Whether you're a Webpage wizard or a Web authoring wannabe, you'll do well to take advantage of the help provided in RPInfo, Rensselaer's Information System.
So how do you get started? It all starts with a single mouse click! Simply click on the WWW Authoring Resources link located under the Computing section of RPInfo's main page, and you'll uncover a wealth of references for beginners and seasoned pros alike. Alternatively, you can enter the following URL in the "Location" field at the top of your Web browser window:
http://www.rpi.edu/About/resources.html
With the right tools and a basic understanding of file transfers, the relevant markup languages, and Rensselaer's computing systems, the possibilities are limited only by your imagination.
Webpage authoring is scarcely more difficult than word processing, yet hypertext has some unique characteristics. However, if you go to the trouble of creating and maintaining Webpages, the first thing you should do is ensure that your content will be accessible to all Web users, regardless of any technological and/or physical limitations they may have. When we speak of Web content accessibility, we're not talking about asking your user to optimize the experience by using a particular browser or plug-in, or measuring accessability in terms of baud rates or processor speeds or network configurations. In short, if you're going to create and maintain a Webpage, you should understand that any user, using any kind of Web-browsing technology, should have the ability to understand and interact with the information featured on your Website.
The content of your Webpage is the information, the message, the very reason for its existence, and as a result, the degree to which it is accessible is determined, at least in part, by the arrangement of the content's elements. The style of writing, the embedding of images and other objects and, most importantly, the efficiency of the markup or the code that structures it all...all of these factors can have an impact on how well users feel they can access your site.
So, for example, consider the following: If a user has visual impairments and uses screen-reading software, will your page still make sense when it's read out loud? Test this by pretending to read your content to someone over the phone...but use your source code! Notice, for instance, how the content in your tables may be misunderstood when read linearly, as it is written in HTML. Alternatively, if a user comes to your page by using a mobile device like a cellular phone or a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), will those devices -- which are far less forgiving of coding errors than the major desktop browsers -- still be able to display your page in a way that makes sense?
But how can you, as one solitary Webpage author, anticipate the increasingly varied means by which people access the Web, and still feel assured that your content will be accessible? Simple! As you work on your Website, take the time to review and then incorporate the "recommendations" (i.e., standards) of the World Wide Consortium (W3C), the international organization that develops the infrastructure of the Web. These recommendations include specifications for HTML, CSS and, yes, there are even Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. (For more information, click on the WWW Authoring Resources link from the main RPInfo page, then click on the Guidelines & Techniques link located at the top of the resulting page.) As any author who has struggled with the disparities in display between the two major browsers (not to mention all the different operating systems, etc.), we can only demand standard compliance from the big guys if we too are going to play by the rules.
To help learn these "rules," the RPInfo's WWW Authoring Resources page offers help and information and instruction on HTML, tips on producing images and image maps, and information on using JavaScript, validators, Web servers and, coming soon, Cascading Style Sheets. You will also find instructions which are specific to our campus computing environment, such as how you can publish your Webpages and register them with RPInfo. Of course, RPInfo's policies, guidelines and protocols for special requests are also listed. And for those of you who may already use an HTML editor to create your pages, RPInfo supports two such editors: Netscape's Composer and Macromedia's Dreamweaver. (Please refer to the WWW Authoring Resources page for workshop material information for these applications.) This page also contains links that allow you to download other popular Web-based software.
As always, if you have any suggestions as to how we can further develop and/or improve these Web authoring resources, or any other sections of RPInfo, please direct your comments via electronic mail to rpinfo-support@rpi.edu.
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