Module 1: Welcome to COMP-107 Introduction to ...



Module 1: Welcome to COMP-107 Introduction to Presentational Software.

We have entered the Information Age and data abounds all around us. No where is this more obvious than the Internet. Here you can research almost any topic ranging from medical advances to car parts. Just about anything you can think of can be found online. While the information may seem unlimited, not all of it is useful. Even worse, sites may have valid data, but be so unfriendly, it cannot be retrieved.

This course will help you come to an understanding of how data can be organized into a useful and friendly web site. The web page development package that is used throughout this course to create and maintain web sites is Nvu or Kompozer. (Both are really the same, one is just a more updated version of the other.) This software is available for free download. If you prefer to use a different web page development software package, you are welcome to do so.

Einstein signon:

You will be using the Franklin Einstein server when publishing your web pages. If you do not have a Einstein user id and password, you will need to contact the Help Desk at (614) 341-6222 or e-mail helpdesk@franklin.edu. You will be using this signon throughout the course, so don’t delay in obtaining/verifying this information. It’s a good idea to email the helpdesk with both your userid and password and have them verify that everything is working.

******Please, please please -contact the Help Desk ASAP and make sure this works. Without a doubt this one aspect of the course causes more troubles than any other.

The First Week:

Research shows that you have approximately 6 seconds to gain the attention of a visitor to your web page. If you can’t get them interested within 6 seconds, they’re off to another site. Another statistic is 3 clicks. A visitor should be able to get where ever they need to go within 3 clicks. More than 3 results in the visitor going to another site. Failure to adhere to either of these “rules” may result in the loss of a customer. Never a good thing.

Think about your own web browsing experiences. What sites do you like to visit? Why? Can you remember going to a site, getting frustrated, and leaving without going beyond the first page? Why was that? Why didn’t you explore further?

These are the types of questions that will be asked and answered this first week. We will be looking at different web sites and determining why it’s a good site -or why it’s not.

Questions Outside of Class:

In order to facilitate questions outside of classroom hours, I have established a General Q&A Bulletin Board Folder. This brings a two-fold benefit. First, others in the class may have the same or similar question. By posting it to the bulletin board all will be able to view the response. Second, because bulletin board questions can not only be viewed by the entire class, but answered as well, you now have 20+ individuals to assist you. I am going to admit that I’m not very good at checking this bulletin board folder. I’m great at checking e-mail -I do this every weekday morning -but am lousy at checking this folder. So, post questions to this folder that you would like to receive the input of your classmates on. If you need a quick answer from me, shoot me off an e-mail.

Syllabus:

Please make sure you have carefully read both the syllabus and schedule. These items provide valuable information that will assist you in the successful completion of this course.

Software

There are 2 software packages that will be used in this course.

Visio -This is a diagramming/flowcharting software. This is the software that is recommended, but if you have access to other diagramming software, such as Smartdraw, you can feel free to use that. Franklin Provides the Visio software free to its students. Check the instructions on the course CD for downloading this software.

NVU Web Authoring Software -This is a web authoring tool. It is pretty commonly used which is why it is recommended for this course. If you’re comfortable with another tool or would prefer to download a free version of some other authoring tool, please feel free to do so.

Module 1 Assignments:

(The following are just my suggestions for assisting with the assignment. These suggestions are to be used in conjunction with both the assignment instructions and the grading criteria.)

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1-1: HTML & NVU Introduction

Due Monday Week 2

For this assignment you will be discussing a lot of diverse topics which were selected to help to familiarize you with the NVU software and the internet. This is to be a 2 page paper that follows APA guidelines. Make sure that you write this in APA paper format. A submission that consists of the number for each question along with its answer is not acceptable. **Make sure you do not forget to cite your 2 sources according to APA requirements.

Here are some hints on the APA requirements:

First -everything should be double-spaced.

Now for references and citations. These are actually 2 different things.

References are all put on their own page and titled References. On this page should be a reference to everything that you cited within your paper. So, every web page, every book, etc from which you took a direct quote, fact, or even a concept, idea, or thought should be cited. Even if you put it into your own words. Failure to cite any of these items can be considered plagiarism.

