The following Chapter was deleted from the first edition of e-Research due to space constraints. Happily, these types of restraints are not as critical on the net, so we have presented here in both HTML and PDF format for use by readers.

Web CHAPTER: Web Site Construction

Some things cannot be spoken or discovered until we have been stuck, incapacitated, or blown off course for a while. Plain sailing is pleasant, but you are not going to explore many unknown realms that way.

David Whyte

Inevitably, e-researchers arrive at the point where they wish to publish their own content on the Web. Often this desire to publish happens at the end of the project, during the dissemination phase; but it might also be necessary to create a Web site to attract and inform participants, to gather data through surveys or to provide directions for research colleagues. Fortunately, the challenges of creating and maintaining a Web presence is becoming much easier and less costly, as the tools for page creation and site maintenance improve and the cost for storage and network access decrease.

In this chapter we discuss some of the major issues involved in creating and distributing content on the Net. However, we do not go into great detail about the actual mechanics of coding and programming for the Web. Instead, we provide pointers and links in the text and on the accompanying Web site to online tutorials and references that provide much greater detail for the interested e-researcher. A browse through any bookstore also provides a wealth of material offering in-depth advice and instruction at all levels of Web site construction and maintenance. Our goal in the chapter is to overview the “big picture” and guide e-researchers to select the type of support, training and assistance appropriate to their own skill, interest and expectations.

We have often been asked how hard is it to create your own Web site. At one level, the question is impossible to answer, since Web sites come in a tremendous variety of quality, purpose and size. The question is akin determining how difficult is it to paint a picture. Anyone can paint a picture, but only a very few have the talent, energy and commitment to create a painting of art museum quality. It is fair to say however, that anyone, with a minimal set of writing and design skills, and access to a set of software and hardware tools, can create a Web site that can both gather and disseminate information. By investigating the links in this chapter and completing some of the online tutorials provided, the e-researcher will be able to create a site that is adequate to effectively present content and interact with Net-based users.

The e-researcher may find that the prerequisite interest, time, skills and tools are not readily available, and thus, hiring of professional Web designers to create and maintain the site is a more practical alternative. This suggestion enviably leads to the question of how much does it cost to create a Web site? Again the only accurate answer is “it depends.” By reading this chapter and working through some of the links and tutorials listed, the e-research will be better able to set realistic expectations and estimate a budget for contracting with a Web developer. Further, the e-researcher will be an informed consumer of Web development services and be much better able to obtain value and high quality service from professional Web site developers.

Elements of Design

Regardless if the Web site is to be self designed by the e-researcher, or contracted to a professional, the e-researcher will need to have a clear expectation of the final product in order to create or commission the Web site. The best way to design a Web site is create a mental model of your site. Often this model is created by spending time cruising the Web and noting the design, layout and functionality of sites that you find particularly attractive or effective. An invaluable aide in this process is to create a logbook in which you note the feature that you like, as well as a companion file folder using your Web browser’s “bookmark” feature, so that you can easily return to it later. The elements of design that are crafted into a site and which you may note in your logbook as you tour the Web include:

• Basic layout: are there frames or images at the top or running along the side of the pages? Are these borders used for decoration and labeling or for navigational aides?
• Color: Is their color(s) that you find particularly effective or that make it difficult or easy to read the text?
• Font: what size, style and color is the text? Are there different fonts and sizes used on the site? How do different font size, style and color affect the readability of the Web site?
• Graphics: What sizes are the graphics? Are they line drawings, photos or animations? Do they enhance the site, provide information that cannot easily be transmitted through text?
• Background: What is the color, theme and any graphics or watermarks that form the background to each page? Does the background color enhance or reduce the readability of text on the pages?
• Navigation: How does the user navigate through the site? Are the pages long requiring extensive scrolling or short requiring frequent linking back for the next page? Is there a central home page where links to major site components are provided? Is there a site map to visually display the relationship among site components?
• Special effects: Does the site feature text animations or any other special effects such as mouse overs, animations, spinning or flashing graphics? Is sound used effectively? Does each of these design enhancements add real value to the site or only serve to distract the visitor?
• Interaction: Are forms attractive? Easy to find and complete? Are fields checked for completeness before entry is allowed?

