Web Site Development

7.0 NOW YOU MAY START YOUR COMPUTER There is an ongoing debate as to whether one should do all or some of the web work oneself, or if the work should be jobbed out. I enjoy working with the web, I have instructional design training and have been involved in courseware development for quite a few years and so, as long as I have more time than financial resources, I will do the work myself. There are many very good professional agencies that can be contracted to produce courseware for you. These agencies can be contracted to do a wide range of the jobs necessary to complete any type of web-based application. There are probably agencies within your institution who specialize in instructional design and courseware development. These units should be consulted. For certain areas of the development that you do yourself, you will need some specific skills. 7.1 Skills and Talents 7.1.1 Essential Skills (Talents) You will need to be very familiar with these or will need access to people who are and can do these aspects of the job for you. 7.1.1.1 HyperText Markup Language - HTML Stands for HyperText Markup Language, and on a scale of one to ten, learning the basics of HTML is about a three. The web is a great resource (see the Resource list below), and there are a plethora of good books on the subject. I keep the most current version of Teach Yourself Web Publishing with HTML in a Week by Laura Lemay near my computer. As with all aspects of the WWW, the print support is changing constantly, but the most recent edition is usually the best. 7.1.1.2 Instructional Design Again, there a large number of excellent resources and my favorite is Jerry Kemp's The Instructional Design Process (New York: Harper & Row, 1985). It is however, out of print, and this is one case where I do think the next edition was not as good as the first. Another good choice is, Robert Branch's Common Instructional Design Practices Employed by Secondary School Teachers, Educational Technology, 34, (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications, 1995). 7.1.2 Optional Skills (Talents) 7.1.1.2.1 More HTML The more familiar you become with HTML, the more you will be able to enhance your course's web site. This can be a good thing, and it can also be not so good. Adding components and extra "bells and whistles" to your web site should be done as a conscious choice to support your educational objectives and not just because the "bells and whistles" are there. 7.1.1.2.2 CGI Stands for Common Gateway Interface and is the coding that allows the information collected from forms on webs sites to be manipulated. This can be as simple as allowing students to send specific assignments to you, or can be as elaborate as on-line registration. 7.2 Components of the Web Course Every Web-delivered course will have a number of components. These will vary depending upon your needs, your style and the degree of interactivity in the course. There are some components that should be part of your site, in order to make the course appealing to your customer. I feel that some components of a web-based course are essential and others are optional. 7.2.1 Essential Components These can be divided into static and dynamic. 7.2.1.1 Static Components These components change very little. They can be put on your web site and only updated as needed. 7.2.1.1.1 The Course Description This will often come directly from your University calendar. 7.2.1.1.2 The Professor This can be as informal or as formal as you like. What kind of first impression do you wish to make? How much do you wish to add? Do you wish to link to your own personal Web site (if you have one)? 7.2.1.1.3 Prerequisites Again, this can often come from your university calendar. It is always a good point to specify any particular computing hardware, software or skills that will be required for students to be able to take your course. 7.2.1.1.4 The Text Here is a nice place to put a scanned cover of the text - along with the ISBN, the publisher and all of the information needed for your potential students to acquire this text. Here is a good place to put a link to your institute's bookstore - assuming it has a web site. 7.2.1.1.5 Communications This is where you put as much information as you can about how students can reach you. Will you have office hours? Virtual office hours? Can they reach you via Email? How do they reach each other? Is there a listserv, a secure server? 7.2.1.1.6 Grading Students all seem to want to know what they have to do to get a mark. This is a good place to tell them about assignments, quizzes, mid-terms and finals, and any other expectations you have of them. 7.2.1.2 Dynamic Components These components may change often. They might be updated, or supplemented once a week or every few days. 7.2.1.2.1 Bulletin Board This gets used much more in the first part of the class. As the class gets "into it" this seems to be used less frequently. 7.2.1.2.2 Assignments These can be placed on the web site before the class begins for all assignments, or can become readable at given times or as new assignments are given. 