UCD School of Information and Library Studies. IS30020: Web Publishing. Draft

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1 UCD School of Information and Library Studies IS30020: Web Publishing Draft Module Coordinator: Dr Judith Wusteman Office: SILS 110, Tel: Office hour Semester 2 (Jan 2013): TBC Table of Contents: page Module description 1 Weekly activities 3 Assessment 4 1. Module description Overview HTML, or HyperText Markup Language, is the language of the World Wide Web. In this course, you will learn how the Web works and how to create Web pages using HTML. You will also learn some of the basic tenets of electronic publishing theory and how they influence the development of the Web. This is a very practical course involving hands-on Web page development. If you work hard and put in plenty of practice, you should find it fun. But this module is academically challenging and requires commitment and application. The ability to create Web sites is now an essential skill for all graduates, particularly for those wishing to illustrate information literacy. It is also a core skill for librarians and information specialists. This course does not cover the use of an HTML editor. All HTML and CSS (Cascading Stylesheet) coding is done directly in Notepad. HTML editors allow you to produce HTML code in a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) environment (ie without directly seeing the code you are generating). Using an HTML editor saves time but means that you don't learn what the code looks like or how it works. Editors also produce sub-optimal, often non-standard, code. The aim of the course is not to learn how to use an HTML editor - that is comparatively simple - but to understand and be able to manipulate HTML and CSS code. That is why HTML and CSS editors are not used on the course. See Getting started with HTML by Dave Raggett, URL: for a very quick introduction to HTML. Course objectives By the end of the course, you should Understand how the World Wide Web has emerged, how it is evolving and how it functions Understand some of the tenets of electronic publishing theory on which the Web is based Be able to create Web pages that are technically accurate, standards-oriented, future-proof and appropriate for purpose Be able to create and manipulate HTML and CSS code directly in Notepad Understand the evolution of HTML from version 1.0 through to XHTML and HTML 5 Understand how the Web can be used to add value to journals 1

2 Pre-requisites: No pre-requisites. Incompatible module: Students are not permitted to take this module if they have, or are planning to take, module Web Design (COMP20030). Module communications Course announcements will be made via UCD official . It is therefore important that you check your UCD regularly. Other communications will be made via Blackboard. Lectures and Classes The course will run in the first semester. There will be one lecture every week. In addition, students are required to complete one remote class every week in their own time. Lectures Lectures are an essential and compulsory part of the Web Publishing module. They take place at 9.00am on Mondays (TBC). It is not possible to successfully complete this module without attending all lectures. If you are not able to attend a lecture every week at 9.00 Monday morning, you are advised to deregister from this module. In every lecture, the register will be passed around. If, by the end of the lecture, you have not signed the register, it is your responsibility to approach the lecturer. It is your responsibility (not the lecturer's) to ensure that you sign the register during the lecture. It will not be possible to amend the register at a later date. Five percent of the final mark for this module will be allocated to lecture attendance. You can be awarded a mark for a lecture you miss only if you provide the lecturer with a medical certificate or equivalent at the next lecture you attend or via . If, because of medical or other serious reasons (which must be documented), you miss a considerable number of lectures, your final mark may, at the discretion of the coordinator, be calculated 100% on coursework without a mark for attendance. In general, the attendance component will only be discounted if almost all absences are covered by a medical cert or the equivalent. The final decision as to whether to include an attendance component will be made by the module coordinator. Never sign the register for another student - this will result in disciplinary action. Lectures start on the hour and finish at 10 to the hour. You are required to turn up on time. Poor time-keeping will be noted. Because of this, you should let the lecturer know if you have a genuine reason for being late. Drop-in sessions in the first 2 weeks There will be an optional drop-in session, (location TBC) from to 10.50am (TBC), that is, immediately after lecture for the first 2 weeks. These sessions will help you to get started on the practical aspects of the module. If you have tried the first class yourself and have no problems with it, you needn t attend. There will be a register in these drop-in sessions, but the sessions are entirely optional and you will not be awarded an attendance mark. From Week 3, the to slot on a Monday will revert to being my standard office hour (TBC). If, after the two drop-in sessions, you are still having problems in getting started with the practicals, or if you have any other queries or concerns about the module, 2

