Assignments
Due Dates: Due dates are listed for each project. In each case, the assignment is due at the end of the
class period on the due date. Late assignments will receive a 4 points per (calendar) day (or fraction
thereof) late penalty.
Length: All assignments must be typed (or word-processed) and must be double-spaced; use page
numbers. Margins must be at least one inch (1") on all sides. Staple assignments in upper left corner; do
not provide folders with your work. Where page estimates are specified, they are gauged at a font size of
11; students using a larger font should assume their texts can be about one-third longer. I will quit
reading at the end of the page restriction. Hence, if your main point occurs after the maximum number of
pages for the assignment, it will be lost.
Format: Not only will I grade on the basis of the content of the material, but also the presentation of the
material. I expect the writing to be of the caliber of college graduates; I expect good grammar and accurate
spelling.
| Web Page | Usability and Functionality | Tools Evaluation | Bells and Whistles | Client Project |
 Individual Assignment
1. Create a Web Page: Develop or enhance your Web Page. For this assignment, you will create a
personal home page, and put it up on the World Wide Web (WWW).
- Your page must have a theme that is displayed in the background, icons and layout of the page. You
must include at least two images or graphics on your home page. You may either copy the image to your
html directory, or you may create a direct link to the image's original site.
- You must also include one or more tables in the design of your page.
- Your home page must have a title (what the browser displays at the top of the window). I suggest you
call it Home Page of <your name>, but you can use any title.
- The page must include some basic information about you, and some links to sites related to you and your
interests, and must include something interesting about yourself.
- The body of the personal home page should have your name and e-mail address. Make use of the
available headings to give a professional appearance to your page. The e-mail address should include a
"hot link," so that any person with proper settings in their browser should be able to send you a message
directly from your home page. Also include a form that allows readers to provide some structured feedback
about a topic of interest to you.
- Secondly, you will have a section describing yourself. You might entitle it "About Me." In this section you
should include links to the WWW page for this class, the IS Area, the College of Business Administration
and the University of Missouri - St. Louis. State your education background, and include a link to other
colleges and universities you have attended. If you are employed, state where you work, and include a link
to the company home page if it exists. You may then include any additional information you would like to
share with us (remembering that the page can be accessed by anyone in the world). If there are sites
related to this information, include a link to them.
- Another section will include information about your interests, hobbies, etc.; you might entitle it "My
Interests and Favorite Links." Search the Web and find pages which relate to your interests. You must
include at least four more links of your choice.
- Another section will include information about your professional interests. This might be technological
pages you believe to be interesting. Or, it might include information of interest to your current employer, job
or industry. You must include at least four more links in this area.
- You are free to add more and make your page more interesting and "cool."
- Your personal home page file should be named "index.htm" or "index.html." If you created the page in
Windows, you will need to transfer it to the html directory on your Admiral account. This directory is the
public directory. You can do this transfer using the FTP program demonstrated in class. However,
remember that every time you make changes to your page in Windows, you must transfer the page again to
your Admiral account.
After you create your home page, ensure that all of the links are working properly. Once your page has passed the
final quality check, send me an email message providing me with the location of your page. On or before the due
date, print a copy of your home page and turn it in.
- Due Date: July 5, 2001
Group Assignments
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Students will work in groups of 2-3, which will be created randomly by the instructor. However, she will take into
account students' preferences for group members. No later than June 22, each individual must email the
instructor with a list of names of individuals with whom he or she does want to work and a list of names of
individuals with whom he or she would prefer not to work. Groups should be announced no later than June 28.
2. Usability and Functionality: Explore three non-UMSL class Web pages in a particular discipline.
Complete the Home Page Evaluation sheet for each and provide a critical appraisal of what
you find at each site. This critique should include answers to at least the following questions.
- What is the purpose of the professor in developing the site?
- Does the site convey a positive or useful message for the university?
- Who is the intended audience?
- What information content is provided?
- What functions are provided?
- Does the student conduct business at the site? How?