The answers to these questions help define the look and feel of the site and ultimately the effectiveness of the Web site. Spending time developing a clear list of expectations or design guidelines may well be the most productive time on Web site development that the e-researcher spends. The time and learning commitment involved to actually code the pages and program interactivity may be better left to professional designers and programmers – the time designing and developing a conceptual model of the site can rarely be left to others! Vincent Flanders maintains a very useful site (and an accompanying book) entitled Web Pages that Suck.com at http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/ where “you learn good Web design by looking at bad Web design.” Having an expert point out mistakes on “real” sites is an easy and effective way to learn about Web page design. In particular, this kind of activity draws attention to the subtle factors that go into creating excellent Web page designs. The Web Developers’ Virtual Library at http://www.wdvl.com/Authoring/Design/ also provides links to a number of useful design tutorials including discussion of ways to make your site disability friendly.

Sketching a Mock-Up Site

From the list of features you find attractive, the e-researcher should next attempt to rough out thumbnail sketches (or a blueprint) of each page and the linkages between the pages. If the e-researcher is developing a Web site that will have a number of Web pages for different purposes, a “home page” should be developed. A home page is typically the first or default page in a Web site and is similar to a title page or a table of contents in a book. Don’t try to create a map on a home page that definitively overviews every page and every function – the site will evolve during construction. However this active planning process helps stake out the breadth and depth of your site. You will need this “blueprint” of your site to negotiate and contract with a professional developer or move to the next phase of actual page and site construction. If you decided to develop your own Web site, following are a few guidelines about Web page length, table of contents, navigational information, Web signatures and printable Web sites.

Web Page Length

The most important aspect to consider before deciding how long each Web page should be whether or not you want the information on the Web page to be read online. If so, there are two ways to consider how you want the information displayed. The first is to put all the information on one Web page and the second is to separate the information into “chunks” with links to “next page.” Both ways have pros and cons. Clicking to the next page may cause a loss of concentration for the reader while looking for the next page link or waiting for the information to transfer. On the other hand, after about four screens of text there is a tendency for readers to lose their context and get frustrated with the mechanism of scrolling. There is also an inability for readers to keep track of where information is located in the Web site. Therefore, a balance must be struck that takes both length and content into account. Irrespective of the format, however, is that each page should put across a well-defined idea or “section” of information – irrespective of length.

Another important aspect to consider is the development and maintenance of a “rhythm” to the Web pages. As Web pages for the study guide are created, a rhythm is established for the sections of information through the use of a consistent structure, font, titles, and layout. Learners will come to know this rhythm. Keeping the rhythm is more important than strictly adhering to page size conventions.

Keeping the above points in mind, the following is advice on Web page length.

1. Large Web pages will take the host server longer to transfer information to the learners. For those who visit your Web site that have Ethernet connections, this is not a problem. However, visitors who are accessing the Web using a slow modem, large Web pages are a problem. With slow connections, the wait for information transfer can take a substantial amount of time. This may result in wasted time for your Web site visitors while waiting for the information, as well as increased costs in connection time.
2. The use of the scroll bar to move down through large Web pages makes the text basically unreadable. This is a result of the screen movement, which causes readers to loose the place they were reading and leaves them disoriented.

We recommend textual Web pages should not exceed 5 half letter-sized pages (A4 or 8 ½ x 11 inches) if the Web page is designed to attract research participants and/or as an information page related to the study. Alternatively, if the Web site is used as dissemination of findings, we suggest one Web page with a table of contents linked to each section, irrespective of length.

Table of Contents

Table of contents (or page menus) should fit on 24 lines. Most Web browsers will display 24 lines on a Web page without the viewer having to scroll. Designing the table of contents in this way provides viewers with the full contents of the Web page and avoids the possibility that information may inadvertently be missed when it is not in view.

Navigational Information

Due to the nature of the Web’s structure, it is possible that visitors to your Web site will ‘jump’ in from anywhere – either by accident or on purpose. You cannot assume that your visitors will have followed the structure of your Web site, beginning at your home page. The ability of Web visitors to jump to pages from anywhere will especially be a problem if Web pages are a part of sequenced sections of information. Moreover, you should never underestimate the potential for your visitors to become disorientated on the Web, particularly if they are new users.