3 please call at my office during my office hour from week 3 onwards or me to arrange an alternative meeting time. Classes Remote classes form an integral part of this module and submission of completed classes each week is compulsory. Further details may be found in Section 3, Assessment, below. Student support If you are having problems or want advice on any aspect of the Web Publishing module, please call at my office (SILS 110) during my office hour on Mondays (TBC), that is, immediately after the lecture. If you think you'll need a lot of time, please me beforehand so that I can block out some time for you. Remember to bring a USB key or laptop if you want advice on your class work; you can't access your student account from my office computer. Alternatively, you can me at [email protected]. 2. Weekly activities Reading You are expected to do weekly background reading as recommended in lectures and on Blackboard. Online references to some topics covered in lectures are available via Blackboard under Resources. But the majority of required reading is from the course text. You are expected to purchase and study the course text or a suitable alternative. The course text is: Html5: Visual QuickStart Guide Seventh edition, Peachpit, 2011, Elizabeth Castro and Bruce Hyslop Check with me if you find an alternative that you d like to buy instead of Castro and I ll tell you what I think of it it needs to cover HTML5 and CSS. You should get into the habit of using Castro (or your chosen alternative) to look up the topics covered in lectures. Reading about the topic will help you to consolidate the lecture material. Sometimes, I will recommend specific pages for you to read, but most of the time, I will just assume that you are looking up, and reading around, all topics that have appeared in that week s lecture. You should also use the course text as a reference when you are working on the classes. Lecture and Class Timetable Note: all lecture slides and classes are available on Blackboard. week LECTURE Monday 9.00am 1 Housekeeping, History of Web + What is a journal CLASS To be completed remotely in your own time and submitted by Friday 10.00am. There will be an optional drop-in session, (in Lab 3

4 106 in the Vet School) immediately after lecture for the first 2 weeks, to get you started on the practical aspects. 2 HTML basics 1. Your first HTML document There will be an optional drop-in session, (in Lab 106 in the Vet School) immediately after lecture for the first 2 weeks, to get you started on the practical aspects. 3 Stylesheets 2. More practice with the basics 4 HTML linking 3. Stylesheets 5 Graphics 4. Linking 6 More on CSS 5. Graphics 7 Page layout 6. Advanced linking 8 Zipping files, Assessment 7. Page layout 9 BANK HOL 8. Zipping and submitting, Image links 10 Standards etc 9. Addressing 11 HTML 5 12 Revision 4

5 3. Assessment Component Percentage of marks Weekly submission of classwork 10% Weekly attendance at lectures 5% Project 30% Exam 55% Weekly submission of classwork 10% of the marks for this module will be awarded for submission of weekly classwork. Each submission will be worth 1%. There are only 9 classes so the final mark will be awarded at my (the module convenor s) discretion, depending on the quality of your submissions during the semester. The classwork you submit doesn t have to be entirely correct in order for you to receive your 1% mark. However, your submission must Appear to be a genuine attempt Be largely correct Occasionally, via Blackboard, I will request a resubmission. In this case, you will receive your 1% if you resubmit within 3 days of my request and if it satisfies the conditions detailed above. Submissions via Blackboard only will be accepted. ed submissions will not receive a mark or feedback. Submission forms for each class can be found immediately after the relevant class on Blackboard, under Resources > Classes. Don t use the Assignment submission form under Assessment this is for your final project only (details below). If, by accident, you submit a class via Assessment or via the wrong week s submission form, please let me know immediately and I will delete it so that you can resubmit correctly. Weekly classwork must be submitted by 10.00am each Friday. Submissions after this time will not receive a mark or feedback. You may be given an extension for a classwork submission only if you provide a medical certificate, or equivalent evidence of health/other problems. Every week, you will receive a brief comment on your work via the My Grades application in Blackboard. No class submission is required in Week 1. Class submission is required in Week 9, despite there being no lecture that week due to the Bank Holiday. Web Publishing Project The objective of this assessment: To produce a Web-based academic electronic journal. You will be provided with the text for a journal cover page and two articles that you must use. Note that this is an academic journal, not a magazine or a newsletter, and its presentation should reflect this. The journal must illustrate the appropriate use of Web facilities to add value to electronic journals. Details: You will be provided with The basics of a cover page, including a table of contents Two sample articles 5

6 The cover page and one of the articles are the ones you have been working on in classes. You can add anything you like to the cover page or articles but you mustn t remove any of the text. All of your web pages must be formatted and laid out using CSS. (The distinction between formatting with CSS and laying out using CSS will be explained in the relevant lecture and class.) The class on Page Layout using CSS describes a CSS file template and an HTML file template for laying out your cover page, articles and any additional pages; you may use this template or you can create your own. The CSS template file only provides basic layout styles. You must add formatting styles to this CSS file yourself. You may want to adapt the layout style for use with the article, to prevent too much white space appearing to the left or right of the articles. The sample articles are o o The one you have been working on in class An additional article (TBC). This article is available under Assessment on Blackboard. Your journal should be HTML and CSS-based. It should include the cover page and the two samples article, marked up in HTML, plus a CSS stylesheet as a minimum. All HTML files submitted should include the Doctype definition for HTML 5, as given in Class 1. Additional marks will be given for other useful journal features. Some of the links to such features may be dummies. All anchors to unimplemented features should point to the same dummy file that should incorporate an appropriate message. The dummy file should be called dummy.html. You will, of course, get more marks for an implemented feature/file than for a dummy file. You will be required to use styles appropriately as illustrated in lectures and classes. You will lose marks if you use deprecated tags or attributes where styles would be more appropriate. You should make appropriate use of all of the following features: Colour (Keep it subtle: nothing garish. Remember it s an academic journal, not a magazine.) Graphics (Avoid over-large or frivolous images.) Internal and external links Internal links should be relative and not absolute Navigation facilities (eg buttons) facility (Your link may not work on the UCD computers but you won't lose marks for that as long as the syntax is correct) Each of the HTML files submitted should link to and use the same CSS stylesheet. This helps to encourage a consistent look & feel throughout your journal and ensures that all of your articles are laid out similarly. All styles should appear in the stylesheet. No styles should appear in the HTML file head or in individual tags. Make sure you look at some real ejournal systems to get ideas for the presentation and features for your own. Validation You must ensure that the HTML in all your files is correct. The use of an HTML validator is the best way to do this. (See the HTML practical Class 1) In theory, I won t know whether you ve used a validator or not but, in practice, it is almost impossible to discover all coding errors without a validator. As well as being valid, your code should be well presented and easily readable. Comments You must comment your code to indicate the function of the various sections of code. Comments should appear within the HTML code, not as part of the printed documentation. Don t comment every line - you just need to convince me that you know what's going on in your code. Three or four comments should be enough. You don t need to repeatedly comment the same feature if it appears in more than one file. You should also include comments in your CSS file; again, don t comment everything. 6

