Leland Initiative Web Tutorial Series:
Lesson 1--Course Introduction

Introduction

By now, you are probably aware of the World Wide Web and have surfed it some, so you know some of the things you can do with it. But you may be wondering, "How can I make a World Wide Web site myself?" It's not as difficult as it might appear–and this course is going to help you do it!

This course will consist of a series of brief lessons. This first article in the series isn't really a lesson. It's an introduction to the course and an overview of what the course will teach you about designing web sites.

First of all, let me introduce myself. My name is Jeff Bland. Officially, I am an information technology analyst with the Research and Reference Services Project, which is part of USAID. You may already be aware of this project from its involvement with USAID's Leland Initiative. Unofficially, I am someone who loves designing and building web sites, who likes reading about where the World Wide Web is going, and who (of course) likes using the Web. It might interest you to know that I taught myself how to build web sites by using tutorials much like this one. If I can do it, then so can you–just keep the attitude of "Yes I can" and you're going to do fine.

So just what are you going to learn from this series? Here are the objectives:

  • You will learn what a web site is and why you may want to have one (covered in this lesson).
  • You will learn what kind of information you can (and should) put on a web site.
  • You will learn how to create a simple web site and what you need to do to let others see it.
  • You will learn about what makes for a good web site.
  • You will learn about some advanced features you can put on web sites.

You will learn about the software programs you can use to make designing and building a web site easier.

You will learn within each lesson about places on the Web where you can find more information related to that lesson.

The objectives for each lesson will be stated at the beginning of that lesson. A new lesson should appear about once per week. At the end of each lesson, I will state what the next lesson will be about.

What is the World Wide Web?

So just what is the World Wide Web? It might surprise you to know that the World Wide Web takes its name from a spider web. Why? Well, think about the way a spider web looks. First, it is a whole bunch of little threads connected to each other in an orderly way. Second, there are many points where the threads meet. Third, you can start from any point on the spider web and get to any other point (after all, that's the way the spider gets around its web).

The Web works the same way. The strings of the web are the phone lines and other mechanisms (like fiber optic cables or satellite connections) that allow information to be sent (and received) from one computer to another. The spots where the lines connect are the computers themselves. These computers may be the ones people such as yourselves are using to see web pages, or they may be "servers" that actually contain the web pages. Finally, just like a spider moving around its web, if you have an Internet connection then you can connect from any computer on the Web to any other computer. It's just that the Web you are using covers most of the world–and it's getting bigger every day.

What is a Web Site?

A web site is a collection of web pages–it could be just one page or it could be thousands of pages. A web page is what appears in your browser (for example, Netscape Navigator) when you connect to the Web. Usually, a page in a site will contain hyperlinks to other pages in the site--and to other web sites. In short, think of a web site as a unique address (for example http://www.info.usaid.gov, USAID's web site). When you go to a different address (for example, http://www.worldbank.org, the World Bank's web site), then you are connecting to a different web site. You can go to different pages, but still be in the same site. For example, http://www.info.usaid.gov/site_index.html and http://www.info.usaid.gov/regions/afr/leland/index.htm are two different pages, but they belong to the same site (www.info.usaid.gov).

Why Would I Want a Web Site?

There are a lot of different reasons for posting web sites. For example, web sites are now used to:

  • Advertise a business', organization's, or even individual's existence. It's a way of saying "Here I am, and here's how you can contact me. Used for this purpose, a web site can show the purpose of an organization; projects it is involved in; names of people working for the organization; telephone numbers and e-mail and postal addresses; and so forth.
  • Make documents available to people worldwide. Many organizations, for example, put documents in electronic format on their web sites. A user can simply click on the "hyperlink" to the document, and he or she will have a copy for themselves. In this way, the Web is like a giant electronic library where you can "check out" materials without ever leaving your computer!
  • Publish a database to the Web. If an organization has a database (for example, a list of projects it's working on, along with information for each project) and needs to allow people to enter new information into the database, then the Web offers a good way to do this.
  • Provide a way to communicate. Discussion groups on the Web are great for holding "virtual conversations." Within these conversations, you can share ideas with people from all over the world--without ever leaving your office.

Why Use the Web Instead?

It is true that sometimes the traditional way of doing business is the best way. For example, it wouldn't make sense to hold a virtual conversation (discussed above) with someone in the office next door. It would be much easier to just drop by and talk face-to-face. For many other purposes, though, doing things over the Web has a lot of advantages:

If you put your organization on the Web (through a web site), you instantly have an audience of millions of people (and growing every day). More and more people are seeking out people and organizations by using the Web. As you may already know, it is pretty easy to search for people and organizations this way. Imagine trying to find someone in another country the old-fashioned way. For example, you want to find a phone number for USAID. Do you happen to have a telephone book for Washington, D.C. lying around?

Publishing documents using the Web is relatively cheap. Once you have your web site up and running, it's pretty easy to put an electronic document on the site--in many cases it takes just a few minutes--and it costs nothing extra to put it up. Think of the time and money involved in printing out paper copies of the same documents and mailing the copies to its intended recipients.

You can search the Web. Using search engines, you can specify keywords, click on a button, and get a list of web pages that are related to the words you put in. This is a great way to find people, organizations, and documents. Put your organization on the Web, and people are going to be able to find you the same way. Look at your desk. You may have a phone list and a couple of important documents lying on top of it. How is anyone outside your organization going to know that you have this information, much less be able to read it?

Wrap-Up

We've covered a lot of concepts today, so I'll end by restating the major points:

  • The point of this series is to teach you how to make your own web site. Every week, I am going to take you another step towards being able to do that.
  • The World Wide Web is a way of connecting computers all over the world. Some computers are servers; they actually contain the information you see when you visit a web site. A web page is what you see in your browser when you go to a web site. A web site is one or more of those pages linked together under the same web address. Web pages can contain text, graphics, sound, video clips, and computer software.
  • People are now using the Web to advertise who they are, what they do, and how to contact them. The Web is also being used to make electronic documents instantly accessible to anyone who is connected to the Web. It is also being used to allow people all over the world to communicate with each other.
  • The Web's advantages are that it reaches a lot people all over the world, it is relatively cheap as a way to publish information, it is searchable, and it is fast.

Related Sites

Below are a few links you might want to check out. These links are geared to general overviews of the Web, but some may contain additional information (such as how to create Web pages) that we'll be covering in upcoming tutorials). By all means, explore those too and find out as much as you can! Have fun…

Next Session

In the next session, we'll take a closer look at a single web page. I'll briefly explain what the parts of a web page are and how they fit together.

Table of Contents | Lesson 2

This series was developed for USAID’s Leland Initiative by the Research and Reference Services Project (operated by the Academy for Educational Development).