7.2.1.2.3 Communications Options These are the actual components of the web site that allow interactivity in the course. The real power of the WWW is global communication. And this is what makes web-based courses so exciting. Your course's communications may include any number of the following: 7.2.1.2.4 Closed Listservs These use standard Email to allow all members of the class to send and receive messages from any other member of the class, including the instructor. Messages are automatically sent to all of the individual's personal Email addresses. 7.2.1.2.5 Web Forums These are places where people can interact. Student-to-student, student-to-teacher and teacher-to-student or teacher to the entire class. These are sections on the web that students go to and are able to read messages and participate in on-line, asynchronous 'conversations.' 7.2.1.2.6 Interactive 'real time' two-way audio or video There are numerous pieces of software available now that allow desktop two-way video and audio. These tend to require very high bandwidth, and because they are 'real-time' they require the participating parties to all be on the web at the same time. 7.2.1.2.7 Marks This is a place where your marking scheme can be listed. It is also a place where you can post marks or assignments in (if you have a secure server that only your class can access). 7.2.1.2.8 Class Notes As each week progresses, or just prior to each week's work, students may need to have the equivalent of lecture notes to supplement what is covered in the text book, or what has been assigned on the web. Some web software will allow you to put the all the notes on the web site - and as certain dates arrive, students then have access to the notes. 7.2.2 Optional Components These may be essential, depending upon your requirements. 7.2.2.1 Audio clips These may be as sound files (.WAV or.AU), audio streaming (Real Audio, Soundstream, Shockwave) or MIDI files. 7.2.2.2 Animations These may be as animated.GIFs, QuickTime, Shockwave or Java applications. 7.2.2.3 Quizzes, especially "self-correcting" quizzes These may be as part of a web educational software (WebCT) or can be developed by yourself or your institution. 7.2.2.4 Case studies These may be as included as text pages or may be referenced to other sites. This is one area where copyright can really come into play. The cost of clearing copyright on a set of Harvard business case studies can be out of the question. 7.2.2.5 Video clips These may be as QuickTime© video or may be done with the new Real Video that allows real-time video streaming. 7.2.2.6 Web Database Sites These will allow you to maintain and provide access to databases over the web. 7.2.2.7 Web Tutoring Sessions These may be as simple as step-by-step instructions for any topic with branching provided to additional sites. They can also be we intelligent tutorials with on-line interactive testing. 7.3 Points to Ponder 7.3.1 Open Server An "open server" will allow anyone, anywhere on the web to access your information. 7.3.2 Secure Server A "secure server" will only allow persons with some type of authorization code to access your information.

8.0 RESOURCES (This list does not constitute an endorsement on anyone's part. These resources are a jumping off points to help you get your course on the web.) Please do not overlook the many resources on your own campus. 8.1 My resources page This site has links to courses, resources, helper sites that aid you in choosing which type and format of media to use, sites that check your HTML for errors or idiosyncrasies, and much more. http://www.unb.ca/web/wwwdev/resources.html 8.2 Conferences, on-line or face-to-face NAWeb '98 - The Virtual Campus (October 3-6, 1998). This international conference is in its fourth year. It is intended solely for those developing courseware for delivery on the WWW or for those delivering courseware over the WWW. http://www.unb.ca/web/wwwdev/naweb98/ 8.3 Books, listservs and associations Badrul Khan's Web-Based Instruction (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications, 1997) is quite good. I host the WWWDEV listserv. This listserv hosts the NAWeb conferences, and has 1400 members from around the world - developing for delivery over the WWW or actually delivering courseware over the WWW. http://www.unb.ca/web/wwwdev/ The DEOSNEWS listserv is involved in all aspects of distance education. You can join that one by sending this message SUBSCRIBE DEOSNEWS your name to LISTSERV@PSUVM.PSU.EDU This is who and what they are: DEOS-L is a service provided to the Distance Education community by The American Center for the Study of Distance Education, The Pennsylvania State University. Opinions expressed are those of DEOS-L subscribers, and do not constitute endorsement of any opinion, product, or service by ACSDE or Penn State. The Canadian Association for Distance Education (CADE) can often help http://www.cade-aced.ca/ The Association for Media and Technology in Education - Canada (AMTEC) is another favorite of mine. http://www.camosun.bc.ca/~amtec/ Use every and any resource you can. Join groups for support, and support others in similar projects. This is a rapidly emerging field, and it is evolving and growing just as fast as it is emerging. 8.4 Other Here is where you add ideas you pick up at the conference.