To help overcome the problem of disorientation with new users on the Web, you should provide a number of navigational cues on each page. On shorter pages (less than two screens of information) information about navigation can be placed at either the top or bottom of the page. On longer pages (more than two screens of information) navigation should appear at the top and the bottom. A more sophisticated alternative is to use frames or javscript or other active Web page languages that position navigational cues on the side of the screen and allow them to be visible despite scrolling of the reader.

Icons for Navigation

Many Web page designers use navigational icons to help their Web visitors “find their way around” (or navigate) on the Web site. However, we do not recommend the use of navigational icons. The following are reasons for the use of text labels (the use of words) rather than navigational icons.

• Presently there are no standards for graphic navigation buttons on the Web. What this means is that you cannot assume that your visitors will know the meaning of the navigational buttons chosen when going from one Web page to the next.
• You cannot assume that your Web visitors will be able to decode the navigation symbols. It should be noted that to overcome this problem some Web designers use text labels as well as navigational icons which, in the end, creates redundancy.

Finally, do not use the words back, next, previous, or forward as textual navigation links. These words lack explanatory power for many readers in a variety of circumstances. For example, if a visitor has unwittingly jumped to a Web page out of sequence, it may not always be clear, when a navigational link states back, whether ‘back’ will go back to the home page, back to the top of the current Web page, or back to the prior link. Navigational links should be described with phrases that provide enough description so all visitors will know where the links will take them. For example, rather than using the word back, it should be written as “back to the table of contents” or “back to the home page.”

Web Page Signatures

Your Web site visitors should be able to trace both the author and creator of the Web pages, in addition to the person (or people) who maintains the Web pages, which may not always be the same person. This is important for a number of reasons.

• If information is inaccurate (e.g., typing errors), it provides an opportunity the Web site visitor to notify you.
• If links become out of date, the visitor can inform you so it can be fixed or removed.
• If directions for how to proceed with the study and/or research information is confusing, it provides an opportunity for the visitor to contact you for clarification.
• It is a means for visitors to provide comments on what is good and what might be improved on the Web pages with respect to such things as layout, content, and linked information.

The signature section of Web pages should include the following information.

• A ‘mailto’ link. A mailto link is a link to an email address. On every Web page there should be a mailto link for both the e-researcher and developer. This information should be at the bottom of each Web page.
• A ‘copyright’ notice. Although all information is copyrighted without the copyright notice, placing one on every Web page will serve to remind visitors that the information on the Web page(s) belongs to you and/or your associated institution/funder and permission is required to use it.
• A ‘last modified’ date. In the same area as the mailto link and the copyright notice should also be the ‘last modified’ date (day, month, and year). This will inform visitors if Web pages have been modified after the date of creation.
• A ‘best viewed with’ notice. The Web pages should inform the viewers of which Web browser(s) and with what version the Web pages are best viewed. This can be omitted if all the Web pages can be read with the lowest version of every kind of Web browser.
• The ‘Web page address’. Every Web page should include its URL. Providing the URL for the current Web page may seem redundant, but is useful in two cases. First, if the viewer has linked to the current Web page from a Web page with frames, the current Web page URL will not be displayed in the Web address line of the Web browser. Secondly, it is possible to turn off the data display line when printing. Posting the URL in the signature line ensures the URL is provided in both of these cases.

Printable Web Sites

Not everyone will, or perhaps even can, read from a computer screen. Whatever the reasons for this, many of your Web site visitors will be printing the pages. As mentioned above, it is a good idea to keep the Web pages short primarily to avoid the need for excessive screen scrolling and transfer time. However, this can make printing Web pages difficult for two main reasons:

• Each Web page must be printed individually.
• Many of the Web pages will only be partially filled with text resulting in excessive waste of paper.

