Course Information

Course Overview

The purpose of this course is to provide students with an understanding of advanced web design and development skills. Skills that will be covered include: XHTML, enhanced layout design capabilities using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), and web interactivity through the use of JavaScript. You will gain expertise required for the production of web pages and incorporate these techniques using Dreamweaver 8/CS3/CS4.

This is an ONLINE course with no regular in-person or classroom meetings. The course is offered via Sakai (https://sakai.missouri.edu/portal) and supported by Mentors and Instructors who work in the Digital Media ZONE.

Prerequisites

Students should have taken the 4360/7360 Introduction to Web Development class or be able to demonstrate the following knowledge and skills:

• hand coding html using notepad/simpletext
• creating and maintaining a website using the SFTP/SecureFX
• creating and formatting a web page
• inserting graphics
• setting up hyperlinks
• creating lists and tables
• formatting text using either in-line or embedded style

Course Objectives

Upon the successful completion of this course, a student will be able to:

• XHTML:
  • Understand the differences between HTML and XHTML
  • Understand the differences between inline-level and block-level elements
  • Create image maps- create image maps, consider image maps for navigation purposes, find coordinates in images and code correctly
  • Create forms- create XHTML forms and submit data to a CGI script using XHTML forms.
• Interactive Effects:
  • Learn the basic concepts of JavaScript
  • Add JavaScript to a web page
  • Write a script to have the rollover effect
  • Open and control windows with JavaScript
  • Validate forms with JavaScript
  • Apply existing scripts to your page
  • Find and fix JavaScript Errors
• Cascade Style Sheets (CSS):
  • Understand the advantages and disadvantages of using CSS
  • Write CSS rules to style web pages
  • Associate style sheets with the XHTML elements
  • Format font, text, and change background with CSS
  • Position elements
  • Create a multi-column layout using CSS, not tables
• Website Layout Design Guidelines and Principles:
  • Understand web design elements which are the visual components of the layout design
  • Understand web design principles for better arrangement of the web elements
  • Explore the concept of usability and conduct usability testing for more user friendly design
  • Explore the concept of accessibility which is to provide equal access and equal opportunity to people with disabilities

Instructor Information

Office Hours: By appointments. Office Location: Digital Media Zone, Townsend Hall 201D. We can meet in-person, or virtually via Instant Messaging (IM), video conference (iChat or Skype), or plain old telephone. To reach us use the Zone telephone and e-mail address listed above. If you have personal concerns or problems, please contact the instructor(Dr. Moore) by email at MooreJoi@missouri.edu. The instructors checks both personal and Zone e-mail (zone@missouri.edu) periodically. These email accounts are the best way to reach us!

Graduate Teaching Assistants: Zone Mentors. You can reach them via zone@missouri.edu

Digital Media ZONE

The ZONE is staffed by Mentors (experienced PhD students in IS&LT) who are focused on helping you learn by doing. The ZONE is a physical and virtual space/place where you can receive help and support from those who have special knowledge and skills, but where you are ultimately responsible for your own learning. Your Instructor and the ZONE Mentors do not teach you in a traditional classroom approach. They help you learn by providing guidance and support while you learn by doing.

The ZONE is part of the School of Information Science & Learning Technologies in the College of Education at the University of Missouri. The ZONE is located in 201D in the Reflector in Townsend Hall. The Reflector is a technology-rich support environment for students in the MU College of Education.

To learn more about the ZONE and the full range of support for online students enrolled in Digital Media Zone courses offered by the ZONE, please visit http://zone.missouri.edu/

Directions and a map to the Zone

Course Materials and Resources

Books and Required Readings:

Here are the required textbooks for this course. You can purchase hard copies of those readings which are available at most Barnes & Nobles or through Amazon.com .

• Stylin' with CSS: A Designer's Guide (2nd Edition)
  By Charles Wyke-Smith
  Publisher: New Riders
  Pub Date: Dec. 29, 2007
  ISBN-10: 0321525566
• JavaScript: A Beginner's Guide, Second Edition
  By John Pollock
  Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
  Pub Date: December 18, 2003
  ISBN-10: 0072227907

The following are recommended books depending on the edition of Dreamweaver you have access to:

• The Principles of Beautiful Web Design
  By Jason Beaird
  Publisher: SitePoint
  Pub Date: January 31, 2007
  ISBN-10: 0975841963
• For Dreamweaver CS4: Sams Teach Yourself Adobe Dreamweaver CS4 in 24 Hours (Sams Teach Yourself)
  By Betsy Bruce, John Ray
  Publisher: Sams , 1 edition
  Pub Date: November 24, 2008
  ISBN-10: 0672330407
  
