Borrowed Content
Borrowed pages look like a normal part of your site, but are maintained by the originating unit. They are a way of duplicating content without duplicating effort. When you borrow a page, your site will display that page as if it "lives" on your site, but you don't have to create or maintain the content. Almost every A&S unit uses borrowed news stories. Many interdisciplinary programs use borrowed directory pages.
When the original page changes, those changes are instantly reflected on the borrowed page in Cascade. In order for the changes to show up on the live site, the borrowed page must be published. All A&S pages are automatically published twice a week, so changes to content on borrowed pages will go out eventually. But if you know of a change that you want to go live immediately, you'll have to publish the page yourself.
Borrowing W&M News & Media News Stories
Stories created by University News & Media are the most common borrowed asset in A&S. W&M News & Media creates news stories outside of Cascade on the news.wm.edu website. You need to
- Copy the complete URL of the story you want to borrow. The URL should be in this format: https://news.wm.edu/YYYY/MM/DD/the-title-of-the-story/ . Remove anything that comes after the / that appears after the story's title.
- Add a new...Borrowed Item...Borrowed news.wm.edu story.
- Adjust the page title, select a date, then paste the story's URL into the content block.
- Publish.
{{youtube:medium:center|a5fA0J0CtSY, How to borrow a W&M news story.}}
Borrowing Other Content
News stories that were created in Cascade and directory pages are two other frequently borrowed assets. They require a sightly different approach: here, you browse in Cascade to find the original files. The viedo shows how to borrow a Cascade-created news story, but the same basic steps apply for borrowing directory pages.
{{youtube:medium:center|NQxE6TDWLsw, How to borrow a Cascade-created news story.}}
The Basic Steps for Borrowing Cascade-Created Content
- To successfully borrow content, you need to know
- the location of the original page - remember that University Media & News stories are not in Cascade, so you'll need the complete URL for those.
- where you want to put the borrowed asset.
- Select the folder in which you want the borrowed asset.
- Click the pink +, and select Arts & Sciences...Borrowed Items...then the type of asset you will borrow.
- Fill in the Page Name field - by default, it's labeled "Borrowed asset name" - which will not help you find it again later. If you're borrowing a folder with content page, it might be helpful to add "bor-" to the folder name so you know it's borrowed.
- Click "Referenced Item" in the content block. This will give you your browse window.
- Browse to and select the desired item. Submit.
- If the borrowed item is a news story, adjust the folder order of your stories so the new one is in the first place. This places the story in the first slot of your main page's news block.
- Publish the borrowed item and all other pages that have changed as a result of this new file. For a news story, this usually includes the news story itself, the news index page, and your unit's index page.
Tips
- To tell if a page is borrowed: Select the page, and look under the page's title. If there is a blue link that says "Original Page" - the page you have selected is borrowed. NOTE: This is not the case for news.wm.edu borrowed stories
- You can only borrow an original item. If you attempt to borrow a borrowed asset, the preview will show a blank page.
- Almost all news stories in the /as/news/ folder are borrowed. Make sure you're going to the appropriate place for original news stories. Most of the time, this will be the news.wm.edu site.
Related Pages
Web & Design has several pages detailing how to borrow different content types:
- Borrowed news.wm.edu Stories - In June 2022, News & Media moved their news stories out of Cascade.
- Borrowed Cascade-Created News Stories - If you are borrowing a story from any unit except W&M News & Media.
- Borrowed Directory Pages - Interdisciplinary programs borrow directory pages from their faculty's home departments. If you borrow a directory page, you need to keep the name and rank fields up to date, so be sure to keep track of those promotions!
- Borrowed Content Pages - Used occasionally. For example, the Graduate Admission pages are maintained by OGSR and "live" in the OGSR folder. Departments and Programs borrow those pages into their sites. (an Original Graduate Admission Page vs the Borrowed Graduate Admission Page)