To overcome these printing problems, a version of your Web site should be created where all the information is in a single Web page. This will avoid the need for the research participants or visitors to print each page separately and the printed document comes out on consecutive, complete pages. This printable version should be included as a link in the home page with a brief explanation of what it is and why printing should be done from that site. There are two common approaches to creating printable pages. One method is to use the program Adobe Acrobat to create an Acrobat version of the documents. This version can be printed from almost any computer and the plugin application for displaying, saving and printing the file is already installed on most users, and readily available for free installation by those who do not have it installed. The Acrobat also provides a very minimal form of copy protection, as Acrobat files cannot be copied or edited without access to the commercial Acrobat program. The second common approach is to provide a link to a page that downloads the file in a popular word processing format (Rich Text Format (RTF) or a proprietary format such as Microsoft Word). This alternative creates longer files, which may have requirements for fonts or features not installed on the users machine, but it does allow the reader full editing and copying capacity. However, this alternative has the advantage of not requiring the purchase of any additional display or transmission products beyond the word processing package used to view and possibly edit the page.

Creating Pages

The creation of a Web site operates at two levels. At the site level, the look and feel of the over all design and the relationships and linkages between each page is carefully designed. At the page level, each individual page is coded in the language of the Web, HyperText Markup Language (HTML). Smaller sites are normally created by crafting each page individually. Increasingly, larger sites are created “on the fly” or dynamically from component parts stored in a database. This later method, allows for easier alteration and maintenance of large sites, but adds a level of complexity to the initial creation.

The “do it yourself” Web page creator can use a variety of tools designed to make the creation process easier and less time consuming. Fortunately, each generation of page creation tools provide better capacity and generally easy construction of more powerful and effective Web sites, than the early tools that proceeded them. At the lowest level, pages can be created using a simple text editor and manually entering the formatting, display and linkage commands of HTML. This lowest level offers the greatest control, but requires mastery of an ever-growing variety of HTML codes. Dedicated HTML editors can be purchased which provide some automation to this process, while still allowing direct control of the code. These HTML editors also error check the code and usually allow simultaneous previewing of the page as it is coded. Yahoo lists these at http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Software/Internet/World_Wide_Web/HTML_Editors/ and they are reviewed at the Web Developers Virtual Library at http://www.wdvl.com/Reviews/HTML/.

Moving up the automation level leads us to the use of features of the newer versions of word processing programs to create pages. These programs allow the user to create and format the page, including addition of graphics and tables and then using the programs “save as HTML” feature to automatically insert the HTML formatting codes. The use of word processing works well for simple page creation but does create limitations on the degree to which advanced HTML features can be used and with some packages, the HTML coding produced in the translation process is bulky and may generate errors.

It is also possible to create relatively simple Web pages using automated forms supplied by Web hosts or some Internet Service Providers (ISPs). For example Yahoo allows any user to use a variety of templates and ‘wizards’ to create and modify free personalized websites accessed through their portal at http://geocities.yahoo.com.

The most sophisticated tools for Web site creation combine Web page creation with management of the individual pages, creating an integrated site and management tool. These tools offer a host of ancillary services and are themselves large and complex; though, like modern word processing, even those who understand and use only a fraction of the program’s capabilities can effectively use the packages. The two most popular of these site development and maintenance programs are Macro Media’s Dreamweaver (www.macromedia.com/dreamweaver) and MicroSoft’s Front Page (http://www.microsoft.com/frontpage/; see http://desktoppublishing.com/reviews/ for reviews of both products). These packages allow page creation in WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) fashion, or through direct manipulation of the HTML code. They also support style sheets that allow global changes to be made that are administered on every page of the site. An interesting feature of these programs is a built in Web server and file transfer programs that allow the user to serve pages directly from their own machine or automatically mirror upgrades and changes to a site made on a local machine to a larger, more secure Internet host. Finally, both programs offer support for database integration, including the creation of entry forms that are critical for any Web-based survey input. It is beyond the scope of this text to overview all of the features of these programs, and the list of such features grows with each additional release. However, a check of the reviews published by Web magazines such as ZDNet (http://www.zdnet.com/) or or CNet (http://www.cnet.com/) as well as perusal of the manufacturer’s support pages for the products, will inform a purchasing decision. We nearly always find that the best product to purchase is the one that is supported by an employer, a friend or an informed co-worker. This type of formal or informal support for design and technical problems is usually the most valuable, timely and least expensive way to insure help when the inevitable problems or frustration that arise.

