SAS Guide to Publishing on the World Wide Web

1. About This Guide
2. What Is the World Wide Web?
3. The SAS Web and You: Where We're Headed
4. Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Your Web
5. Resource Guide for Web Providers
6. Content and Style Guidelines and Recommendations
7. Policy Statement: The Fine Print
8. Glossary of Terms for the Non-Specialist

An electronic version of this guide can be found on the World Wide Web at this location: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/www-guide.html.

The World Wide Web allows links to connect pages to one another easily. For example, if you are looking at this document on the Web, the word "browser" in the previous paragraph is a link to a document which lists a number of World Wide Web browser programs. Web pages can contain links to other pages, to text files, to sound files, to animations and graphics, and even to programs! An organized group of linked pages is called a "web" or "web site."

The links between Web pages make it very easy to explore the Web. You can find a lot of information just by tapping an arrow key or clicking a mouse a few times. This power and ease of use is easier seen than described. If you do not have a browser, call your computer support person and request one.

Much more information about WWW is available by using your favorite browser to connect to http://www.w3.org

More and more students are already using the World Wide Web. Thousands of people from around the world consult SAS webs each day. Therefore the School of Arts and Sciences is encouraging you to publish information about your group (your department or other recognized group) on the Web. Both Penn and SAS have the beginnings of a wonderful web, but we need you. Your web will be a vital part of the SAS Web.

A departmental web will work like an electronic bulletin. You can publish basic information about your department: undergraduate and graduate programs, course listings, class schedules, faculty descriptions, and calendars of events. You can also publish other information that would never fit in a paper bulletin, such as faculty projects, pictures of your staff, or course materials. You can even publish news and announcements. Any information you currently have in PennInfo or on a Gopher or in printed brochures and bulletins can now be accessible in one place -- your group's web. You can include text, pictures, sounds, and even small video clips.

There are several advantages to having this information on the Web.

• You can change any part of your information almost instantly.
• People from around world can consult the latest information at any time.
• You can save printing and mailing costs (by giving people the address of your web instead of mailing them a package of paper).

You can put nearly any information on your web, at any time, and you can change it almost instantly. It's an exciting prospect, and its time has come.

Fortunately, it's easy to move information onto the web, and we'll show you how. SAS Computing staff are providing training and support to allow each department to create and maintain its own web. The rest of this guide explains how you can be a part of the SAS Web. If any of this Guide seems difficult at first, remember that we can train you how to do each step.

1. Identify a Web Provider for your group
2. Identify a Web server that your group will use
3. Collect the information you want to publish on your web site
4. Convert the information into HTML
5. Test your documents
6. Announce your web site to the world

Identify a Web Provider for your group

The Web Provider is an individual who should be more or less permanently associated with your group. The responsibilities of the Web Provider are:
• Designing the initial Web pages
• Converting to HTML any documents to be made available
• Keeping the group's web information accurate and up-to-date
• Participating in a mailing list for Web Providers within SAS
• Being a contact person for SAS Computing for the department's Web support

The Web Provider could, of course, delegate tasks to students or other individuals. Web Providers and their delegates are eligible to receive training (see "Resource Guide for Web Providers" below).

Identify a Web server that your group will use

All groups within SAS are eligible to use the main School of Arts and Sciences Web server, www.sas.upenn.edu. In order to use that server, the Web Provider for the group must have an account on mail.sas.upenn.edu. Note that certain restrictions apply when using www.sas as your server.

Alternatively, some departments (the Economics Department, for example), maintain their very own Web servers. If you are unsure what servers are available for you to use, check with your local computing support person or contact SAS Computing.

Collect the information that you want to publish on your web site

The next step is to begin assembling all the information that you want to publish on your web site (your web). Good sources of this information often include whatever printed materials you hand out about your group (e.g., brochures, newsletters). Additionally, SAS Computing has compiled content guidelines (see below) to help you identify what types of information should be included on your Web site.

Convert the information to HTML

Once you have assembled all the information you want to publish, you need to convert it to a form usable on the Web: HTML. (HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language.) There are many on-line references that explain HTML, how to write it, and list the many tools available to you as a Web Provider. See the "Resource Guide for Web Providers" below for some links to help you get started.

Additionally, see the "Resource Guide for Web Providers" below for information on training, scanning, support, etc.

Test your documents!

Once you have completed the conversion to HTML and placed your documents on whichever server you've chosen to use, it is critical that you test your documents with a WWW browser (or two) to check that all the links in the document work, and that the information in the document is accurate and appears as you planned.

Announce your web site to the world!

Depending on how widely you want to advertise your information, you may wish to contact the following to ask that a pointer to your Web site be included:
• To add your link to www.sas, send your e-mail request to webmaster@www.upenn.edu.
• To announce your Web site to Internet-wide catalogs, visit Submit it!, a page which helps you submit information about your site to the many Internet WWW search engines.

You also may want to consider publishing the address of your Web site in your group's future printed materials (for example, brochures).

