Hello and Welcome to INDE 498A:
Web Enabling Collaborative Tools

The picture to the left is of your instructor, Bruce Campbell.

I'm hoping you'll spend this week getting familiar with the goals of the class and thinking about the definition of the words Web, Enabling, Collaborative, and Tools. These four words really are indicative of what I hope we'll investigate together this quarter. Please email me a link to an interesting Web page related to collaborative Web use. Remember that my email address is bdc@hitl.washington.edu. Also, please bookmark the class home page in your favorite Web browser:

http://www.cev.washington.edu/lc/CLWEBCLB/

You are responsible for checking the page once a week at the least. The class home page is published through a technology created within the Learning Center of the Center for Environmental Visualization (http://www.cev.washington.edu/). We at the CEV call the technology Active Pages which sounds similar to Microsoft's Active Server Pages (ASP) technology. I will point out a few technologies that enable Active Pages to work in this handout. The technology is an example of collaborative use over the Web. I hope you will have a full grasp of how Active Pages work by the end of Winter quarter.

Our Class

Hopefully, all the usual questions you probably have about grading are answered on the class syllabus:

http://www.cev.washington.edu/lc/CLWEBCLB/syllabus.html

I work as a Research Scientist on campus at the UW HIT Lab. If you are interested in reading more about my research (certainly not necessary that you do so), you can read my up-to-date home page at:

http://www.hitl.washington.edu/people/bdc/

Goals of the Class

We will be investigating some popular Web technologies, considering each of them as separate technologies (on which you will be tested), and creating two projects (on which you will be graded) throughout the quarter in which we tie the technologies together.

To summarize, the goals of the class are:

1. To learn about what's behind Web Collaboration technologies
2. To become more marketable in today's world (and often electronic) economy.

Hopefully, you'll consider these as your own personal goals for the class as well.

The Class Active Page

Here is what you can expect from each area of the INDE 498A Active Page (remember, the Active Page is our class home page).

The top of the page provides a class logo and links to other class site pages:

Events links to a list of any on campus events I think are relevant to our class.

I will post any interesting news items I find on the Web on the News page. You won't be tested on this information but I will try to find and post news items that professionals working with collaborative systems would be interested in.

Links links to other page I think you will be interested in as they relate to our class. Please take a look at them over the next week. Many of them are links to official standards.

People links to a list of us, the participants in INDE 498A (I will add all students once I have a full roster).

Class Syllabus points to the Class Syllabus (just click on it to see the syllabus in another browser window). Your reading assignments will be there as will each class period agenda.

The Right column starts a list of all our lectures:

Although you will get a lot more information out of me and your fellow classmates by attending class, you can always use the links here to review the materials from each class. In fact, this handout is on-line as First Class Instructions seen to the right here. Please try clicking on it when you get a chance to visit our class home page.

The rest of the Active Page might pick up new features during the quarter. I will point them out as they become available. Please suggest new features you think a class like ours would want in an Active Page. The page will be up-to-date with the latest information while the class is in session and I have the pleasure of joining you in person.

Conclusion

To get off to a great start in this class, please:

1. Visit our class home page, read the syllabus, and click on all the links to be familiar with what's available from the home page.
2. Think about the four words that make up our class title (look them up in your dictionary).
3. Email me a link related to Collaborative Web use.

Cheers,
Bruce Campbell

Email: bdc@hitl.washington.edu

Office Hours: We can set these together
Office: 202 Ocean Sciences Building (the new one)
Office Phone: 685-5356

Please contact me via email whenever possible instead of phone calling me. I prefer email to phone conversations because I can better archive and re-read your suggestions and concerns.