CIS/HON 261 - Advanced Technology for Web Research and Publishing

Course Description

Students will learn to use the latest technologies for research and publication on the World Wide Web. Topics include effective search strategies, standard Web formats in use today, Web hosting issues, organization of information in an online format, document structure, legal and cultural issues, and site promotion. Students will discuss and practice techniques for effectively presenting academic, scientific, and business information in an online environment, incorporating their own research and academic interests into project work.

Prerequisites: none

Course Objectives

• Use advanced features of major Web search engines for research.
• Effectively use Web search engines for researching information at a high-level, and at a detailed level.
• Assess quality of information presented on the Web.
• Understand technical aspects of Web sites and common tools for their construction.
• Understand issues surrounding presentation of information on the Web in various contexts.
• Apply techniques to a research project.

Textbooks

Calishain; Web Search Garage, Pearson Education, 2005. ISBN: 0-13-147148-1.
Cameron; Web Design, Concepts and Best Practices, EMC Paradigm, 2004. ISBN: 0-7638-1654-X.

Assessment

Grades for the course will be based on a set of assessment items such as:

• Individual and/or Group Assignments
• Outside Research
• Research Project
• Class Project
• Quizzes, Tests
• Class Participation

The exact items for assessment, and how they are weighted, will be determined by the class members and instructor during the first week of class. Students should consider their personal interests and course expectations when forming the basis for assessment.

In particular, students will be assessed according to their ability to use the Web as an effective research tool, and their effective presentation of academic information via the Web.

Course Format

Class meeting time will be consist of class discussion, lab activity, and lecture. Students should be prepared to share some of their prior experiences with Web research, as well as experiences accumulated during this course.

Course Schedule

The day-to-day schedule will be determined according to the interests of the class members with input by their instructor. A suggested content outline for the course is as follows:

• Evolution of the World Wide Web
  • Pre-WWW
  • Academic and governmant use
  • Protocols
  • Commercial interests
• Web Technology
  • Web browsers
  • Web servers
  • Hosting providers
  • Domain Name System
• Search Engines
  • Popular search engines
    • Indexing philosophies
    • Spiders
    • Business models
  • Searching techniques
  • Vertical portals
• Quality of Information
  • Official home pages
  • Academic work
  • Corporate material
  • Enthusiast sites
  • Scams
• Web Page Construction
  • Web languages
    • HTML
    • CSS
  • Standards
    • World Wide Web Corsortium
  • Web page makeup
    • Graphics
    • Hyperlinks
    • Meta information
  • Software packages
    • Mozilla Composer
    • NVu
    • Microsoft FrontPage
    • Microsoft Office
    • Others
  • Organization of Information
• Cultural and Legal Issues
  • Interpretations of material
  • Copyright issues
• Publishing
  • Web hosting services
  • Domain name registrars
  • Publishing via software packages
  • Publishing via FTP