Web Teaching Guide

Horton, Sarah (2000). Web teaching guide: A Practical approach to creating course web sites. New Haven: Yale University Press.

CHAPTER ONE: PLANNING

The first step is to conduct a thorough means assessment (i.e., needs assessment). Assess institutional resources, personal impact of the project, and your goals for the web site. Then create a draft of an organizational structure for your web site.

A more typical approach in education would be to define the goals or purpose your web site first and then consider how to implement those goals. Yet how you use technology to address your teaching needs will be mostly shaped by your circumstances.

Software: Are there courseware systems (e.g., CourseInfo, WebCT)available at your institution? Also, find out what web authoring software your institution supplies and supports. These programs range from text editors, to visual editors, to full-fledged html authoring programs. Are there conversion utilities for materials that are already in electronic format? How about institutional templates?

Training: does your institution offer any courses on creating web sites?

Support: most institutions have an academic computing unit that supports the use of computing in education. Failing that, how about hiring students to work on your web site?

Facilities: some schools provide special computing facilities for faculty to use.

Funding: seek funding either through your institution or through funding agencies.

Personal

	Work load: how much time will it take you, and after it's finished how much time will be spent on maintenance? Once it's completed, will it save you any time?
	Promotion: will your web efforts count towards tenure and promotion?
	Change: using the web will probably create changes in your teaching methods, and change can require a great deal of energy.

Define your Objectives

	Look around
	Ask questions regarding: audience profile, usage profile, teaching goals>

Scope

	Administration: can your web site handle administrative tasks involved in teaching the course?
	Supplementary: can your course offer students aids to understanding (e.g., links, online discussion areas)?
	Class resource: can you offer materials that you currently use in your teaching on your course site?
	Instructional: can your site be used for instruction?

(A sample project proposal is included. It provides a statement of goals, a discussion of the project, and an implementation plan.)

Plan your site

Content inventory:

	Create a list of items you want as content on the site.
	Establish priorities: rank each item.
	Lastly, rate each item's availability

(sample content list)

Site architecture

Organize your content list into an organizational architecture. It is possible to use different organizational schemes: for example, browsing works well with subject groupings, while searching is best served by alphabetical listings.

Classifying content

Create a classification system that effectively describes your content. You might use a location metaphor. Or, you might use functional groupings. Whichever method you choose, you must use clear and consistent labels.

Card sorting

A useful technique involves making a pile of index cards, with each card listing a content item you intend to include on your site. Go through the stack and make piles of the items that you think belong together. Then, ask others to do the same.

Outlining

You can also use the outlining function of your word processor to classify your content.

Site structure

The site structure helps your users form a mental model of your content.

	Linear: presented in a sequence
	Hierarchical: grouped into main categories and sub sections

Navigation

Will well designed that addition system not only reflects the site's structure, but gives users an overview of the site's content as well.

Site links vs. page links

Site links are the links that appear on every page of a site; page links are local links that relate to the content of a page. If your content is sequential, minimize your page links. If your material is made up of information that needs to be directly accessed, use lots of page links.

Site guides

	Search tools
	Fast find (aka shortcuts)
	Contents and index pages
	Paging links

CHAPTER TWO: DEVELOPING CONTENT

Text

You will probably have to rewrite materials (or even write new materials) because the style of the writing you have already done may not work well on the web. Web readers tend to scan text online and read text off line.

Writing style

The web is a peculiar writing genre. Here are some tips to make your documents more "weblike":

	Summarize first
	Be concise
	Write with scanning in mind

Chunking

Web surfers generally do not read pages in sequence�there's no way to tell where they've been or where they'll go after visiting your page. As a result, your site must be like an encyclopedia, with a fairly comprehensive presentation of a topic on every page.

What is a "chunk"?

	Formulated according to expected access patterns
	Fairly short page length
	If printing is the goal, use longer pages
	Be careful to avoid fragmentation (over-dividing information)
	Redundancy is more accepted on the web
	Excessive linking should be avoided---readers should not have to follow links to gain an initial understanding of the information.

Page length

Generally, web pages should be short, and longer only if they are primarily intended for printing. However, the primary measure page length should be the structure of your content.

Printing vs. reading online

Most people prefer to read lengthy or complicated text offline. Therefore, don't divide content like this up too much or it becomes hard to print. If your content is more like a reference work, users are likely to read it on line so dividing it up is OK.

Links

Poor links disrupt narrative flow:

	Visual Distraction
	Disruption of narrative
	Lack of context

Online resources

Web sites

Finding web content

	Search engines
	Subject directories
	Boolean search operators

Evaluating web content

	Origins
	Freshness
	Bias
	Popularity

Tips:

	Choose wisely
	Download the site
	Have an alternate

Databases

	Examples of online databases include your library's online catalog and articles from electronic journals.
	Saved searches: no that due to active page technologies, sometimes copying a URL is not sufficient to bring you back to the specific search.

Downloadable

We use the web to get stuff. Therefore, one possible function for your course web site is to distribute course materials. This means that you need not necessarily translate documents from their original format into html.