There are many excellent online tutorials, books and classroom courses available that provide detailed instruction on HTML page creation. For example Selena Sol provides a useful 3 part Web Design tutorial, with exercises at http://www.wdvl.com/Authoring/HTML/Tutorial/.

Graphics

Although graphic enhancement to a dissemination site is not an essential requirement, there are many ways in which graphics can be used effectively to enhance presentation, understanding and retention of Web site dissemination. The Web Reference site at http://www.webreference.com/graphics/ provides an extensive list of tutorials and guidelines for creating, compressing and displaying graphic images. Newer graphic scanners, costing less than $100.00 U.S., are now available that do a very adequate job of digitizing almost any graphic form for Web distribution. These scanners are also very easy to use and usually come with light versions of graphic editing, photo organization and optical character recognition software. It is also very easy to acquire images (right click and save) from other sites on the network, though this process can result in major copyright violations. Linda Cole provides a tutorial on the rights of both users and copyright owners and also provides suggestions for “watermarking” original designs to prevent unauthorized copying (see http://www.wdvl.com/Authoring/Graphics/Theft/). There are also free and paid subscription services available for clipart that can legally be included on your site (see Yahoo at http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Graphics/Clip_Art/) for a listing of many of these services. In addition some commercial art services provide use of free graphics in exchange for promotional links to the artist’s site. (see The Complete Guide to Free Graphics By Cynthia Johnston at http://www.webdesignclinic.com/ezine/v1i5/linkware/index.html).

The creation of custom graphics by a professional graphic artist is arguably the best (if not the most inexpensive) way to obtain graphic images. The price list in Figure 1 from Deco-rations (http://www.deco-rations.com/rates.html ) provides a guide line for the cost (in American dollars) of custom graphic services and the use of limited circulation “templates” which provide a professional ‘look and feel’ for the site.

http://www.deco-rations.com/rates.html

Forms and Interaction

Most e-researchers are interested in communicating with visitors in their site. In a dissemination Web site, communication can be handled by including a simple mailto link to the researcher, making it simple for visitors to privately email questions or suggestions. More interactive services are provided by a guest book or a full conference that allows visitors to read and comment on the ideas of other visitors and that encourages creation of a visitor community around the site. Some service providers offer simple conferencing or bulletin board services to customers as a component of their hosting service. Other firms suggest links to private discussion forms and guest books. These services are either delivered at a cost or supported through banner advertising that appears on each page of the discussion. For example, Broadhost provides a private conference board for visitors to your site that will support up o 300 messages per month at no charge. Broadhost will also provide the service without an advertisement banner attached to each message for $10.00 US per month for $10 (see http://www.boardhost.com/).

Often e-researchers are also interested in obtaining more structured forms of feedback from visitors to their sites and wish to include feedback forms, surveys or other kinds of questionnaires. There are many ways to incorporate such interaction into a site; however, they often require considerable programming skills, and there is a certain amount of risk associated with allowing anyone to input content into your site. Thus, the more interactive the Web site, the greater consideration must be given to Web site security. Interaction is of course critical to Web sites that are used to support Web-based surveys and the features of such sites are described in more detail in the survey chapter of this text.

At its simplest level, interactive forms can be created through the use of templates that are incorporated into Web site packages such as Front Page. One of these “Front Page Extensions” allows users to very quickly create and mount simple multiple choice and short answer quizzes or surveys. The results of these surveys are easily exported to spreadsheet or statistics packages for results. More customized forms can be created that check for completeness and accuracy of user input and can even display instant results. However, creating this more sophisticated type of form requires the programming skills and tools such as Javascript, Cold Fusion, Java or Common Gateway Interface (CGI). It is unlikely many e-researchers will find the time and skills necessary to develop quality interactive forms to be worthwhile, unless they are wishing to invest considerable time and effort to gain a completely new skill set. Usually, it is cheaper and faster to hire programmers to undertake such tasks. Alan Richmond from the Web Developers Virtual library provides listings and discussion of various tutorials and reviews of tools that aide in this type of programming at http://www.wdvl.com/Authoring/.

