Selected Links to Site-Level Authoring Tools

Author: Samuel A. Rebelsky rebelsky@math.grin.edu
Version: 1.1 of November 1998

This page is under development.

These are some useful links to resources for building course webs. It is not intended as anything near a comprehensive list, as tools and links change regularly. Rather, it is intended as a starting point for explorations.

This page can be found online at http://www.math.grin.edu/~rebelsky/Tutorials/SiteLevel/Webnet1998/links.html.

Selected academic site-level authoring tools

• ASML limited platforms
• HtX LaTeX-based
• Siteview hard to obtain, but interesting to study
• StyleGeezer hard to obtain, but interesting to study
• Webmapper Macintosh-based, educational focus
• WebCT now commercial, educational focus
• For information about Siteweaver, send email to rebelsky@math.grin.edu

Page verification

• Weblint, a nice Perl script for checking pages.
  • Yahoo's weblint links
• The World-Wide Web Constoritum's (W3C's) HTML Validator.
  • You can also use http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=your-url.
  • For example, validate this page (or learn about HTML errors).

Server-side includes (SSI) and related technologies

• Yahoo's index
• NCSA's Documentation (the core of SSI).
• Apache's version (more commands, but many only supported on the newer Apache servers).
• ASP, Microsoft's active server pages include an SSI-like component. This is a general ASP help site.
  • A writing guide for ASP

Cascading style sheets

• The base page at W3C
• The official cascading style sheets level 1 recommendation/description

Other utilities

• html2ps, useful for turning HTML pages (or sequences of HTML pages) into printed documents. I use this for making booklets and slides.
• w3mir, useful for making copies of pages.
• The Perl Institute, a good starting place for information about Perl. Perl is also used for Weblint and html2ps.

Papers and articles

• Gentler: A Tool for Systematic Web Authoring by Harold Thimbleby
• Webmapping: Planning, Structuring, and Delivering Courseware on the Internet by Howard Freeman and Steve Ryan
• Alertbox, Jakob Nielsen's regular column on web design
• An evaluation of course web tools, from the University of Manitoba.

Other resources

• William Milheim's Web-Based Instructional Resources Site (taken from a not-so recent issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education)
• Yahoo's section on Page Design and Layout
• Various resources from my Site-level authoring tutorial

History

Version 1.0

Released September 1998.

Prepared for the 1998 Midwest Conference of the Consortium for Computing at Small Colleges.

Available online at http://www.math.grin.edu/~rebelsky/Talks/CCSCMW1998/links.html.

Version 1.1

Released November 1998.

Prepared for a tutorial at the Webnet 1998 World Conference on the WWW, Internet, and Intranet.

Available online at http://www.math.grin.edu/~rebelsky/Tutorials/SiteLevel/Webnet1998/links.html.