7 Using HTML Editors If you were creating a professional website, you would use an HTML editor. Such editors allow you to produce HTML code in a WYSIWYG environment (ie without directly seeing the code you are generating.) Using an HTML editor saves time but means that you don't learn what the code looks like or how it works. Editors also produce sub-optimal, often non-standard, code. This is why you're not using an HTML editor in this module. The aim of this assessment is not to determine whether you can use an HTML editor, but to determine if you understand HTML code. Hence, you should not use any editor to create your HTML or CSS code except Notepad. It is always obvious when code has been created by an HTML or CSS editor so don t risk it you will lose marks when you are found out. Also, do not create your own HTML code and then open it in an HTML editor; this will reformat it and make it appear as if it was created via the HTML editor. And make sure, when you view your work in a browser, that you don t then save it using the browser, as this can sometimes add odd code to your file. In other words, don t choose File > Save As from within the browser; only ever save your files from within Notepad. Browser You must ensure that your journal appears correctly in a recent Windows (not Mac) version of Firefox, Internet Explorer or Google Chrome. Checking Links Check very carefully that all your links work and that you are using relative addressing rather than absolute addressing. In other words, your links shouldn t refer to your hard drive/floppy/cd etc. And make sure you submit all your files (including graphics). Submission: By 3.00pm on Friday 26 th April 2011 (ie last day of Second Semester). Your ejournal should be zipped and submitted via Blackboard. The zip filename should include your own name. (Further details about how to submit via Blackboard will be made available in lecture and class). Submission is via Blackboard only. Assessments submitted via will not be accepted. All the files should be in a folder called Webtech-journal, or in subdirectories within folder Webtechjournal. Your introductory/header page should be called coverpage.html. All subsequent pages of your ejournal should be accessible, directly or indirectly from links in coverpage.html. You should also submit a Word document, called tree.doc, containing a tree diagram illustrating the interconnectivity of the HTML files comprising your journal. Include this Word document within the zipped file that contains your ejournal; don t submit it as a separate file. Don't add any comments in the comments box provided within the submission form. If you want to pass on a message to me concerning your submission, please add a text file to your zip. In other words, all materials that you want me to look at should be in one single zip file. Remember to keep an electronic copy of your assessment. UCD Policy on late submission of coursework Coursework submitted at any time up to one week after the due date (ie up to 3pm on Friday 3 rd May) will have the mark reduced by one letter grade (for example, from B+ to C+). Coursework submitted more than one week but less than two weeks after the due date (ie between 3pm on Friday 3 rd May and 3pm on Friday 10 th May) will have the mark reduced by 2 letter grades (for example, from B+ to D+). 7

8 In other words, if you miss a deadline for submission, you may use the remainder of the week to improve your submission without additional penalty. Coursework received more than two weeks after the due date (ie after 3pm on Friday 10 th May) will not be accepted. UCD Policy on Academic Integrity and Plagiarism Assessments must be the individual work of the student; group work is not acceptable and will be penalised according to the UCD policy on Academic Integrity and Plagiarism. It is acceptable to Cut and paste raw text from a journal currently online and then add your own HTML "Borrow" some graphics/icons/a heading or two Take a few ideas on layout / structure from a similar journal online Borrow an individual CSS style from another site It is not acceptable to Use any HTML code not produced by you (For example: using an online journal article/feature along with its HTML and CSS) Use a stylesheet taken from another website. Copy more than one CSS style from any particular site. (But you can use any of the styles given in lectures/classes) Copy a current ejournal format and content so closely that the journal you create is very similar to the journal you've borrowed from. This will be regarded as plagiarism. I will be using a search engine to check that all ejournals are your own work. If you don't know whether the material you have "borrowed" is acceptable, please come and see me. Assessment feedback Assessment feedback (in the form of a PDF document), along with your assessment grade, will be made available via Blackboard s MyGrades application. Examination At the end of the semester, you will sit a 2 hour written exam. All past papers are available on Blackboard. 8