lecture 1: handout

You are advised to print this page off and have it beside you while working through the rest of this virtual lecture. Note that if you are following this site but are not a student at Leeds University, parts one and two are not relevant to you.

part one: course administration

course timetable

other administrative information

Lecture times and places

The "real" Web Design Core lectures take place from weeks 1-6. There is also an additional lecture in week 11, the content of which is up to you (feedback will be taken on this in later weeks) - it can be used to re-cover things which you may have found difficult.

In semester two 2004-5 Real lectures take place:

• Mondays at 11:00 in Roger Stevens Lecture Theatre 20
• Thursdays at 12:00 in Roger Stevens Lecture Theatre 12.

YOU DO NOT HAVE TO COME TO BOTH OF THESE LECTURES but only one. In fact, you don't even have to come to one, providing you follow the "virtual lecture" each week. See part two of this handout.

Options

In weeks 7-10 you follow lectures for your chosen option. The following are the recommended options for Web Design along with their lecture times. More assistance in choosing your options will be given in the week 5 lecture.

• Advanced Web Techniques. Learn more about HTML and start on some basic interactivity. Ideal for those who want to start on some more sophisticated web design techniques. Lectures are Mondays, 11:00, RSLT20 although note that this option also has virtual lectures (it uses this same site for the teaching materials).
• Graphics on the PC. Learn to use graphics packages to manipulate photographs, create illustrations, logos and so on. Ideal for those who want to jazz up the appearance of their sites. Lectures are either Wednesdays 11:00 RSLT 23 or Thursdays 12:00 RSLT12.
• IT, Politics and Society. A discussion-based option which covers the impact of computers and the Internet on the modern world and on the way we communicate. Ideal for anyone interested in the background to the WWW's emergence. This is also a non-technical option so if you're fed up with computers by week 6 this (or the next option) may be a godsend! Two seminar groups are running, one on Tuesdays at 11:00 and the other on Thursdays at 10:00 (you only need to come to one or the other). They take place in room 8.01 in the School of Computing: come down "staircase 1" off Red Route (the very long corridor near the Roger Stevens building) and follow the signs.
• Legal Issues in Computing. A similar option but more strongly focussed on relevant legislation such as copyright, data protection and so on. Ideal for law or business students and, again, a non-technical option. Lectures are Fridays 1:00 RSLT16.
• Electronic Publishing with XML. Learn how computers process electronic texts and how you can use XML to enhance your web sites. Ideal for language students or anyone whose degrees involve them heavily with the written word. Lectures are Tuesdays 2:00 Michael Sadler LG15 (which is very near the Rupert Beckett Lecture Theatre).
• Introduction to the Linux OS. This is ideal for anyone fed up with Windows and/or who wants to find out more about the technical aspects of networking. In case you hadn't heard of it, Linux is an "open source" alternative to Windows. Lectures are Tuesdays 1:00 RSLT9.

Students who wish to take options other than these six as part of Web Design may be permitted to do so but they will have to contact Drew directly and put a case.

Demonstration sessions

ACOM's demonstration sessions are there to help you with any practical problems you may be having, no matter how small (or large). You can just drop in to one at any time. They all take place in the Cohen Cluster, which is in the Chemistry building (it can be most easily accessed from the "gallery" that goes round the first floor of the Parkinson Court). See the relevant page on the ACOM web site (http://www.leeds.ac.uk/acom/demos.html).

Note that there is one time a week when I will be in demo sessions specifically to answer questions on web design: this will happen every Thursday from 2:00 - 4:00.

Office hours

If you need to see me in person my office is room 6.22 in the EC Stoner building. Basically, it's four floors below the Central Student Administration office: find Red Route (the really looooong corridor), and then go down either staircase 1 or 2 (both near the CSA) to the ground floor (the "sixth" floor). There is a corridor down there with several anonymous-looking doors: 6.22 is mine, my name is on the door.