• For Dreamweaver CS3: Sams Teach Yourself Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 in 24 Hours (Sams Teach Yourself)
  By Betsy Bruce
  Publisher: Sams , 4Rev Ed edition
  Pub Date: May 24, 2007
  ISBN-10: 0672329360
  

Software for this course:

The following software is required for this class:

• Dreamweaver (included in Adobe Design Premium, Web Premium, or Web Standard) CS3/CS4
• Text Editor:
  • PC - NotePad, NotePad2 or NotePad++
  • Mac - TextEdit, TextWrangler or Smultron
• Browser:
  • Internet Explorer 8.0 AND
  • Firefox 3 with the web developer extension.
• File Transfer Protocol (FTP) program: SecureFX (for PC users) OR Cyberduck (for Mac users). You can download a free copy of SecureFX from the Software Distribution Center.

Student support and additional resources are offered through the Digital Media ZONE.

[Back to Top]

Grading

The following list is everything that must be turned in for a grade. It is your responsibility to submit these assignments by the due dates in accordance with the guidelines established for each project.

Brief descriptions of each assignments are listed in the Student Responsibilities section in the syllabus. Detailed instructions, assessment expectations, and deadlines for each assignment will be provided later. Generally, the rubrics will determine whether the assignments contain the basic requirements and demonstrate solid work. To receive an "A" for this course, however, your work must exceed the basic requirements and you must also participate fully in unit discussions and contribute to peer reviews of your fellow students' work.

All final grades will be rounded to one decimal place. For example: the value of 89.5666 will be shown as 89.6 in Sakai and the letter grade will be B. For the individual assignments, the score will reflect one decimal value, not rounded.

Grading Scale (Percentage)

Graduate
Note: For the Final Project, graduate students will be required to complete a usability evaluation report with a different assessment to support the expected learning outcomes of a graduate course. This information will be provided with the detailed instructions for the final project.
A: (100-90), B: (89-80), C: (79-70), F:(69-0)

Undergraduate
A+: (100-97), A: (96 - 93), A-: (92 - 90)
B+: (89 - 87). B: (86 - 83), B-: (82 - 80)
C+: (79 - 77). C: (76 - 73), C-: (72 - 70)
D+: (69 - 67). D: (66 - 63), D-: (62 - 60)
F : (59 - 0)

[Back to Top]

Student Responsibilities

Note: The following are generic descriptions of each assignment. Guidelines and assessment criteria will be provided as additional documents.

There are four types of work required for evaluation: orientation, mini projects, final project, and class participation. You will receive specific detailed instructions on how you should produce and turn in the projects in the online course material during the semester.

I. Orientation:

• Orientation includes activities that will orient you to the Sakai environment, the Digital Media ZONE, and course topics.
• Create an Assignments Page containing the required elements using correct structure of XHTML code. This page will serve as the location to post your works throughout the semester.
• Complete the Debugging Quiz: This quiz is designed to evaluate your understanding of the XHTML specifications and other important concepts.
• Complete the Course Introduction Quiz: This quiz is designed to evaluate your understanding of the course & Sakai environment.

II. Mini Project:

All mini projects will be related to the units. The purpose of the units is to provide you with important knowledge and skills and practice activities while receiving feedback. Each student will complete all of the units in the folder "Units of Instruction" under the Resources section in Sakai. A unit is comprised of chapters from the textbooks and/or additional materials.

You should strive to complete each unit to the best of your ability before asking for feedback on your mini project. After grades and feedback for each unit have been posted, you should try to improve your mini projects based on the feedback, then upload your improved page. This will help you successfully complete a final project.

• CSS Design -Mockup: Follow the design process to create a design mockup for a given page.
• CSS Design - Styling: According to the mockup, style and layout the given page using an external Cascade Style Sheet including all Tag, ID and Class selectors.
  * The CSS Design project is a group project conducted with 3 ~ 4 peer members.
• Image Map & Form: Create an image map with multiple hotspots. Create a form with several different form elements.
• Dreamweaver Behavior: Use Dreamweaver to create interactive effects including: image rollover, pop-up window, and form validation. List all the functions and event handlers that you use for each effect.
• JavaScript: Create an external js file. Hand code JavaScript or use Dreamweaver and/or other resources to create interactive effects on a given page. Write comments for the scripts explaining the programming logic.

III. Quizzes:

For the CSS and JavaScript, you will take mini quizzes. The purpose of the quizzes is to encourage you to study basic concepts and usages of CSS and JavaScript in depth.

• CSS quiz: a Ten-item multiple choice quiz. You are supposed to study CSS and answer the questions without any other's help by the end of the CSS-Styling project.
• JavaScript quizzes: Three quizzes containing multiple choice items and a few troublesoothing questions. You are supposed to study JavaScript from unit 8 to 10 and complete the quizzes before the JavaScript project.

