RCC CIS-72A XHTML
The college's policy on academic honesty as spelled out in the Student Handbook's "standards of student conduct" will be strictly enforced in this class. Although you should familiarize yourself with this policy in the student handbook, I will break it down for you here in terms of how it relates to this class. You must do your own independent work on all assignments! Two or more people turning in "identically flawed" work or work that is "similar beyond a reasonable doubt" violates this policy and will result in 0 scores for ALL involved, regardless of who actually did the work. Any attempt to submit someone else's work as if it were your own, even if they are not in this class, is a clear violation of this policy. This doesn't mean you cannot give or receive help -- it means that help should be in the form of examples or explanations. Help should not be given or received in the form of HTML code that directly applies to the problem being solved. In particular, if you are giving help, make sure the person you are helping understands the issues involved in the problem -- give them explanations and an example that is similar to the problem they are working on. If you are receiving help, ask for an example and make sure you are getting the explanations you need so that you can solve the next problem you encounter. If someone is asking for your solution because they are going to be late with an assignment, remember that you would be jeopardizing your own integrity and standing in the class by doing so, and remind them that the lateness policy in this class is lenient enough that they can still take the time to understand the issues and do it themselves at their own pace without losing a lot of points. In doing so they will learn a lot more, both about HTML and about making responsible decisions in their lives. Note that this policy also pertains to exams. Any attempt to obtain answers from others or to make use of materials not allowed for an exam is a clear violation as well and will result in 0 scores. In addition to 0 scores for assignments and exams, your violation may be reported to the Dean of Instruction for possible further disciplinary action as deemed appropriate. Take this policy seriously, and know that I do too -- it is there to protect the integrity of the grading system that all students, faculty, colleges, and, ultimately employers rely on as a fair measure of achievement.
There are four little rules that can make the difference between sloppy HTML that will work in some browsers and have trouble in others and clean HTML that will be valid and compatible with XHTML. There's also a lot of sloppy code out there on the Internet, but if you're careful to keep the following 4 simple rules in mind and apply them consistently, yours can rise above.
1) All HTML tags should be in lowercase. So instead of <H1> you should write <h1>.
2) It is also recommended to enter all HTML attribute names in lowercase and attribute values in double quotes. So instead of <img SRC=mypic.gif> you should write <img src="mypic.gif">.
3) All opening tags should be followed by a closing tag (assuming a closing
tag is defined for it in the HTML language). So instead of writing 2 paragraphs as <p>First paragraph<p>Second paragraph</p>, you should close each p tag by writing <p>First paragraph</p><p>Second paragraph</p>.
For opening tags that don't
have closing ones defined in HTML, such as the <img> tag (for images), the <br> tag for line breaks,
or the <hr> tag (for horizontal lines), just add a space and a slash to
the opening tag and it will then act as both the opening and closing tag all
by itself like this <hr />. For another example of this, let's rewrite the above image tag correctly by adding a space a slash to the end of it: <img src="mypic.gif" />.
4) Avoid overlapping your pairs of opening and closing tags. Instead, nest one pair of tags completely inside of the other whenever possible. To clarify, instead of <p><b>Hi</p></b> which overlaps the paragraph (p) and bolding (b) tag pairs, you should write <p><b>Hi</b></p> which properly nests both the opening and closing bold (b) tags completely inside of the opening and closing paragraph (p) tags.
If an assignment asks you to create HTML yourself, you will lose points for any sloppy code that violates the above rules!
Note that there are many other best practices that can be found in a separate "Best Practices in HTML" document available as a handout from the course Web site. It is highly recommended that you consult that document each week as you are introduced to new material -- that document is organized to closely fit our class material.
You may use any "text editor" of your choice to type up your HTML documents for this course. Notepad, for example, is fine. But you may not use any "HTML editors", such as Dreamweaver, FrontPage, GoLive, or Homesite. After all, you are supposedly taking this class in order to learn the HTML itself, and the best way to do it is to type it yourself. At some point during the course your instructor will introduce you to some appropriate editors to use. After you have taken this course and fully understand the issues and nuances of HTML, you might want to work with one of the above named products. But if I see evidence of the usage of any these kinds of HTML editors in the HTML code you are turning in, you will receive zero scores for what you have turned in.