"Beam me up, Scottie." This popular line from Star Trek was a demonstration of the advanced technology of the future. Though it was a fictional story, Star Trek became the universal vision of the future. As always reality tends to mimic fiction. Though our society has not quite resulted to living in space, we have made life easier with technology. Economic survival has become more dependent upon information and communications bringing forth new technology of which was never thought possible. Just a mere thirty years ago a computer occupied a whole room compared today’s palm sized computers, which are faster and perform more functions. Cellular phones, now light and compact, were bulky just ten years ago. The most incredible invention, the Internet, is bringing infinite amount of information to your desktop. In the world of the of the Internet there exist a world blind to skin color and other physical appearances. The Internet while still young in age has grown rapidly, spreading to countries world wide and connecting 50 million users. With its popularity, it is incumbent upon our society to recognize how the Internet works and to be aware of its advantages as well as disadvantages. While seemingly high tech the Internet concept is rather simple. Computers speak to one another and send information. This is accomplished by sending and receiving electronic impulse, and then decoding them into a message. In order to communicate with one another they are linked up in a network. They are then able to access information from thousands of other computers. The network acts like one large computer storing information in various places, rather than in one physical structure. Users tap into the Internet to access or provide information. Internet technology allows one to surf the World Wide Web or send e-mail. The vision of the Internet that would revolutionize the computer and communications belonged to JCR Licklider of MIT (Leiner n. page). In August of 1962 he envisioned a globally interconnected set of computers which would allow everyone to quickly access data and programs (Leiner n. page). A government sponsored project at Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) started in October (Leiner n. page). The race for discovery of such technology raged between the Soviet Union and The United States of America. Both countries wanted control of the possibly powerful tool. Then in 1968, The National Physical Laboratory in Great Britain set up the first test network, which prompted the Pentagon’s ARPA to fund a larger project in the USA. (Sterling n. page) However the race was not limited to just nations but also companies. In 1965, working with Thomas Merrill, Lawrence G. Roberts created the first wide-area computer ever built. These experiments proved that computers could work together running programs and retrieving data as necessary on remote machines. Roberts put together his plan for ARPANET, published in 1966. At that time he learned of Donald Davies and Roger Scantlebury of NPL and Paul Baron and others at RAND. Research at MIT (1961-1967), RAND (1962-1965) and NPL (1964-1967) while parallel had no knowledge of one another. In August of 1968 an RFQ, a refined model of ARPANET was released for the development of one of the key components, the packet switches Interface Message Processors (IMP). Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN) installed the first IMP at UCLA and the first host computer was connected. By the end of 1969 four host computers were connected together into the initial ARPANET and the Internet was off the ground. In 1977, electronic mail was introduced. (Leiner n. page) As the Internet quickly grew, changes were necessary. The Internet’s decentralized structure made it easy to expand but its NCP did not have the ability to address networks further down stream than the destination IMP. Bob Kahn decided to develop a new version of the protocol which eventually became known as the Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). Compared to the NCP which acted as a device driver, the new protocol was more like a communication protocol. In order to make it easier to use, Host were then assigned names, replacing numbers. A group of scientist then set out to show that a compact and simple implementation of TCP was possible. They succeeded, allowing it to run on desktop computers. (Leiner n. page). Original uses of the Internet included government communications and a forum for scientist to share ideas and help one another in research. In the 1980’s the Internet grew beyond its primarily research roots to include a broad user community and increased commercial activity. In present day it has become a tool for conducting research and finding information, as well as communications with others. Electronic mail, amazingly popular, with chat rooms and discussion groups makes the Internet a popular place for meeting new people. (Leiner n. page). Perhaps the largest shift is in the profile of Internet users. In the beginning users were scientist and government officials: those highly educated and well trained. However today’s 50 million users are all ages and from all backgrounds (Why use the Internet? n. page). Access to the Internet is no longer limited and can be found just about everywhere including schools, colleges, libraries, and at home. In 1992 the Internet had a growth of twenty percent every month (Why use the Internet? n.page). A developer of the Internet said, "If the Internet stumbles, it will not be because we lack for technology, vision, or motivation. It will be because we cannot set a direction and march collectively into the future." (Leiner n. page) Clearly the Internet has brought many conveniences. Businesses and students benefit from the technology as well as those who use the Internet for personal uses. Over 50 million people used the Internet in 1995 and by the year 2000 the number is predicted to be over 150 million (Why your company should be on the Internet n. page). Fortune Magazine said, "The Internet is the biggest and earliest manifestation of the way business is going to be conducted from now on." Companies are embracing the Internet and those who do not will be left behind (Why use the Internet? n. page). The Internet opens a wider audience to companies providing customers valuable information via mailing lists. Space on the Internet is inexpensive compared to paper, radio and television advertisements, therefore companies reach a broader community with little cost (Why use the Internet? n. page). Most web users are well educated Americans with professional or technical jobs with median annual salary of $69,000, making them a prime target group. Opening a storefront online gives the advantage of always being open. The Internet is a fair playing field for large and small companies alike. Computer networks track inventory and consumer demand resulting in increased profits (Why Minnesota Students Need Access to the Internet n. page). Remote video conferencing and Internet phones allow companies to conduct live chat sessions with clients around the world. Data bases are available for public or private uses. Companies can transfer files, bulletins or e-mail via the Internet, and it is all very affordable.