IV. Final Project:

For the final project, you will develop a website independently. Remember that these files should not be the same work you submitted for the previous assignments. Although your website will reflect individual interests, each site should be developed with a clear purpose and recognized design fundamentals as guides. Your final website should be representative of what you have learned in the course and of your web development capabilities.

• Project Plan & Mockup: Elaborate your idea of the final Website and apply the web design principles. Use a couple of paragraphs to give a quick overview of what you plan to include on the Website. Follow the layout design process to create a mockup design for the final web site and draw a mockup design.
• Draft: Develop the final website based on the project plan and mockup.
• Peer Review: Provide constructive feedback on the draft of project web site for assigned members.
• Usability Report: Conduct usability tests and complete an usability evaluation report.
• Final Website: Modify and complete the website based on the usability tests.

V. Class Participation and Contribution:

There are two types of discussions in this class: unit discussions and topic-based discussions. For the unit discussions, you are required to contribute ideas (e.g. raising questions, helping others, sharing info/experiences, answering questions, etc.) on the discussion boards throughout the semester. Helping others by answering questions or providing useful resource will be counted as 1 point each, maximum 3 points in total. For the topic-based discussions, you are required to follow guidelines which will be posted at the time of the discussion (1 point). Questions related to learning materials or projects will be answered in the appropriate discussion Forums rather than private messages.

How to succeed in this course

This course moves quickly as we cover a lot of material in 16 weeks! You should check the Home Page of the course (in Sakai), Announcements and Discussion Forum(s) regularly for any changes or important announcements related to the course. Only major course announcements will be e-mailed to your Mizzou e-mail address.

Here are some tips for getting most out of this course:

Maintain a reasonable pace of work each week of the course. Do not wait until the week an assignment is due to begin engaging in the work. Make a work schedule for yourself indicating when you will focus on the topics of the course.

Get to know your classmates and the ZONE mentors. Take advantage early of opportunities to learn about your classmates and let them know about you. Contribute to the discussions by posting good ideas and also by responding to what others write. Forming a community with your fellow students will make the course more enjoyable and will aid your learning.

Work collaboratively. How much you learn and how much enjoy this course will depend on the sense of connection you develop with your fellow students. Try to help your fellow students and try to benefit from what they have to offer. Check the course discussion boards often - at least once a day.

Check your understanding. Your goal is to understand the theories, principles, development, and concepts central to the course. Do not stop with the reading the course materials. Always review the underlying concepts and interact with your peers to see if you need to strengthen your understanding.

Contact the Instructor, Graduate Teaching Assistant or ZONE Mentors when you need help. The ZONE Mentors are here to help you and you should feel comfortable to contact them anytime you need help with anything related to this course. For additional support see http://zone.missouri.edu/support.html

[Back to Top]

Course Policies

Reviewing Student Work

Many ZONE online courses require you to present your work electronically so other students can see it; and you will also be asked to review the work of other students, as part of the instructional process of the course.

Your work may be used as an example of how to accomplish a technique or for ideas by other students. In many cases having other students peer review your work helps support your own learning and leads to better outcomes for everyone in the course.

If at any time you feel uncomfortable sharing your work, or with the feedback or comments on your work by other students, contact the instructor as soon as possible.

To protect student privacy and prevent the inappropriate or illegal use of student work, you are not allowed to distribute links or files of your peers' work to anyone outside the course. The viewing of peer projects is only for students enrolled in the course, and it is to assist with the learning activities. Therefore, the owner and developer of the project will decide whether to distribute their work to people outside of the course.

Instructor and Peer Review Feedback on Your Projects

You will receive both Instructor and fellow student feedback on your project work in this course. If you wish to receive Instructor feedback on an assignment before an assignment is due, you must request the feedback at least 3 days prior to the due date to allow enough time for either the Instructor or Teaching Assistants to give you feedback and for you to implement our suggestions. If you submit a request for feedback at a later time, we will do our best to give you feedback but we may be too busy to help you by the due date. You should also utilize the knowledge base of your fellow classmates when you have a question or need help. Ask for feedback from your classmates by posting a question to the appropriate project discussion board(s).

Discussion Board Guidelines

The discussion board is one of the primary communication methods for an Internet course and we all approach this Internet course with different experiences for using them. If the discussion board becomes ill structured and messy, then it can easily be an ineffective tool for communication and learning. With so many people posting comments, it then becomes difficult to follow a particular topic and for the instructors and ZONE mentors to check whom has contributed to a specific discussion. Thus, adhering to the following guidelines should make the use of the discussion board more efficient and effective:

1. Before creating a new thread or posting a comment in a forum, make sure that your specific topic or issue has not been posted on the board already. Hence, read the other postings and do not create new threads for the same topic.
   