• Training
• The SAS WWW Server
• Educational Technology Services
• Other Resources

Training

1. How to Use WWW Browsers
2. How to Create a Home Page
3. How to Develop and Maintain a Departmental Web

If you desire training, contact webmaster@sas.upenn.edu.

The SAS WWW Server

SAS Computing strongly encourages the use of the central server, www.sas, or other SAS-administered department machines (i.e. Math, Economics, Chemistry, English) for web server use. If, for whatever reason, your department or group wishes to use another machine as its web server, please contact webmaster@sas.upenn.edu. One of the SAS Web Administrators will contact your department to determine whether or not this is feasible.

Educational Technology Services (ETS)

The Prep Center is open weekdays from 9:00 am to 4:30 pm. You may call the Prep Center at 898-9892.

In addition, Muk Rao from Multi-Media Services, is available by appointment for consultation on Web publishing and other related topics. You may call Multi-Media Services at 898-9892.

Other Web Resources

• Ann Dixon of SAS Computing has written a document to help Penn WWW Developers.
• The Beginner's Guide to HTML is an excellent how-to guide on writing HTML documents.
• CERN's Virtual Library contains links to almost every Web provider resource available.
• Williamette's document on Composing Good HTML is invaluable.
• The HTML Quick Reference Guide is a handy tool for those who want to get started quickly.
• The newsgroup upenn.net.www is a forum for discussing issues about the Web at Penn (available to clients in the .upenn.edu domain only).
• The Netscape Extensions to HTML include information on adding centering, font sizing, tables, backgrounds, and dynamic updating to your documents.

web-builders@sas.upenn.edu is a mailing list for all SAS Department Web Builders. It will be used by the Web Staff to provide up-to-date SAS Web information. To subscribe to this list, send mail to majordomo@sas.upenn.edu, with only the following line in the body of the message:

subscribe web-builders

1. Know Your Audience: Content Recommendations
2. Style Recommendations
3. Departmental Web Templates
4. Selected Style Guides and HTML Tutorials on the WWW

Know Your Audience: Content Recommendations

A departmental web is an information resource for various groups with very different needs. Some of these groups may be:
• Faculty
• Undergraduates
• Graduate Students
• Prospective Students
• Prospective Donors

You should include information in your web that will be used by as wide an audience as possible.

Faculty

The web is a wonderful academic resource for teaching and access to research materials. Jim O'Donnell, Classical Studies, has developed New Tools for Teaching, materials which describe using Internet-based resources for teaching. Other course materials are accessible on the Philae web server. You may also wish to explore some of the available virtual libraries for useful, discipline-specific subject matter:
• The WWW Virtual Library at CERN
• Yahoo, at Stanford
• Planet Earth
• Global Network Navigator
• EINet Galaxy

SAS Computing maintains a list of academic resources available on the School of Arts and Sciences Web.

Undergraduates

The College of Arts and Sciences requests that specific information be made on departmental webs which will help them present a coherent structure to undergraduates. These recommendations are:
• The departmental web should include a separate page with information relevant to undergraduate students; the College will then be able to link to department-specific topics from its own web.
• This page should include links to pages for majors, prospective majors, and students interested in taking one or two courses.
• The departmental web should include a page describing research experiences available for undergraduates. Brief biographies of your faculty and their areas of interest would also be helpful.
• You should consider appropriate ways to make course information available through your web. Minimally, you should have a current list of course numbers and titles that the department offers from time to time. It would also be useful if your web could indicate which of those courses you expect to field in the next semester. Some departments have also published syllabi from courses from the current or upcoming semesters.
• Please consider organizing course information according to such broad categories as the following:
  • Courses for freshmen only
  • Courses especially appropriate as entry points to the major
  • Courses listed in the various General Requirement sectors
  • Intermediate Courses intended primarily for majors
  • Advanced Courses (undergraduate and graduate) appropriate for majors
  These categories may not be mutually exclusive, but the World Wide Web allows for redundancy with appropriate links.

Graduate Students

As with the web area for undergraduates, a separate page for graduate students would be helpful. The following are suggestions for inclusions on this page:
• Links to funding resources are very significant to graduate students. The Graduate Division maintains information on packages for which GAS students are eligible and on the federal competitions in the Fall.
• Graduate policies and procedures are listed in the Vice Provost for Graduate Education Web site. The departmental graduate student are should point to the official graduate policies and procedures.
• Course information for graduate students should have a listing on a separate web page.

Prospective Students

The departmental web should contain an admissions area which contains the brochure and printed material currently distributed. Additional links to other areas of your web may be useful:
• Faculty research information;
• Course information;
• How to contact the department for more information, with the email address of the department (for both undergraduate and graduate inquiries), phone number and the snail mail address;
• Graduate catalog information.

Prospective Donors

You may wish to contact the Office of External Affairs to discuss their recommendations for your group's web site.

Style Recommendations

It will make sense to consult these recommendations after you have learned a little HTML.

The single most important style consideration when developing a web is that all browsers do not have the same capabilities, and an effective web design should work well with the spectrum of browsers available. In particular:

• Do not use experimental HTML which will "break" a browser.

