Parkland College KnowledgeBase - Best Practices for Writing KB Articles

Best practices and guidelines for employees to follow while authoring Parkland College KnowledgeBase articles.

If you are not currently set up to author documents, please contact Sara Stone.

1. Enter the following URL into your web browser: https://kb.parkland.edu/internal. This takes you to the "internal" side of the KB. If you are wanting to send users a link to a document, please be sure to send the link from the external side instead: https://kb.parkland.edu

2. Sign in with your ParklandOne username and password.

3. Select KB Admin Tools from the KB Help menu towards the upper right section of the screen.

KB Admin Tools

4. Select the Documents tab at the top and then click on the Create a Doc link towards the upper left-hand section of the screen.

5. In the Template dropdown field, please select Default KB Template with Instructions. The template tells you what to put in each field and contains the style guidelines and best practices for KB authoring. Using this template  will ensure that all of our documents are as consistent as possible! If you are just wanting read access to the template, please see Default KB Template With Instructions . Please reference the searchable KB User's Guide for any information that is not listed in the template.

6. Once you have Previewed and Saved your document and are ready to submit it for publishing, please select Request Activation in the Status field and then Submit towards the bottom of the article. It will prompt you to confirm that you want to activate/publish your content and it will send a request to the Associate Director of the Tech Service Desk to review, edit, and publish it. IF YOU DO NOT SELECT REQUEST ACTIVATION and SUBMIT, YOUR ARTICLE WILL NOT BE PUBLISHED. If you havent finished the article but are done for the day, keep the Status set to In Progress and select Submit. To return to your In-Progress document later, please do the following:

  • Navigate to https://kb.parkland.edu/internal.
  • Click on the KB Admin Tools link.
  • Select the Documents tab.
  • Select In Progress on the left-hand side.
  • Select the Edit option in the table adjacent to the appropriate article. 
  • As you are working, select the Save change button often to ensure that you dont lose any work.  The button is located right below the body of the article. 
  • If you have finished editing the article and it is complete, select Request Activation and then Submit.

7. Creating a KB article is a commitment. Documents are automatically set to expire four years after the creation date. The document owner will receive "review" email prompts every year so that authors can go in and edit/update the content. Owners will also receive a review notification a week or two prior to the expiration date. Expired documents are NOT available to users so it is extremely important that you stay on top of your content! Please review the document(s) and make updates as appropriate. Click on the link to the article within the email notification.

  • If no edits are needed, simply select the Mark as reviewed option.
  • If changes are required, scroll down to the very bottom of the window. You will see a Comments field. Before it will allow you to make edits, you must enter a quick comment describing what needs to be changed, then click Submit. On the next screen that comes up, select Edit document. At this stage, the article is set to In Progress by default and the changes you make are not yet published. Please reference the Default KB Template With Instructions for tips, pointers, and style guidelines.It is a good idea to periodically select the Save change button as you are working. Once you have completed your edits, scroll all the way down to the Status section and select Request Activation and then Submit. If you do not select this. your changes will NOT be published.

Please contact Sara Stone if you have any questions.


Tech Service Desk

Room A184, 217-353-3333

Fall/Spring: 7:30 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. M-Th. / 7:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Fridays

Summer: 7:30 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. M-Th

Submit an IT Help Ticket via services.parkland.edu




Keywords:
Authoring KB Articles Guidelines Training How To kb write creating creation 
Doc ID:
47911
Owned by:
Sara S. in Parkland College
Created:
2015-03-03
Updated:
2024-08-08
Sites:
Parkland College