Obtaining Web Space

Web pages can be created and displayed on any computer; however, they only become useful as dissemination device vehicles when they are made accessible to others via the public Internet. There are three alternatives to providing your content on the Internet. The first involves serving the pages directly from your own computer. The second involves obtaining space to serve the content from your employers or educational institution’s server(s); and the third and final option is to rent (or exchange services for) space and hosting services from a commercial provider.

The personal hosting option that offers the most control for the e-researcher to publish on the Net is to install a Web server on the e-researchers own computer, connecting that computer to the Web, and publishing the pages directly. This alternative assumes that e-researchers have the skills necessary to maintain the server, provide adequate security from Internet hackers and can effectively back-up and continue providing services in spite of power, software or hardware problems. In addition, the Web server must be connected 24 hours a day to at least a relatively high-speed (Cable, LAN or ADSL) Internet connection. Service that is intermittent or provided only at low dial-up speed will not be able to provide adequate and reliable service. These prerequisite skills and access act as barriers to this lowest cost solution, and thus most e-researchers use the hosting services of their employer or a commercial server.

Most colleges, universities and even high schools in North America maintain Web servers; and thus, this is an attractive option for many educationally orientated e-researchers. Usually these hosts are backed-up on a regular basis, have at least minimal security provisions and are continuously connected to the Internet. In addition, professionals usually maintain them and the hosting services are provided to faculty and students at very low, to no cost. There may however, be restrictions on the amount of content that can be stored and served as well as prohibitions against certain types of service provision, especially commercial services. These restrictions are rarely of concern to the e-researcher. Nevertheless, it is prudent to read carefully the Acceptable Use Policy for the organization that is chosen to host the site. In addition, there may be labeling restrictions (such as demands to include the institution’s logo on every page) that apply to content served from an institutional site. A secondary benefit of using a reputable educational host is that the content becomes associated with the prestige and reputation of the host. This labeling can be very useful when recruiting participants or when there is a need to establish credibility with other researchers, funders or participants. For these reasons, as well as the low costs associated with this type of institutional service, use of affiliated institutional hosting is usually the preferred way for e-researchers to interact with participants and disseminate content.

A third option is to engage a commercial Web hosting service to provide Web space and network access. These services are very competitive and a search through local yellow pages, online searching using your city name and “Web hosting,” and referrals from colleagues are useful ways to obtain names and URLs of potential hosts. The often bewildering array of options available from commercial hosting suppliers may be slightly intimidating for novice Web publishers. The hosting meta site “Web Host Directory” at http://www.webhostdir.com/ has articles, forums and FAQs, as well as links to most large hosting services. It is a useful starting point site for the perplexed e-researcher, searching for a Web space provider. If the site design and construction is being contracted out, it is likely that the design firm will provide the hosting service themselves or have a recommended host with whom they have regular contact.

Cost of a Web Site

The cost of a Web site has three major components:

1. the cost of the initial construction, installation and training of personal to manage the site
2. the cost of hosting
3. the cost of maintaining and improving the site

As noted above the cost of the initial construction of a site varies enormously depending on size, complexity and functionality of the site. To this initial construction cost is often added the cost of training, so that routine maintenance and on going evaluation of the site can be undertaken by the e-researchers themselves.

The costs of hosting a site are determined by service levels, by the amount of traffic generated by the site, and by the competitiveness of hosting services. Some hosting services or server farms offer enhanced services such as monitoring site availability, reporting on site traffic, e-commerce services, alarm triggering if certain critical pages or functions are not functioning properly, redundancy and back ups, access to high level backend databases, and hosting of specific Web applications or development environments. The cost of providing hosting services, usually depends upon the amount of traffic at the site, since even the host provider must pay for access to the backbone services of the Internet. This cost is past on indirectly to the various Web site owners hosted by the server provider. Usually a charge is set for a minimal amount of traffic, and additional service charges kick in once traffic exceeds this minimum. The hosting charges are also determined to a large degree on the competitiveness of the local server market. Large national and international service providers, of the sort that advertise in the back of computer magazines, probably offer the most cost effective serving, but their service may be much less personal than that provided by a local hosting service. Prices for hosting services are very competitive and premiums are often given for long term contracts. Still, the continuing reduction of network access costs, suggests that a long term contract at today’s prices may seem prohibitively expensive in next year’s market.

