Beginner's Guide to Putting Instructional Materials on our Web Site

Drafted by Bob Heckard, revised by Tom Ryan

This note is an overview of how to get started if you want to put course materials (or research materials) on our web site.

To start

A good starting point is to look at what others in the Department have already done. To see these materials: On the course page you will see links to many of the courses being given this semester, and possibly also some courses from previous semesters. Try clicking on the links to some of these courses to see what others have done. You'll see a variety of good ideas about how to use the web in instruction.

Briefly - how it works

You create html files (and perhaps graphics files) and then copy them to your ~userid/public_html/ directory on your unix account which can be linked directly to the server. To modify materials, edit your files in your "local" environment, then repost them to the ~userid/public_html/ directory. Your local environment can be a PC or you can work directly on a Sun workstation and copy the files to the ~userid/public_html/ directory.

What you need to post your materials

  1. A Departmental Unix account. The Unix System Administrator can help you with this. If you have any questions, send them to helpdesk@stat.psu.edu
  2. If you work on a PC, you need "ftp" (file transfer protocol) software to copy files from your machine to the Unix server. The computer staff can set up the ftp software for you if you don't have it. If you work on a PC, you create and modify your pages locally on the PC, then send them to the server using the ftp software.
  3. An html editor - e.g. Netscape Composer. This is a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) environment that lets you compose web pages without knowing html -- hyper text markup language. It creates web pages in a manner similar to the way a word processor creates paper documents. Alternatively, you can also use current word processors to compose your page and save as an html file.

How to post your materials on our server

If your userid on the Unix network is, for example, xyz, you have access to the directory /home/xyz/. Web access is allowed to a subdirectory named public_html. This directory is normally created for you when your Unix account is created. This directory and your home directory must have "execute" permissions ONLY for other users to access your public files; but not "read" access to avoid anyone from snooping through your directories.

You should post your web materials to the Unix directory  /home/xyz/public_html/. You can create subdirectories under public_html. (If you are working on a PC, this can be done with the ftp software.) We recommend that you do this to organize the materials by course and semester that you teach. For example, if you are teaching Stat 501 in Spring 2002 semester, you can create the subdirectory stat501 and then create a subdirectory to that called sp02 (i.e.  /home/xyz/public_html/stat501/sp02) , and store all materials for your course in that directory.  Each subdirectory should contain a file named index.html file which is the default file the browser opens when someone goes to the subdirectory.

Note: If you are working on a PC, when transferring files to your Unix directory, tell the ftp software to send your files as ASCII files (not binary files). If you don't do this, you can have problems with the translation of the end-of-line marker, which differ on the PC and on Unix.

Public access to your materials and your web address

To have your course materials linked from the Department web page, send an e-mail to webmaster@stat.psu.edu. Specify the course number, section (if needed), and the directory where your materials are stored.

You may want to give students or others the web address for your stuff so they can jump directly to it.  If your Unix userid is xyz, you are teaching Stat 501 in Spring 2002, and if you set up a subdirectory as above, the web address is www.stat.psu.edu/~xyz/stat501/sp02/. The pattern is that the ~userid designation is used to get to the files in /home/userid/public_html/; subdirectories are simply appended to the web address as they are to the Unix directory address.

The index.html file

By default, browsers look for the file named index.html when going to an address. You should have an index.html file in your public_html directory to greet visitors. This is your home page.  This could be a short file that links to your various courses, or it could be a more elaborate home page. Within the subdirectory for each course there should also be a file named index.html. This would normally be the main page for your course.

Producing (and "borrowing") materials

The easiest (and perhaps best) way to design your web materials is to look at what others in the Department (or world) have created. Exchange of ideas and materials within the Department is strongly encouraged, but remember to give credit for other's creative material. If you find a page that is close to what you would like for your course, you can download it very simply. From your browser (such as Netscape), select "File", then "Save As" to save it as a local file. Saving images and backgrounds is almost as simple. (Just be careful, as usual, not to use copyrighted materials without permission.) Then edit them for your specific course using your favorite html editor.

Resources

 

 

In addition to the computer staff, Bob Heckard, Tom Ryan, and others who have created home pages can help as well.

Revised 5/12/02 by JLR, 9/8/97 by JLR, revised 8/30/97 by TAR. Created 6/5/97 by RHO.