Examples of files many users can open:

	Word files
	Excel files
	PowerPoint presentations
	PDF documents

Interactivity

The web is by its very nature interactive: users actively participate by choosing which links to follow. But interactivity can also include:

	Course work submission
	Peer review
	Online quizzing
	FAQs
	Simulations
	Online communications
	Simulations

Discussion

	Single topic discussion
	Threaded discussion
	Chat room

Multimedia

Analog vs. digital

Compression

Downloading multimedia

About web images

Image sources: cameras, scanners, images from video, purchased images

About web audio

	Sample rates
	Channels
	Compression

About web video

Frame rates

Compression

Tips:

	Use a tripod
	Shoot against a simple background
	Don't zoom
	Use a digital camera
	Choose quality and resolution settings carefully

Virtual reality

	Virtual walkthroughs
	Object manipulation

A common misconception is that if something is posted on the web, then anyone can use it. Not so! The following factors are considered when dealing with a case of possible copy writing infringement:

	Fair use
	Purpose
	Nature of the work
	Amount and substantiality
	Market effect
	Brevity
	Spontaneity
	Cumulative effect

Simplified Fair Use Guidelines (Source: agreement on guidelines for classroom copying and the guidelines for educational use of music)

	Excerpted prose: 1000 words or 10%
	Complete prose: 2500 words
	Poetry: Complete poem is less than 250 words; 250 word excerpt from a longer poem
	Illustration: one per book or periodical issue
	Music: excerpts of no more than 10% of a complete work (provided that they do not constitute a "performable" unit.

Additionally:

	No more than one complete work or two excerpts from the same author
	You may not copy more than three times from the same work or volume (except for newspapers or other current news publications for which there are no limits)
	You may not copy the same item from term to term.
	You may not copy "consumables" such as workbooks and study guides
	Each copy you make must include a copyright notice

Fair Use Guidelines For Educational Multimedia (source: fair use guidelines for educational multimedia)

	Text: 10% or 1000 words
	Images: no more than five works from one artist
	Music: 10% or 30 seconds
	Motion media: 10% or three minutes
	Database tables: 10% of 2500 fields or cell entries

Many teachers violate these rules in the classroom. However, such use is not public enough to gain notice. On the web, however, dissemination is greater and thus so are your chances of getting caught.

How to stay legal

	Ask permission
	Hire an agent
	Link to the materials
	Purchase rights
	The public domain
	Create your own content

Protection of ownership

	Restricted access
	Watermarking
	Disabling of downloads
	Copyright notices
	Registration of copyright

Publishing student work

If you use your site to post students' work, you need their permission. That's because placing a document on the web constitutes making a copy, and reproduction rights are exclusive to the author of a work.

CHAPTER THREE: CREATING THE SITE

Establish a page design

	Structural vs. visual logic
	Variability in screen sizes, colors, screen clutter, window sizes, user preferences, browser inconsistencies, and fonts.
	Tables for layout
	Flexibility of tables
	Line length
	Space
	Page dimensions
	Safe areas
	Screen size
	Printability
	Vertical design
	Site graphics
	Headers
	Footers
	Cover graphics
	Background graphics
	Navigation menus
	Image maps
	Alternate text
	Relative addressing

Construct a framework

	Organize your web directories by creating a hierarchy of folders
	Be careful when naming files
	Create unique titles and established linkages between pages
	Create page titles
	Consider the needs of search engines
	Check links

Text:

	Text alignment
	White space
	Leading
	Choosing a typeface
	Type size
	Specified fonts
	Emphasis (capitalization, italics, bold, caps, underlining, color)
	Cascading style sheets
	Links: placement, context

Images:

	dpi, lpi, ppi
	Resolution on the web
	Color on the web
	File sizes
	Scaling
	Optimizing (tonal correction, saturation, sharpening)
	GIF vs. JPEG formats
	Indexed color
	Interlacing
	Thumbnails
	Specifying height and width
	Alternate text

Multimedia

	Formats (Real, QuickTime, Windows Media)
	Data rate
	Compression
	The delivery of multimedia
	Strings and weaknesses of streaming media
	Compromises

Preparing multimedia

	Optimizing audio (volume, editing)
	Video preprocessing (trimming, cropping, image quality, interlacing)

Processing audio

	Mono vs. stereo
	Sample rate
	Sample size compression

Processing video

	Audio quality
	Frame rate
	Frame size
	Quality
	Compression

CHAPTER FOUR: USING THE SITE

	Establish the site
	Promote your site

	Site to were
	FAQs
	Use the site in class
	Give credit

Encouraging participation

	Instructor involvement
	Giving credit
	Allowing anonymity
	Encouraging collaboration
	Being realistic

Getting listed

	Institutional listing
	Related sites
	Specialized directories
	Listing with search engines

	Registering with search engines
	Optimizing pages
	Using proper key words and Meta tags

The web in the classroom

Preparing a web based presentation

	Rehearse set up
	Verify links
	Practice
	Get help
	Make contingency plans

Limiting access

	Use authentication
	Prevent indexing by search engines

CHAPTER FIVE: SITE ASSESSMENT

Vehicles for assessment

Tracking software

Server looks

Feedback

Formal assessment

Do it yourself assessment

How to test your web site

	Set up a testing room
	Define your objectives
	Develop a task list
	Create a test plan

Administering the test

	Set up
	Pretest
	Test
	Debrief
	Summarize

Analyzing the data

Refine and expand