Unfortunately, a Web site is never finished and the e-researcher/owner will always be thinking of ways to improve the site. If this type of ongoing development and maintenance is contracted out to a Web design expert, then the costs may preclude adequate and regular “tweaking” of the site. Thus, we suggest that the owner take the time to learn how to make small adjustments to the look and feel of the site or to edit specific information. Although there are many ways to manage a site, a small site is most easily maintained by working on a mirror copy of the site on the e-researcher’s local machine, using a program such as Front Page or Dreamwever, and then synchronizing the local pages with those on the host site. This technique allows the owner to “play with” the site, without worrying about destroying or damaging the actual production site.

Of course, no site can undersell the cost of hosting services that are given away at no charge! There are a number of sites that provide such free services – some doing so in exchange for the placement of their banner advertisements on your site. The past year has illustrated the impermanence of many “free” services on the Net; so the stability of the hosting company must be considered before using such services. One of the largest “free” hosting services is Geocities, owned by Yahoo at http://geocities.yahoo.com. Geocities provide up to 15 megabytes of file storage, site user statistics, and a variety of templates and wizards to aid in the design and construction processes.

Figure 2 illustrates the dissemination site created by Laura LaMonica (http://www.geocities.com/llamonica/instructorwbt.html) on GeoCities to disseminate the results of a Web-based survey. Her survey queried perception of best practices in Web-based instruction as perceived by both learners and instructors. Note the simple navigation bar on the left that links to other pages of interest. Do you think the color scheme enhances or detracts from the legibility of the text in this menu?

Tools for Attesting Accessibility and Quality in Site Creation

There is increasing interest in asserting that online (and other) services are accessible to citizens with a wide range of disabilities. To help Web developers design accessible sites, the Centre for Applied Special technology (CAST) has a site and a downloadable tool called BOBBY http://www.cast.org/bobby/ that conducts a series of tests on format, structure and syntax of the HTML coding used on a site. If the site passes these tests it is entitled to display the “Bobby” seal of approval. The “Bobby” standards are extracted from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) content Accessibility guidelines available at http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/ ).

Finally, we note a free site with a set of common tools for promoting and monitoring your site at http://siteowner.bcentral.com/. Siteowner.com provides the following services:

• A guideline and evaluation tool for the meta tags displayed at your site. Meta tags are used by search engine ‘spiders’ to find and categorize your site.
• A tool to automatically register your site with six of the major search engines.
• A tool to find sites that have active links to your site.
• A tool to check the spelling and links from your site.
• A tool to establish “partnership links” with a variety of e-commerce vendors for revenue generation or sale of merchandise such as books.
• A tool to build a privacy statement.
• A “fast counter” to count hits to your site.
• A tool to find how your site is linked by the major engines.

Tips for Creating a Web Site

• Before you begin developing your Web site, create a mental model that includes the basic layout, color(s), font(s), graphics, background, navigation, special effects, and interaction.
• Keep your Web pages relatively short (not to exceed five half letter-sized pages).
• Create a table of contents for the home page.
• Provide a number of navigational cues for each Web page.
• Place a signature on each Web page, which includes a “mailto” link, a copyright notice, a last modified data, and a Web page address.
• Offer a printable Web site.

Summary

Reviewing this chapter on Web site construction reminds us of the many diverse ways there are to create, locate and maintain a successful Web site. This chapter has merely pointed the e-researcher in directions for further investigation and certainly offers no single best solution for creating Web sites. Hopefully however the e-researcher will be inspired to check out many of the links listed above and spend time critically reviewing sites that they admire and find useful, as well as those they find that just “don’t make the grade.” Through such reviews, we develop a sense of the communicative power and limitations of the medium – knowledge that helps us build better and more functional sites.