields, then click Save.

1. Open the right table (e.g. faculty in Department, or graduate_student in Grad).
2. Click New item.
3. Fill in the fields and click Save.

⚠️ New faculty won't show on the directory until you mark them “current.” When you add someone to the faculty table, set the dept_status field to current (it starts as future). The public faculty directory only lists people whose status is current, so a new record with any other status is saved but stays hidden. If a new person isn't appearing on the directory, this is almost always why — check dept_status.

• Editing and adding rows is safe and expected.
• Do not delete rows unless you're certain, and never use options that change a table's structure (drop table, alter, etc.).
• If a field's meaning isn't obvious, or something feels risky — email Steven first.

• Log out when you're done on a shared computer.
• Add a short edit summary on the wiki so others can follow changes.
• Make one change at a time and check the result.
• When in doubt, ask — a quick email beats an accidental mistake.

Email Steven Moore — samoore@binghamton.edu for anything broken, confusing, a login/password problem, or a permissions change. When reporting a problem, please include:

• the address (link) of the page you were on,
• what you were trying to do, and
• what happened (a screenshot is great).