My office hour is 12:30 - 1:30 every Monday (starting in week 2, e.g. Monday 31st January). If you want to see me outside this time please e-mail first (I know it sounds snotty but please don't knock randomly on my office door). My e-mail address is andrew [dot] whitworth [at] manchester [dot] ac [dot] uk. Please don't use this e-mail address for random course queries - all that is done through the bulletin board (see below).

Your ACOM account

See http://www.comp.leeds.ac.uk/cgi-bin/acom/accounts/main.cgi. This is where you can log in to the ACOM account system. Through your ACOM account you can:

• check you are enrolled for the correct modules
• select your options for weeks 7-10
• submit your course work
• check your marks
• get feedback on your course work
• access the various ACOM bulletin boards.

Indeed it's impossible to do most of these things without using your account. The important thing is that you initialise your account by registering and then choosing a password. This is done through Departmental Software. If you attended your induction session back at the start of semester 1 this should have been done but otherwise please initialise your account as soon as possible (do it today!). If you leave it until the first time you really need it - which will be your course work submission in week 4 - you may get hit by the fact that there is a delay between initialisation and your account being activated which may result in late course work submission. Nor will you be able to receive assistance with your course work as this is all done through the bulletin board system. Initialise it now!

Bulletin boards

Each ACOM core and option has a simple bulletin board associated with it where you can post messages, questions or just chat about the course (or indeed about J-Lo if you really want to). You access this through your ACOM account (see above). It is a pretty self-explanatory system but if you have any problems working it come to a demonstration session.

Some important points about these bulletin boards:

• Unless it is a genuinely personal matter please use this board for all course-related communication. If you e-mail me about general issues you will be directed to post your query on the board so that everyone can read it and the answer (the reason being that sometimes the same question is mailed twenty or thirty times - on the bulletin board, I only need answer it once). This is irritating for you and makes me look snotty so please don't allow it to happen in the first place - get used to the bulletin board from the start.
• I know I can't force this to happen but the bulletin board works best if it does not degenerate into a simple question-and-answer session with all the answers coming from me. Feel free to reply to the queries of other students if you feel you can answer them.
• Online communication is not something which comes naturally to everyone but like every other skill it can be learnt with care and attention. Do, at least, keep it civil - don't say anything online which you wouldn't say to someone's face - although there's nothing wrong with a certain amount of taking the mickey (these spaces are more useful when they're lively). If you want to criticise, do it constructively.

Ideas for how you might use the bulletin boards:

• course work queries - "should I be doing this?"
• technical queries - "does anyone know how I do this?"
• gathering opinions - "here's the URL of my web site - comments invited about this or that"
• general chat - "has anyone decided what they're going to write their site on yet?"
• inspiration - "I found a great web site the other day"
• moral support - "it's 11:45 pm and I'm still here, someone please cheer me up"
• arranging the consumption of fermented vegetable products - "anyone want to go to the pub?"

part two: teaching materials

The web site for this course is http://www.leeds.ac.uk/acom/webdesign/. You will be using this site regularly!

The site is divided (more-or-less) into 11 sections, each one of which corresponds to one of the lectures. (Lectures 7 - 10 are for the Advanced Web Techniques option: although there is nothing to stop them being looked at by interested students who are taking a different option.)

In some cases, reading from this site (no more than one or two pages) will be assigned before certain lectures. Lectures 2, 4 and 5 have pre-assigned reading. If you do not do this reading beforehand you may struggle to understand some of the things being discussed in the lecture.

The most significant aspect of the site are the virtual lectures. The Web Design Core (lectures 1-6) and the Advanced Web Techniques option are both designed in ways that make it possible for students to follow them entirely "at a distance". Each of the sections has one of these virtual lectures which, in combination with the other teaching materials, allow a student to do this course without coming to a "real" lecture. They must still be conscientiously followed, as if they were real lectures, but they are intended to replace these lectures rather than just complement them. Ideally, you would not come to a real lecture and read a virtual lecture - although you might use the virtual lecture to fill in some gaps in the real lecture which you attended.

It is up to you whether you prefer to go to real lectures, or follow the virtual lectures, but if you do neither then you will be missing out on important information. This is not meant to be a charter to students who want to avoid doing any work at all. Doing one or the other is very important - you just do not need to do both.

