CSC 251: HTML and Web Page Design

Introduction

The World Wide Web is the collection of all Web pages on the Internet. Those Web pages are, for the most part, written in hypertext mark-up language, or HTML. This language is made up of things called tags, and these tags have attributes. Learning what these different tags do and what attributes they can take is at the heart of making Web pages and designing Web sites. Several software applications are available for Web designers to use in making Web pages—these applications generate HTML code. Often, it is useful to know how this code is generated so that you can edit it, or so that you can make Web pages from scratch, without using an HTML generator application.

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Course Objectives

This course is focused on learning Web page design through learning HTML. Other courses on Web design may teach how to use one of the HTML generator applications I mentioned above. While those courses are useful, they normally do not go into the detail of HTML code that we will in this course. However, HTML code turns out to be quite easy, so you don't need any experience with programming. If you know how to use a Web browser and can type text into a document, you have all the necessary skills to start coding in HTML.

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Text

There is no required text for this course. The lesson notes serve as your text.

Optional

Watkins, Alan. Elementary HTML and Web Programming. 2004.

This is an excellent book to teach you basic HTML. To inquire about this book, contact Sharon McConathy at NC State University via e-mail or by calling 919-515-5221.

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Course Requirements

Reading

The reading for the course will be the lecture notes. Most of the reading is concerned with the tags and attributes of HTML. There are some lectures on elements that are used in Web page building that are not HTML—these are presented to introduce you to some of the other technologies used on the Web. These tangential subjects are courses in themselves and will only be touched on here.

Written Assignments

There are six assignments you will submit for grading, after Lessons 2, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10.

Final Project

As your final project, you will use all of the HTML you've learned in the lessons to build your own Web site. You may want to read the complete instructions for your final project before you begin the course and keep them in mind as you progress.

Final Exam

A comprehensive final exam taken at the end of the course will test your basic knowledge of HTML. The "tangential subjects" mentioned above will not be covered on the final exam—it will be strictly HTML. When you have finished all the course work, send me an e-mail and I will send you the final exam, which you will complete and send back to me.

Submitting work for this course

Your assignments should be saved using a filename that includes your first and last names, such as "Assignment5-Smith.html." You will send your assignments to be graded by clicking a "submit" button (at the bottom of the lesson) that opens a pre-addressed e-mail to me and the Self-paced Courses office. Send your assignments as attachments. The subject line will automatically include the course name and submission number. Please add your name to the subject line (at the end). By providing this information in the subject line, you make it easier for me and Student Services to track your progress, and keep your work separate from that of other students.

Grading

The percentage of your course grade assigned to each of the course requirements follows:

Each assignment will be given a numeric grade based on a 100-point scale. The corresponding letter grades are shown in the table below:

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Communication

The primary method of communication in Self-paced Courses is electronic. You will communicate with me and submit your assignments via e-mail. It is essential to inform me and Student Services of any change in your e-mail address.

Contact me with questions regarding the content of the course and your progress. There is an e-mail link to me at the top of every lesson page.

Contact the Instructional Designer at the Friday Center with problems with this Web site, including bad links.

If you have any nontechnical logistical questions as you work through the course (credits, transfers, withdrawal, extensions, and so on), contact Student Services at the Friday Center, telephone 919-962-1134 or 800-862-5669.

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Honor Code

You are bound by the Honor Code: "It shall be the responsibility of every student to obey and support the enforcement of the Honor Code, which prohibits lying, cheating, or stealing when these actions involve academic processes or University students or academic personnel acting in an official capacity."

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Lessons and Assignments Schedule

The course schedule is up to you. You can complete the course in as few as twelve weeks or take as long as nine months. The important thing is to get a good start, then maintain your momentum.

Since this course is not held in a classroom, I will probably never meet you in person. Still, I would like to know something about you so that I can associate each e-mail message from you with something more than a screen name. Therefore, your first task is to send me a Personal Information Sheet: Save this Word Document to your hard drive (or copy and paste from this Web page into your word processing program), fill it out, and attach it to an e-mail to me.

Then go on to Lesson 1.

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Lesson 1