This file is customizable by any member of the webpub group. ______________________________________________________________________ Contents of this file: 1. The courseware directory "courses". 2. The sample directory XXX 3. Naming conventions 4. The main course page 5. Symbolic links 6. New pages (beginning of term) 7. Sections 8. Style files Instructions for Maintaining Course Pages _________________________________________ 1. "courses" You are presently in the directory ~www/courses which is referred to in your browser as "http://sites.math.rutgers.edu/courses/" 2. XXX The directory XXX is a template for a directory associated with the imaginary course "Math XXX". The layout is given in detail in the README file but can also be seen directly by exploring. There are some variations in naming conventions away from the rules laid down in the README file. * If you need to create a directory or subdirectory please make it group * writeable (chmod 775 rather than chmod 755). 3. Naming conventions In particular, replacing XXX by 300, we agree that the relevant directory is ~www/courses/300 and that subdirectories should have the labels 300-f## or 300-s## for fall and spring semesters, with ## the relevant number (at the moment, 06). The main course page according to one convention is math300.html, according to another it is merely index.html, with full names: ~www/courses/300/math300.html or ~www/courses/300/index.html respectively. The index.html convention seems to be taking over. 4. The main course page This main course page should consist of some brief description of the course (possibly from the catalog), information about the current semester (sections, instructors, links to individual course pages). Links should go into subdirectories named to indicate the semester concerned. The main course page should also contain an archive of links from earlier semesters and any additional material which remains relevant over time, such as a standard syllabus, suggested homework, supplementary course materials, and a description of the textbook. Coordinated courses tend to have more on the main page. Upper level courses which vary noticeably with the instructor tend to have very little on the main page. One common option in multi-section courses is to have a single link to the "current semester page" with the individual sections linked from there. ________________________________________________ 5. Symbolic links Those who like to work in their own directories would do well to create the pages here, but add a symbolic link to their main page in their own directory, and edit via the symbolic link. The syntax for creating the link is: "ln -s ~www/courses/300/300-f06/sec01.html" or whatever variation one is using, once the necessary file has been created. This creates a file called sec01.html in one's own directory (wherever the command was issued) which simply points to the real copy. ________________________________________________ 6. New pages (beginning of term) The information below, from the README file, gives the procedure for creating pages at the beginning of the semester. As indicated above, variations are possible. NEW PAGES / SEMESTER CHANGES When a new semester begins, you will have to create a new, appropriately named Crs-SemYr directory and place your pages within. Using the above XXX model you should be in the ~www/courses/XXX directory, then issue the commands: mkdir XXX-s99 (if creating pages for the Spring 99 semester) chmod 775 XXX-s99 chgrp math-fac XXX-s99 Modify the file "mathXXX.html" to include the new link. Don't forget to keep this file world-readable and user/group writable (664). Also remember to change any new files to 664 or any new directories to 775, with group permissions set for "math-fac". Another alternative is to simply copy the previous semester's web pages into a new directory and begin modifications from there. Make sure you are in the correct directory, (~www/courses/XXX) and issue the command: cp -rp XXX-f98 XXX-s99 (a recursive copy, retaining file permissions) The result of this will be a new directory named XXX-s99 which is a duplicate of XXX-f98. Then modify mathXXX.html to include the new link. 7. COURSE SECTIONS Usage varies widely at present. We recommend using the section number as follows: courses/477/477-f06/sec01.html with a subdirectory courses/477/477-f06/01 for any additional files. Another natural convention is courses/477/477-f06/01/index.html ________________________________________ 8. Style files One gets simpler and more uniform webpages by taking advantage of a style file. The style files already exist (in the directory ~www/styles) and in some of the pages, they are in use. This will give less elaborate html code, more uniform web pages (helpful to the readers) and possibly better looking pages as well, if the style files are well written. To use the style file in its most basic form it suffices to begin the web page with something of the sort: using one of the standard style files. ________________________________________________________ Another customizable README file is 00InfoForInstructors The main README file is owned by root and contains a description of the layout of the directory tree below "courses/" and standard naming conventions for courseware directories and files. Modified 11/2006