Incidentally, you may be tempted to miss a week or two and then try and catch up - or get ahead of yourself - by doing three weeks' "virtual lecturing" in a row. But I don't recommend this. Try and set yourself a regular time to do these virtual lectures, and stick to it. If you miss it for some reason, try and catch up as soon as possible. Also, don't read each virtual lecture in bits and pieces. Try and set aside an hour for each one and follow them somewhere you can concentrate (whether at university or, if you have a PC with internet access, at home). Follow the exercises you are asked to do - these substitute for points in the real lecture where I would have demonstrated something on the screen.

Each section of the site also contains an online self-test. These tests are not assessed, nor are they compulsory. They are just there to help you review the contents of each week's teaching, and help you see whether there are gaps in your understanding which you should fill before moving on to the next week's teaching.

There is also a printed booklet which covers background information. It is not compulsory to buy this (it costs £1), but doing so will help you write better pages. If you did not pick up a copy of the booklet in the "real" lecture 1 you can go to the ACOM office to get one.

part three: lecture 1 information

The rest of this handout contains information relevant to certain slides in the virtual lecture. They will be clearly referred to when needed.

Slide D

You can use the space below to write your answers to the questions posed on this slide:

1. Write down one thing for which you use the WWW on a regular basis (e.g. finding out about a specific thing).

2. Write down one site which you like to visit on a regular basis.

Slide J

The following is the code for our first sample web page: details in the lecture. Copy everything between, but not including, this line and the word INSTRUCTIONS. After the code come the instructions for how to use it.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
                " http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd ">

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">

<head>

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="en" />

<title>A simple web page</title>
</head>

<body>


<h1>Great film quotes</h1>

<blockquote>"The first time you buy a house you think, 'oh, how lovely', and
sign the cheque. The next time you look straight away for the termites in the
basement. It's the same with men."</blockquote>

<p><b>Lupe Velez</b></p>

<blockquote>"My life is flashing before my eyes, and the worst part is, I'm
driving a used car.</blockquote>

<p><b>Woody Allen</b></p>


</body>
</html>

INSTRUCTIONS:

• If you do not already have a Notepad window open, open one (which on the university system is done through the Start button - Programs - Utilities - Notepad). If you do already have one open, press Ctrl+N to get rid of the visible source code (you don't need to save it) and start afresh.
• You should now be seeing a simple window with a blank white "canvas" occupying most of it. You can type in the code from scratch if you want, but it is faster - and less mistake-prone - to do the following: use your mouse to highlight the code on the online slide (by clicking-and-dragging), then press Ctrl+C to copy it onto the clipboard. Then return to the Notepad window and press Ctrl+V
• In the menu bar, press File - then Save As....
• In the File Name box, type index.html.
• You should save your files in a folder on your M: drive called "WWW". THE NAME OF THAT FOLDER MUST BE IN CAPITAL LETTERS (LIKE THESE). If you have this folder already, or you know how to create it, go ahead and save it there. If you don't know how to create such a folder: click on the little yellow box with a "star" on it, second from the right in the topmost row of the dialogue box. (Make sure you are looking at your personal M: drive, not any other drive.) A box should appear in the window saying "New Folder". Delete those words and replace them with "WWW", then press Return. The folder will be created. Double-click on it (it will be empty) and then click on the Save button.
• That's it - you've saved the file. But we also need to open it in the browser. So:
• In the browser window - the one you are looking at now - press Ctrl+N. This should open a second browser window which will hold another copy of this page if you did this in IE, but in other browsers may be blank. In either case, click on the File option in the menu bar then Open (or Open Page). There will either be an intermediate dialogue box with a "Browse" button (in which case click on it) or you will see a Windows Explorer dialogue box straight away. When you get to this box, go to the M: drive and the WWW folder and you should see the index.html file there. Select it, and open it, and see what you have got.

slide K

INSTRUCTIONS:

• Go to the Notepad window.
• Click in the window on the line, <p><b>Woody Allen</b></p>
• Delete "Woody Allen" and replace it with "Marlon Brando".