Course Outline

This is a three hour course, with time set aside after the structured course for individual questions and answers.

  1. Introduction, pass around sign-in sheet and class evaluation forms.
  2. The "language" of the web
    1. What is the world wide web?
    2. What is hypertext?
    3. What is HTML?
    4. What does HTTP mean?
    5. What is a URL? (URL schemes, example)
    6. Who is msmosaic, and what does she do?
  3. How does a web browser work?
    1. Common browsers
    2. The HTML standard (DTD and the IETF)
    3. The great debate: 2.0 / 2.0+ / 3.0 / 3.2 / "extensions"
  4. The DCN Web structure
    1. How is the DCN web structure organized?
    2. UNIX directory structures
    3. Filename conventions (example)
    4. How your account fits into all of this
  5. "Serving" information on the world wide web
    1. Audience
    2. Format
    3. Existing text conversion vs. starting from scratch
    4. The implied promise: keeping documents current
    5. I can do it that way vs. I should do it that way
    6. Ideas for organizing your information for easy maintenance and navigation (hierarchies, linear, linear with alternatives, combination of hierarchical and linear)
  6. The steps and the basic tools for creating and managing pages
    (Introduction, then hands-on practice for each item)
    1. The DCN HTML template
    2. HTML editor
      1. Create a VERY basic home page and view it locally
      2. Work with required tags, basic tags, and document structure
        1. HTML
        2. HEAD
        3. BODY
        4. headings
        5. title
        6. paragraphs
        7. Line breaks
    3. Telnet
      1. Create an HTML directory (public_html) in your account
    4. FTP (File Transfer Protocol) Client
      1. Transfer your HTML files into your public_html directory
    5. set-html
      1. Set the security and file permissions of the newly transferred html files for public use
    6. Try it out - view your web page on-line with a WWW browser
  7. Going further - some more HTML
    (continued hands-on practice)
    1. Creating links
      1. local documents
      2. relative and absolute references
      3. linking to other documents on the web
      4. organizing links
    2. Lists
      1. list tags
      2. numbered
      3. unnumbered
      4. menus
    3. Character styles
      1. logical
      2. physical
      3. preformatted text
    4. Horizontal rules
    5. Graphics
      1. programs and converters
      2. graphics formats
      3. linking graphics
    6. Signing your work
    7. Getting a link to your pages from the DCN web pages
  8. Other things you can do (demo, not hands-on), and how you find out more
    1. Viewing sources
    2. Other types of links (news, telnet, gopher, etc.; example)
    3. What not to do
      1. The page from outer space (Contextless pages; example)
      2. Netscaped beyond belief (Browser-specific pages; example)
      3. HTML So Bad it Won't Work (Ignoring the rules)
      4. The Inline Image Maniac (Ignoring the limitations of your audience)
    4. Advanced stuff, if time permits (centering, nested lists, enclosed paragraphs...)

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