- Is the site well designed from the point-of-view of clarity, ease of use, speed of access?
- How well does the site use design and layout features?
- Is the site aesthetically pleasing?
- What are the benefits of the structure provided by the professor?
- What does the university do to provide a competitive advantage?
- What features (security, transaction management, information collection,
navigation, search engine, site map, index, help, easily available policies) does the site support?
- How broad is the coverage of the content?
Summarize what you have learned by examining the different sites. Consider the following questions.
- Are the sites useful?
- Are different strategies being employed?
- Would you recommend any professor's approach over the others?
- How do you think these sites will evolve?
- Can you develop a general framework that will help other companies in this industry design their
Web sites?
- Due Date: July 5 (Presentations in class on date due)
- Length: maximum 5 pages plus the evaluation sheets
3. Tools Exercise: There are many ways of creating web pages. The professor's
preference is to code HTML with the text editor, Textpad. Many people use Netscape Composer primarily because
it is free. The Campus Web Office uses Net Fusion. Still others take their word processors (campus standard is Microsoft Word) and save their files to HTML.
However, there are many other products available in the marketplace. Some of them are:
- Adobe PageMill
- Allaire
- Astound Dynamite
- Atrax The Web Publisher
- Claris Home Page
- Corel Web.Designer
- Drumbeat
- Emissary Desktop 2.0
- Globetrotter
- Gonet GoLive
- HomeSite
- HotDog
- HoTMetaL Pro
- HTML Assistant Pro
- Lograf HTMLtool 3.5d
- Macromedia Dreamweaver
- Microsoft FrontPage
- MyInternetPage
- Netscape Navigator Gold 3.0
- Personal Web Page Designer
- Pictorius iNet Solo
- popsite
- Splash! 1.0
- Texture
- Web Factory Pro Image 1.1g
- Web Publisher 1.1
- Web-It 2.2
- Webber
- WebberActive 4.0
- WebEdit Pro
- WebSuite2
The task of your group will be to select one of these products and review it. Your selection must be approved so
that each group does a different product. Try to get a demo version of the product, and do a "test drive". Check the industry magazines (both
online and in print) for information about the product. Then, tell us about the product and whether or not it is worth the money and
effort to learn. Among the issues you must discuss is a comparison of this product to each of the "standard" ways of creating
a web page (coding html, Netscape Composer, NetObjects Fusion and saving a wordprocessor file). We will discuss some
metrics in class.
- Due Date: July 18 (Presentations in class on date due)
- Length: no length restriction -- report should be a web page. (Print out page(s) to turn in the day of the presentation).
4. Bells and Whistles: One of our tasks this semester is to provide
some general documentation for faculty from the College of Business Administration who want to do their web pages "on their own." These
tasks may vary from something so basic (and essential) as "how do I get an account" to "how do I add scrolling text to my webpage" or "how
do I randomly select quotes to put on my webpage?" We will, as a class, create a list of these items and distribute them to the
groups. For the assigned topics, each group will create a tutorial using a basic template. These tutorials will
be presented in class for critique.
- Due Date: July 26 (Presentations in class on date due)
- Length: no length restriction -- report should be a web page. (Print out page(s) to turn in the day of the presentation).
5. Client Work: Each team would have a faculty member
for whom they need to create (or update) a home page AND transform all of
his/her class materials for the Fall onto the Web. In order to get credit
for the class, "your" faculty member must be "ready to go" with all of his
or her materials for the Fall semester on the web. In addition, you must
train the faculty member on how to update his or her pages in the future; a
"deliverable" would be a set of web-based (or paperbased) documentaton to
which the user (probably novice) might refer in the future to maintain his
or her site. Among the faculty members for whom we will be working are Professors Kuehl, Eyssell, Ganz,
Kozloski, Coster, Ganz' friend, Winter, Duncan and Grattendick.
- Due Date: before you get a grade (Presentations in class on August 2)
- Length: not applicable; You must provide a url for the materials and a written statement
from your client that he or she is ready to go and is trained.
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