Submission Instructions for The Loop

UI Health Care faculty, staff, students, and volunteers may submit the following:

All announcements must include the name of the sponsoring group, contact information, times, dates, locations, and correct hyperlinks.

All items submitted for posting will need to be reviewed and approved by The Loop staff before the post goes live.

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Market items

Employees may post work-related or personal items to sell in the Market or items they are looking to buy. For personal items, employees should use their personal email or phone number on Market posts.

  1. Go to medcom.uiowa.edu/theloop/admin and sign in with your HealthCareID.
  2. On the left sidebar, select Market (NOT Posts), and then New Product.
  3. Enter in the title of your post (the item name and asking price, for example).
  4. Enter in the body of your announcement below that. Include a clear description of the item you are selling or wanting to buy, the asking price, and a way to contact you. For personal items, please use your personal phone or email, not your work contact information.
  5. To add a photo, see instructions below.
  6. Select the category on the right that best fits your post.
  7. Click the blue Submit for Review button (if the button doesn’t seem to be working, use a different browser or email us that your post is ready to be published).
  8. Your post will then be sent for approval, and you’ll receive a notification when it’s approved and gets published.
  9. If you need to make changes to your post after it has been published, email us the changes that need to be made.

Criteria for Market items

    • Please email us after the item has been sold or bought so we can delete the post.
    • Posts will be deleted after 90 days unless requested to extend.
    • Products or services being advertised must be legal in nature and professionally appropriate. Please use good judgment when choosing items to post.
    • All items must be personally owned by the person posting the items (or items may be posted on behalf of the owner).
    • Solicitation of UI Health Care employees is prohibited, such as soliciting membership or soliciting the sale of items through a private business. See: HR policy on staff solicitation
    • All items submitted for posting will need to be reviewed and approved by The Loop staff before the post goes live.
    • All transactions are to occur among employees on their own time, during non-work hours.
    • Posts do not reflect any affiliation with UI Health Care or the University of Iowa. The University of Iowa will not be held responsible for any negative outcomes or events that occur as a result from of a listing on this site.

Adding photos (all post types)

  1. Note: Save your photo as a smaller file size or for the web before uploading (72 dpi, less than 1,000 pixels wide or tall is preferred).
  2. When you’re editing your post, select the Add Media button (just below the title).
  3. Then click Upload Files.
  4. Select or drag and drop your photo into the upload area, then click Insert into page.
  5. Once your photo is in the post, you can edit it by clicking on the photo, then clicking on the first button that pops up over the photo. Here you can change the size, the alignment/position on the page, and add a caption. Once you’ve made your changes, select Update.
  6. You can also resize your photo by dragging the corners of the photo on the post itself.  

Events

These may include UI Health Care–related and other local health-related events open to faculty, staff, and/or patients (such as support group meetings, community health events, professional development offerings, etc.).

  1. Go to medcom.uiowa.edu/theloop/admin and sign in with your HealthCareID.
  2. On the left sidebar, select (or hover over) Events, then Add New.
  3. Enter in the title of your event.
  4. In the large box, enter the description, including date, time, location, a contact person or link for more information, and any other important information. (Or, if your event is already on another website, leave the description box blank, and paste the URL of your event under External permalink.)
  5. Under Event Info, select the day(s) of your event and the start/end times. Or if it’s an all-day event, click the box next to “All day event.”
  6. For Community events that you’d like to appear on the Community page: Under Tags, type Community Events and click Add.
  7. Click the blue Submit for Review button.

Announcements and recognitions

Announcements include UI Health Care general announcements and UI announcements of interest to UI Health Care employees. Recognitions may include any type of individual or group recognition, award, career move, or other faculty or staff-related news. An obituary may be submitted as a news item.

  1. Go to medcom.uiowa.edu/theloop/admin and sign in with your HealthCareID.
  2. On the left sidebar, select (or hover over) Posts and then click Add New.
  3. Enter in your title on the first line and then the body of your announcement below that. You may format your text using the buttons on the “Visual” tab.
  4. To add a photo, see instructions above.
  5. Under Categories on the right:
    • For general staff announcements, select the box next to Announcements.
    • For recognitions, awards, and career moves, select News and Recognitions.
  6. Click the blue Submit for Review button.

Linking to PDFs

If the PDF is already on another public site, please link to it from there. However, if you need to upload a PDF, follow the instructions for adding a photo above. Please save file as a reduced-size PDF before uploading. Insert a link to the PDF into the post using the Add Media button.

Photos of UI Health Care staff, faculty, students, or volunteers

We’re always looking for UI Health Care photos of faculty, staff, students, and volunteers to feature in the rotating feature spots on the home page and on the Employee Info page. Email your photos to noon-news@uiowa.edu.

Commenting

Please be respectful of your colleagues when commenting. Do not include any medical, personal, or confidential information in your comments. This is not a forum to give or receive medical advice. Comments are encouraged on any post on The Loop; however, University of Iowa Health Care reserves the right to moderate comments as necessary to prevent medical, personal, confidential, or false information from being posted on this site. In addition, University of Iowa Health Care will remove all spam, personal attacks, profanity, and commentary that is not on topic. 

Questions or comments?

Email us at noon-news@uiowa.edu or call 319-356-1009.

See also: Noon News submission guidelines