• While it is reasonable to use HTML that is browser-specific, you should make sure that your document looks presentable on other browsers too. For example, the use of the <center> tag was first implemented for the Netscape browser. You should make sure that other browsers such as Mosaic and Lynx display your page with pizazz, even though they ignore the <center> tag.

• The use of inlined images (images juxtaposed with text) is an effective way to present information. However, many Lynx users will not be able to see this information. You should therefore include alternative text with "alt=" which will replace the image when displayed in Lynx. For example, if you are using an icon inside an anchor to point to the SEAS Web, you should make sure that the information represented by the icon is also available to text-only browsers:

  is represented as:

  <a href="http://www.seas.upenn.edu/">
<img src="/Icons/seas.tiny.gif" alt="School of Engineering and Applied Science">
</a>

• Imagemaps are a popular form of presenting menu choices. (These are images that let you click on different parts to see different pages. They are also known as "active images," "clickable maps," and "ISMAP images.") However, because Lynx users cannot use the imagemaps, you should also provide a "text only" page which presents these choices. On the imagemapped page, include an anchor to your text-only page with an explanation such as:

  A textual representation of this page is also available.

  The SAS Home Page is an excellent example.

• Additionally, the departmental home page should have a link back to the SAS home page:

  <a href="http://www.sas.upenn.edu/">SAS Home Page</a>

• Departmental web pages should use relative links when possible. For example, use:

  <a href="myfile.html">Link to My File</a>

  where possible, instead of:

  <a href="http://www.sas.upenn.edu/mydept/myfile.html">Link to My File</a>

• Every departmental home page should have an email address of the Web Provider listed at the bottom of the page. Some software supports the use of "mailto," so we suggest that a mailto link be included, similar to this link to the webmaster:

  Send mail to <a href= "mailto:webmaster@sas.upenn.edu">webmaster@sas.upenn.edu</a>

  Alternatively, a forms-based mail interface can be used; the SAS Web has a comment form, and the College Web has an excellent example of using this mail interface for questions.

• It is very helpful to indicate the date on which each page was last modified.

• If possible, you should not move the location of or remove a Web page without leaving a forwarding address of the new page. For example, African Studies Web was moved from one machine to another to accommodate its space requirements, and a notice of a new URL (location) was installed at the old location.

Departmental Web Templates

We have prepared a collection of files that you are welcome to copy and use as templates when developing your department's web. The template's home page contains the links to the full collection of files.

Selected Style Guides and HTML Tutorials on the WWW

A Beginner's Guide to URLs

NCSA's guide to the addresses used on the World Wide Web. A good place to start, particularly the HTTP section.

A Beginner's Guide to HTML

NCSA's tutorial for learning HTML.

HTMLQuickRef

NCSA's Quick Reference Guide for HTML.

Style Guide for Online Hypertext

Tips from CERN about how to organize hypertext materials.

Composing Good HTML

Williamette's Do's and Don'ts of HTML composition for improved readability.

Netscape Extensions to HTML

Information about new HTML features, such as centering, font sizing, and backgrounds.

"Individuals and groups within SAS" are defined as:

• Any faculty member, research or visitor with a primary appointment within the School.
• Any staff member employed by the School, or by a department or group within the School.
• Any student enrolled in the School, graduate, undergraduate, or CGS.
• Any recognized department, graduate group, program, center, or other group within the School.
• Any individual or group using SAS-owned computing equipment to publish information.

University-Wide Policies Apply

• Network Acceptable Use Policies
• University Policies & Procedures
• University Policy on Patent and Research Property, including information on intellectual property rights.

Copyright Concerns

• United States Copyright Office
• U.S. Copyright Act of 1976 (As Amended, 1994)
• U.S. Supreme Court decisions applying to copyright, patent and trademark issues
• Copyright Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) from Ohio State University

Appropriate Use Statement

With regard to publishing information on the World Wide Web, users or groups may be required to remove materials from a PennNet-connected Web server if:

• Excessive bandwidth is consumed by users outside of PennNet accessing the information, AND
• The information is of questionable academic value

Other Restrictions

For security reasons, support of Common Gateway Interface (CGI) scriptson www.sas will be restricted solely to scripts and utilites written or approved by the SAS Web administrators. SAS Staff will review all CGI programs written by Web Providers before use.

Common Gateway Interface (CGI)

a system by which a Web server can access local computer programs to create new Web pages

HyperText Markup Language (HTML)

a method of using tags to format a plain text document for the World Wide Web

page

a document on the World Wide Web

Web

the World Wide Web

web

any organized group of linked pages on the World Wide Web

Web browser

a program that lets a user see Web pages and interact with them

Web Provider

someone who puts publishes and maintains a web

Web server

a computer system that contains HTML files and converts them into Web pages

web site

another term for a web

World Wide Web (WWW)

a hypertextual delivery system for information on the Internet

Universal Resource Locator (URL)

the unique address (location) of any Web page; for example, the URL of this page is http://www.sas.upenn.edu/www-guide.html