Topic 1. HTML/XHTML (XHTML Standards)  Basic Concepts:
Creating a Basic Web Page

Topic 2. User Centered Design: Needs Analysis and Design Planning

Topic 3. CSS for Style and Layout (External CSSLevel2 Standard)

Topic 4. Accessibility Validation, and Usability Testing

Topic 5. CSS Navigation Menus and Basic Forms

Topic 6. Designing with Javascript: Cute vs. Functional;
Overview of Content Management Systems/Web Database Options and Designing with Multi-Media: Reviewing the Options

Return to top

Overview

This hands-on course focuses on the basics of Web site planning, design, Web standards, and construction. The course will also examine accessibility, usability, multi-media and CMS basics. Students will complete needs assessment and design plan worksheets for a project of their choice. Students will complete Laboratory Activities to develop xhtml and external CSS construction skills, and validate xhtml and CSS standards. Practice in accessibility validation and simple usability testing will complete a solid grounding in good practices.

This is a primarily asynchronous seminar, allowing participants to work through course material at times convenient to them. The instructor will provide feedback to all completed work via email. Participants may also choose to schedule online chat time with the teacher, as they feel necessary.

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

Return to top

Audience

Librarians and other information specialists who want to learn to design usable, accessible, standard Web pages that will attract the intended users and encourage and invite them to persist and return to the site.

Experience working with the library patrons in any subject area chosen is assumed. Level of instruction is beginner in regard to XHTML/CSS and Web design experience.

Participants must understand paths -- directories or folders and where files are saved -- in a Windows or Mac OS environment. FTP or other experience uploading Web pages to a Web server will be expected. Some basic assistance will be provided.

Participants should know how to use e-mail and a current standard Web BrowserFirefox, Chrome, Safari or IE 7.0 or higher is preferred.

Some HTML/XHTML or HTML editor experience will be useful. HTML/XHTML basics will be reviewed.

Return to top

Tuition and Registration

Register anytime to work-at-your-own-pace with a Web teacher through e-mail, chat and Moodle. $275 - 30 hours.

Course Material:

All of the readings and Laboratory Activities for the course will be available on-line but it will be useful to have available the references in the Materials listed below.

*Strongly for those students who come to class with no HTML experience.
**Only for those students who come to class with HTML and CSS experience.

Return to top

About the Web Teacher
Diane K. Kovacs Picture

Diane K. Kovacs is President of Kovacs Consulting - Internet &Web Training.She has been a Web Teacher and Consultant for nearly 20 years. She designs and teaches Web-based and in-person courses for organizations and individuals including UIUC GSLIS LEEP, SJSU SLIS, ALAEditions, ACRL, MLA, and others. Diane has been designing and teaching Web-based and in-person MLA Approved CE Courses since 2001

Her most recent book is 7 Steps to Effective Online Teaching forthcoming from ALA Editions. The Kovacs Guide to Electronic Library Collection Development: Essential Core Subject Collections, Selection Criteria, and Guidelines, 2nd Edition was published in 2009 by Neal-Schuman Publishers. The Virtual Reference Handbook: Interview and Information Delivery Techniques for the Chat and E-Mail Environments Neal-Schuman Publishers (2007) was published concurrently in the United Kingdom by Facet Publishers (2007).

Diane Kovacs is the 2000 recipient of the "Documents to the People" award from the Government Documents Roundtable of the American Library Association. She was also the recipient of the Apple Corporation Library's, Internet Citizen Award for 1992 and was the University of Illinois Graduate School of Library and Information Science Alumni Association's first recipient of the Leadership Award in 1996.

Diane received an M.S. in Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois in 1989 and an M.Ed. in Instructional Technology from Kent State University in 1993. She has a B.A. in Anthropology also from the University of Illinois, 1985.