Web reference formatting is always a little hard to find. A couple of years ago I wrote my Master’s thesis and referenced over sixty sources. Here is what a valid web reference looked like at the time:

author. (year). title underlined. [Online]. Available: site url [date viewed, in year, month day order)

author - person who created the web page, often this is unknown, so if it can't be determined you put a portion of the title here instead

(year) - this is the year the web page was created, this too may be unknown in which cause you would use (unknown)

The rest, I believe, is pretty self-explanatory.

Here’s an example:

Franklin University. (2001). Franklin University Home Page. [Online]. Available: [2003, January 14].

Citations, on the other hand, are included in the body of your paper. They show that a particular idea or thought was taken from another source. Citations are essentially a pointer back to your reference page. They are included after the idea or thought and look like this:

(author, year)

If the author's unknown, use the same portion of the title that you used in your reference. Using the Franklin example above, a citation for this reference would look like:

(Franklin University, 2001)

Someone reading your paper could then follow the author back to your references and along with the year determine which reference matched and know where you obtained your source.

So, this is how references and citations work. Books, periodicals, articles, etc. are all referenced a little bit differently, but citations are always the same.

This web sites have some good information on APA and how various sources are referenced:



This web site allows you to enter the title, copyright date, etc. and it will generate both the APA reference and citation for you. It’s very slick!!



**** Remember, that information that is gained from a source that is included in a paper and not cited, is plagiarism. Even if the information is put into your own words, the thought has been taken from a source and must be cited.

***Lastly, do not forget to submit your paper to . I will deduct 5pts if this is not done.

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1-2: Effective Design Checklist

Due Monday Week 2

Develop a list of a total of 20 items that you believe are important when developing web pages. You may select 10 of the items discussed in Module 1, but the other 10 items you must come up with on your own. My suggestion for doing this is to go out on the internet and take a look at both good and bad web sites. Pretty quickly you’ll be able to develop your list.

This assignment does not need to be a formal paper. You may just list the items selected in bullet or number order. You do, however, have to identify why you believe your #1 item is the most important.

**Don’t forget to submit to . (5 points deducted if not done)

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1-3: Web Site Diagram

Due Monday Week 2

There are actually two pieces to this assignment. This first is the creation of a Visio diagram. This should incorporate effective design principles that include:

a description of each web page, links between pages, and a title. You will have 4 pages, home, career, interests, and goals. That’s not 4 separate Visio pages, but 4 web pages represented on your 1 Vvisio diagram. This diagram should represent your personal web site -not the corporate web site as mistakenly suggested in the instructions.

In Module 1 reference was made to this assignment when discussing the good and bad of diagrams. The diagram created for this assignment should be similar to those you viewed in Module 1. A reference link was given that shows how to go about creating such a diagram:



Matt Finarelli shows the concepts behind good design on his web site. He even shows the outline of what a good diagram will look like as well as a bad.

The second part involves the embedding of the diagram into a Word document. To do this you will need to first save the diagram as a graphic image and then incorporate the image into Word. You should send the Word document to me for this assignment -not the Visio document.

(**** You do not need to develop the layout for each page complete with graphics, etc. Just create a diagram that shows the relationships between each page and include a 1-2 sentence blurb as to what will be included on each. This should be a one page diagram.)

Here is an example of a chart submitted by a previous student that was very well done:



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1-4: Web Server Basics

Due Monday Week 2

For this assignment you are creating a very basic web page - just a couple of words with no background, no images, nothing fancy at all. This is to help you to become familiar with the steps required to upload your web site to the Einstein Web Server.

Double-check to make sure that your web page is viewable from the Einstein server and once complete, email the URL address for the page to me. (You can find my email address under the Communications link.)

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1-5: Reflections on Learning

Due Monday Week 2

This reflection paper is to serve two purposes. The first is to allow you learn various HTML tags as you select 2 different tags each week and describe their purpose and how they affect items displayed on the web page. The second is to allow you to reflect upon what you learned during this week.

This is to be a one page paper written in APA format. You may, however, use first person in this paper. This paper must be submitted to . If not submitted, I will deduct 5pts.

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