Web Site Assignment

No one can truly appreciate the effort it takes to create a web site until they've written some web pages themselves.  While it isn't a goal of this course to turn you into a professional web developer you should learn how to create basic web pages without fancy tools.  (Such tools rarely create web pages as good as a human can by hand.)

Each student will design and create a simple three page web site to be posted on the HCC student server using FTP.  Download this version of WS-FTP-le FTP software which is available free for student use.  You can get the latest version from ipswitch.com.

The content of your web site (which you have previously decided on) will reflect one or more of the following:

• some basic background and biographical information about yourself or family,
• a hobby, craft, sport, or similar interest you have,
• a set of web search links of interest to you,
• a site for an HCC faculty or academic program.  (Requires instructor permission.)

Web sites will NOT contain any of the following:

• pornography, obscenity, or links to such images or content;
• any material not suitable for distribution within an ethnically diverse classroom, or links to such;
• copyrighted materials without the express written permission of the copyright owner;
• commercial content or advertising, except as noted below.
• Large animated graphics.  Try to keep your website to no larger than about 1 megabyte.

It is very important to receive written permission from the owner if you want to use someone else's intellectual property on your website.  See this Warning from our Dean for what can happen if you use someone's property without permission.

The assignment must be based on the Web Site Concept project submitted earlier.  The student will use FTP to upload the completed assignment to the student web server at dm.hccfl.edu as explained below.

Minimum Content

The site will contain at least the following (NOTE!  Everything MUST be contained within the folder with your name, created by your instructor):

• three pages
  the first (main page) must be named index.htm which will contain links to the second and third pages (all pages may contain links to the others),
• a photograph of the student
  either scanned or a digital image taken at HCC (see a lab tech on duty in the open lab to have your picture taken, if you don't already have one); if you don't want to use a photo than use a substiture image,
• four internal links
  (links to pages within the student's site — such as index.htm linking to page 2 and vice versa),
• an e-mail link
  (with either text, an image, or both); this is a link with an HREF set to a URL such as mailto:hymie-piffl@example.com,
• six links to other sites
  That is, URLs external to the HCC system (a mix of both hypertext links and hyperlink images),
• four still images
  (a mix of both photographs and drawings),
• two animated GIF images
  (in addition to the above six images),
• a Java applet,
• some JavaScript,
• either a background image (in addition to the above six images) or a background color on each page.

Note:

When a person clicks a link to a folder, the web server usually returns some pre-selected web page rather than list the contents of the folder.  Most web servers look for a web page named index.htm or index.html.  This is why it is very important that you name your main page index.htm.  If you don't, the link to your web site will display an error message!

After you've created your web site according to the directions above, you will upload (with FTP) the assignment HTML (web page) files and the image files directly to the dm.hccfl.edu server into the directory named by the year, term, and section number.  For section 76425 in the Fall term of 2008, you upload to the folder called /09su86002/LastName–FirstName via FTP.  All links must be tested after uploading and must work.

To download files it is enough to use FTP as an anonymous user.  But to upload documents you must supply a valid user name and password.  This PowerPoint presentation will walk you through the details of using FTP.  Here is the information you need to upload files for our class:

FTP Connection Information

Hostname	dm.hccfl.edu
User ID	See Notes From Teacher discussion board post
Password	See Notes From Teacher discussion board post

Any content not the original work of the student (JavaScripts, Java Applets, images, etc.) shall credit the author.  Credit shall be on the page (or in the HTML page as an HTML comment) as may be required by the author or copyright holder.

A single folder named simply with the student's last name and first name will contain all the web site contents including all HTML files, images, sub-folders (if any), etc.  For example, Wayne Pollock's web site is contained in the folder /09su86002/Pollock_Wayne (which is a short-cut to the folder /cgs1555/09su86002/Pollock_Wayne), on the server dm.hccfl.edu, so the URL of that web site is http://dm.hccfl.edu/cgs1555/09su86002/Pollock_Wayne/.

The folder you use with FTP to upload your content is /09su86002/Last_first (if your section number is 86002; if not use your own section number).  The URL used to view your website is:
http://dm.hccfl.edu/cgs1555/09su86002/Last_First/.

Where more than one student exists with the same name — generally you know who you are — your instructor will tell you what folder name to use.  Please refer to the CGS 1555 index of student pages for names to use.

Important Note:

When you have finished uploading (and testing!) your website, you must then submit a single sentence HTML file via the WebCT drop-box stating the web site is complete and ready to be graded.  No web site assignment will be graded until receipt of this notice.

Automated Web design tools and/or sites such as Homestead, Geocities, Microsoft Word's save as web page feature, FrontPage, etc. MAY NOT be used.  Pages must be created using a text editor such Notepad, where you type in the HTML tags and text yourself.  Rather than start completely from scratch, you can save a sample web page and edit it using Notepad.  Here is a good sample basic HTML page you can use.

Students will publish their own pages to the HCC student server using FTP to dm.hccfl.edu to a folder named /09su86002/LastName_FirstName (if your section number is 86002) no later than the stated due date.  Be careful not to over-write any other student's folder!

Remember the top-level, or entry page to your web site must be named index.htm.  Your other pages, images, applets, etc. can be named anything you wish so long as the IMG and other HTML tags use the correct name.  Note that spaces should not be used in any file names on a web site, or the URLs will need to be URL encoded to work propery on all web browsers.

A backup copy should be retained by the student for all submissions.  This may be needed if the on-line copy gets accidentally deleted.

The FTP tool can be used to upload files.  But you can also use it to delete files, rename files, create sub-folders (sub-directories), etc.  If you discover an error in some page you've uploaded, you can make a change to the copy on your (local) hard disk and upload it again.  The new version will replace the original one, however you may need to refresh (or reload) the page in your web browser to see the change!

A common error is to use URLs that refer to web pages, images, etc., on your home computer.  This may appear to work fine but once you upload your HTML pages, any links from the web server to your home computer won't work!  This happens most often to students who use MS Word or a similar tool to create their web site, rather than creating the web pages by hand using Notepad.  Keep in mind that all the URLs should just be file names, and all the files for your web site should be in a single folder.  Then your web site will work no matter which computer it is on!

The sample web pages and links on our class resources web page will be useful to you.  Feel free to download and modify any of my sample pages.

You can find other sample web pages in the class resources, as well as links to websites where you can download free JavaScripts and Java applets.  (Use your Internet searching skills to find freely usable images or other content you can use.)

In addition to your book and the on-line tutorials, your instructor will be happy to assist you with this assignment.  Also, you can post specific questions to the class discussion board if you are having trouble with some HTML tags.