(Why use the Web? n.page) Students as well as commerce is benefiting from the Internet. Students need more information than is offered by school libraries. The Internet gives students access to resources from around the world. They are also more willing to sit and browse the Internet then to use the library. Information can be found, selected and retrieved faster on the Internet. Entire books can be transferred in minutes (Sterling n.page). Students find the Internet to be a viable educational tool which makes them aware of the globalism of the world rather than sheltered in the realm of the classroom. They have the option of writing to pen pals in other countries and getting to know other cultures. (MRP-Discussion n. page) The Internet also serves as a preparation tool for the future. The world is moving towards electronics: in today’s market being competitive means knowing how to get information, and more and more, it is traveling by wires. The Internet allows children to get hands on experience, and helps them develop intellectual skills and problem solving. It allows children to research information that interest them. For example, a child interested in baseball can find information on the latest statistics and read about the history of the sport. By educating themselves it opens their minds to technology. (Why Minnesota Students need access to the Internet n.page) The Internet is a popular place to socialize. Exchanging information with those far away take only seconds using the Internet. While postal mail can take days, electronic mail, or e-mail, takes seconds. Many companies offer e-mail services for free to those with access to computer with a modem. Unlike phone system and postal system there are no charges for long distance service or communication with foreign countries. E-mail and instant messages (found in programs such as America Online and ICQ) can be used to send images and software. (Sterling n. page) Internet technology has gone as far as to allow people to make new friends without any physical contact. One way to meet new people is to join an Internet discussion group. In such a group people with a common interest ask and receive advice and exchange information. Another opportunity to meet new people is in Internet chat rooms. In such rooms one can speak freely to anyone as if they were at a party. America Online users refer to relations charter though the sever as "AOL luv". Those in discussion groups and chat rooms are not limited to just Americans but open to people all around the world. The Internet is a world wide tool filled with many cultures, and different people. In this world, race is not a factor since there is no physical contact. Everyone is equal and has the freedom to express oneself. It is an institution that resists institutionalization. It belongs to everyone and yet no one, everyone sort of pitches in and it evolves on its own. There are no censors, bosses, board of directors or stockholders. The Internet is unregulated and uncensored. However, the Internet being so free and uncensored presents many problems. Acknowledgment of children using the Internet has fueled a fight for regulation. Parents can not always monitor their children, therefore the Internet needs to be a safe place for the children. Children have access to the Internet in schools, libraries, and just about everywhere. In schools it is nearly impossible for a teacher to watch all the children, and in libraries it is not the librarian’s job to monitor them. Computers and the Internet are for everyone, including children, thus it has become an immense problem. Access to pornography has been one of the greatest concerns among parents. Surprisingly, pornography is easy to access and children will. Children are naturally curious and love to explore. Minors are also targeted by advertisers. Just like on television advertisers try to lure children in with pictures and web sites which include games and chat rooms. However the biggest danger is not what they find on the Internet but who they find. The information they access is not as dangerous as the people they meet. There have been many cases of molesters and kidnappers searching for pray on-line. Nicknames are used to protect the identity of the children but can also be used to mask adults. They enter children’s chat rooms and coax the children to trust them. Nonetheless, denying the children access to the Internet is not the solution, perhaps software is. However software limiting children’s access to web pages have not been successful. In some case the software does not filter out all inappropriate pages but filters out non-objectionable pages. (Should children be kept off-line? n.page) Molesters and kidnappers are not the only people with access to the Internet we should fear. Those mischievous thinkers also pose a threat. Known as hackers or crackers, they search for vulnerable computer systems then strike. Businesses can lose trade secrets, and the damages can be a disaster. In 1996 Dan Framer, a security consultant, tested 2,000 computers networks, and of those 65% had security holes large enough for an intruder to enter (Freedman 280). Government computers are just a vulnerable as teenagers have recently demonstrated. Teenagers working out of their home with guidance from a 18 year old broke into government classified information. Though they were caught, it bought alarm to the possible dangers of information leaks. The United States’ enemies could have access to military codes and top secret files. Although the average person is not targeted by hackers they are in danger of fraud and con-artists. Stolen credit card numbers have been rumored to be a major problem. The chances of it happening are not as great as the media makes it to be, but nevertheless it is a problem. The criminals easily get away with such a crime. They get the number of a credit card and charge ridiculous bills, but by the time the bill comes they have moved on to the next victim. Many schemes come in the form of junk mail. They offer deals that sound too good to be true and chances are they fake. They only ask for a small sum of money up front, next they cash the check and move on. (Anarchy Online 98) Secure passwords can prevent hackers from accessing computers. Passwords should consist of numbers, letters and symbols: an example "P11++69." No matter how secure and high tech the computer security system, all it takes is a simple, stupid password like "hello" to render the whole system worthless. (Freedman 279) Though the Internet has its advantages it also has disadvantages, therefore users should educate oneself on the revolutionary tool. With over 50 million users the Internet is rapidly growing and is to the ‘90’s what the personal computer was to the 70’s. New usage’s are springing up everyday, making it impossible to predict the future of the Internet. One thing certain is that the Internet has revolutionized the computer and communications. "The Internet is a world wide broadcasting capability, a mechanism for collaboration and interaction between individuals without regard to geographic location."

Bibliography

1. The Virtual Campus (October 3-6, 1998). This international conference is in its fourth year. It is intended solely for those developing courseware for delivery on the WWW Association for Distance Education (CADE) / The Association for Media and Technology in Education - Canada (AMTEC).

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