2. When you do reply to a posting, you may want to rename the subject area so that readers will quickly know your main topic.
   
3. Post comments or create new threads in the most appropriate Forum for your topic.
   
4. Do not post "personal comments" to other classmates that do not relate to the main topic of the class discussion. Use email for these types of comments or another discussion forum.
   
5. The discussion board will not be used for personal complaints regarding workload or classmates. These postings will be removed from the discussion board. If you are having major problems, then you should send an email to the instruct

Late Work

The due dates for each project are clearly posted above. Some dates listed for assignments may change as the semester progresses. However, it is important to note that late work will be penalized. If you have conflicts, problems, or something unexpected arises, do not hesitate to contact the instructor. Graded assignments will be reviewed and graded within one week after the posted due date. Any assignments posted within one day after the due date will receive an automatic 10% reduction in grade. Late work will not be accepted after one day past the due date unless prior arrangements have been made with the Instructor in writing.

Regrading Policies and Procedures

Request for regrading of projects should be requested via an e-mail (kkd2c@mizzou.edu) to the Instructor(Kyungbin Kwon) no later than 48 hours after receiving the grade for a project. Write an e-mail with a detailed explanation as to which part of your assignment should be regraded and why you are requesting a grade review. After regrading, you may receive a higher grade, the same grade, or a lower grade.

Incompletes

Incompletes in this course will be given if, and only if:

• The completed portion of the student's work in the course is of passing quality and
• There is such evidence of hardship as to make it unjust to hold the student to the limits previously fixed for the completion of his/her work.

If you meet the above criteria and you wish an Incomplete in this course, you must immediately send an email to the Instructor (kkd2c@mizzou.edu). In most cases, an Incomplete will result in an automatic drop in letter grade. All requests for Incompletes must be provided two weeks prior to the Final Project due date.

For those students who are taking an incomplete for ZONE courses, all the course assignments and projects must be completed and turned in for grades before the start day of the next semester; otherwise, a letter grade F will be given for the course.

For more information on Incompletes, please visit: http://registrar.missouri.edu/policies/incomplete-grades.php

Course Withdrawal

Withdrawals will adhere to university policies regarding dates and grades. If request for a withdrawal is submitted after the university due date, a student will only receive a W for a "passing" status in the course. Otherwise, an F will be reported.

For more information on Withdrawals, please visit:
http://registrar.missouri.edu/policies/withdrawal-course.php

[Back to Top]

Disabilities and Accommodations

If you need accommodations because of a disability, if you have emergency medical information to share, or if you need special arrangements in case the building must be evacuated, please contact the ZONE supervised faculty, Dr. Joi Moore at MooreJoi@missouri.edu. Please call the ZONE, visit the ZONE, or use one of the other contact methods identified on the ZONE web site to schedule an appointment. To request academic accommodations (for example, a notetaker), students must also register with the Office of Disability Services, (http://disabilityservices.missouri.edu), S5 Memorial Union, 882-4696. It is the campus office responsible for reviewing documentation provided by students requesting academic accommodations, and for accommodations planning in cooperation with students and instructors, as needed and consistent with course requirements. For other MU resources for students with disabilities, click on "Disability Resources" on the MU homepage.

The above statement is the standard statement required by the University which may not apply if you are taking this course online. If you have a disability that you feel requires special accommodations relative to this course, please contact the ZONE supervised faculty, Dr. Joi Moore, using the contact methods provided at http://zone.missouri.edu/support/contact.html.

[Back to Top]

Academic Dishonesty

Academic integrity is fundamental to the activities and principles of a university. All members of the academic community must be confident that each person's work has been responsibly and honorably acquired, developed, and presented. Any effort to gain an advantage not given to all students is dishonest whether or not the effort is successful. The academic community regards breaches of the academic integrity rules as extremely serious matters. Sanctions for such a breach may include academic sanctions from the instructor, including failing the course for any violation, to disciplinary sanctions ranging from probation to expulsion. When in doubt about plagiarism, paraphrasing, quoting, collaboration, or any other form of cheating, consult the course instructor.

[Back to Top]

Intellectual Pluralism

The University community welcomes intellectual diversity and respects student rights. Students who have questions concerning the quality of instruction in this class may address concerns to either the Departmental Chair or Divisional leader or Director of the Office of Students Rights and Responsibilities (http://osrr.missouri.edu/). All students will have the opportunity to submit an anonymous evaluation of the instructor(s) at the end of the course.

[Back to Top]

Last Updated: August 15th, 2009