Course
Portal

Notice Board

Course
Syllabus

Electronic
Communication
Requirement

Exercises
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]

Research
Paper

WebCT
Bulletin Board

WebCT
Chat Room

rulincam.gif (3015 bytes)

SOCIOLOGY AND THE INTERNET
Exercise 6: Creating Your Own Web Page

Robert E. Wood
Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Criminal Justice
Spring Semster 2000

rutgers_redline.gif (273 bytes)

As more and more groups and organizations find it useful to post information about themselves and their activities on the world wide web, a basic knowledge of web-page making is becoming almost as expected a skill of would-be employees as word-processing. Furthermore, knowledge of the basic language of the world wide web--HTML (hypertext markup language)--automatically makes one a potential publisher on the internet, and thereby an active partcipant in this new form of global communication.   Publishing on the web has been made much easier by HTML editors such as Netscape Composer.

What Your Web Page Should Include

The personal web page that you produce should include the following technical characteristics:

  • It should be written in HTML format. The use of Netscape Composer is encouraged.
  • It should contain more than one font size
  • It should contain examples of italics and bolding
  • It should contain a bulleted or numbered list
  • It should contain at least three personally-chosen and sociologically-relevant hypertext links
  • It should contain at least one personally-chosen image (gif or jpg)
  • It should be properly loaded into a html subdirectory of your clam or eden account and made publicly accessible
  • It should be readable by a Netscape browser
  • It should be printable (no white against black backgrounds)
  • It should not include inappropriate content (no profanity or pornography please)
  • While I leave the exact content up to you, I do ask that everyone include a description of his/her virtual community research topic and a set of at least three URLs (separate from the ones above) that you recommend for someone interested in your topic.

You are encouraged to experiment with other HTML features (such as background color, horizontal lines, tables, etc.) but this is not required. In many cases, simpler is better; I am particularly in agreement with Jakob Nielson that frames suck (most of the time). 80% of your grade for this project will be based on satisfactory inclusion in your web page of the features listed above; 20% will be based on overall presentation and content.

Note: if you already have a personal home page of your own, what I would like you to do is to create a second page with the above-mentioned characteristics and link it to your original home page. 

Using Netscape Composer to Create Your Web Page

We will go over in class how to use Netscape Composer, which is easily accessed when you run Netscape Communicator.  The Rutgers Computing Services has created a document:

How Do I Use Netscape as an HTML Editor?

that provides detailed instructions on various Netscape Composer options.  Some of the same information, plus instructions about preparing your clam account to house web pages and them placing the pages in the appropriate subdirectory, is available in the RUCS document,

Creating a WWW Page on Clam Using Netscape Composer

Additional Resources for Web-Page Construction

The following sites offer a wide variety of free graphics of various sorts for your web pages.

Clip Art Universe doesn't have as many choices as some other sites, but it is easy to navigate and find the category you want.

Barry's Clip Art Server has a huge selection of clip art, backgrounds and more, but it takes some effort to figure out how to navigate the site.

Border Backgrounds includes a variety of backgrounds you can download, with a design on the left and a plain color on the right.

Clip Art Review provides a wide range of links to specific categories of free clip art.  It's definitely worth exploring.

The Rutgers Image Archive has a large number of images that you can link to directly, without having to download them into your own account. Be sure to include the full address of the images, not just the file name (http://www-nbcs.rutgers.edu/Images/[subdirectory/filename]). Alternatively, you can download them directly into your account.

iBAND Clip Art Mega Site is easy to navigate and includes a good collection of animated gifs.

anihacker.gif (7159 bytes)

Student Web Pages from Previous Sections of This Course
(note: some links no longer work)

Return to Sociology and the Internet course home page

Jan. 6, 2000