Each assignment has a set of files that you will need to have on your own disk in order to properly complete the web sites. For example, there may be some text or graphics files that have already been prepared for you to be included in one of the required web page printouts. If the files for a particular assignment part were created by your instructor, these files will be available by just clicking the appropriate link on the (online version of the) assignment handout itself. But for parts of the assignments involving the textbook, the files are coming from our textbook publisher and must be obtained in another way. You can obtain all of the publisher's files needed for all of the assignments at the same time so you'll have them handy for the whole semester. For this purpose, the publisher organized their files into folders named after the tutorials that the files are needed in (for example "Tutorial 1", "Tutorial 2", etc.) There are 3 different sources for these files. All 3 contain the same publisher files so just choose the one that is most convenient for you. In each case, use your favorite file management software (Windows Explorer or My Computer for example) to copy the files from the appropriate tutorial folder(s) over to a local disk of your own for use in the assignments.
Note that when you copy files from a CD or RCC's I:Drive, it is possible that these files will still be flagged as "Read-Only", preventing you from making any changes. Since you will need to edit many of them, you should go to the relevant folder, select all files (Ctrl-A in Windows Explorer), right-click on one of them, and choose "Properties". Then turn off the checkbox for "Read-Only". Then you can use these files properly. The screen shot below shows the setting after it has been checked off. Now you can edit these files!
You are asked in assignments to turn in printscreen printouts of your web page as it displays in the browser. It is always recommended that you obtain these printouts from a color printer (especially for those assignments involving color and graphics), but you will not lose points for "black and white" printscreens. If you don't know how to create a printscreen printout, these directions will help. If you do, you can skip the rest of this section.
When you have your page completed and it is displaying in the browser the way you want it (according to the guidelines of that assignment) then you are ready to create your printscreen. Your browser window should be maximized and the resolution set appropriately to either 800x600 or 1024x768, whichever better fits the content of the page and the assignment requirements (to set the screen resolution in Windows, right-click the desktop and choose properties, then from the "settings" tab, you should be able to adjust the screen area dimensions). From this point, here are the directions.
Web pages and Web sites by their very nature are made up of many separate files. You need to make back-ups of all of your work files whenever you complete a session of work. This is standard, expected behavior for anyone who does Web development, and it is expected of you in this course. As such, losing a disk, accidental deletion of files, or having a file or a disk go bad will not be an acceptable excuse for lateness of any assignment. Be aware that files used for one assignment in this course are often times used as a beginning point for further work on a later assignment, so you need to be able to manage your files. There may be some assignments toward the end of the semester that require work from the earlier assignments, so you must carefully organize and maintain your files in separate folders throughout the semester. If you need to further your file management skills so that you can create an appropriate folder organization and make back-ups of your work, there is a separate "Managing Files and Folders" document available as a handout from the course Web site.
In general, it is a bad idea to turn in work before it is completed. It is always better to take the extra time to complete it properly and turn it in a little late if necessary. The points you lose for incomplete work is almost always much more than for late work. But feel free to ask the instructor if you are unsure about your particular situation. But be clear on this: I grade work only once, so when you turn something in for grading, you should be sure that what you are turning in represents your best effort because you are not going to have another chance to redo it and turn it back in for me to regrade it and get points back. The only exception to this rule is if what you have turned in is so far away from what I asked for that I cannot reasonably grade it at all -- in which case I will indicate that on the top sheet and you can turn it back in when it is complete and it will be graded only once when you resubmit it with points deducted for the lateness at that point (as if you are turning it in then for the first time). So always carefully reread the instructions before turning something in to avoid turning in the wrong stuff.
Assignments that are being turned in early or late should be turned in to the RCC Riverside campus computer lab (MLK-219 lab) and given to the lab instructor behind the desk to time-stamp and leave in my file cabinet folder. Always ask for this time stamp and watch them to make sure that it gets stamped and left in the file cabinet. That protects you so that you don't lose any extra points for lateness by waiting a few days until our class meets again. And if you are not going to be able to make it to class on a date that an assignment is due, it is your responsibility to make sure you turn it in early, in the lab with a time-stamp, rather than late. Assignments are not accepted via email and should not be turned into mail boxes on campus -- always submit them either in class or in the computer lab.
Assignments involve HTML work on Web pages and require specific printouts to be turned in. For each assignment, you are asked to staple together these specific printouts in a certain order and turn them in. As indicated above, you should not turn in an assignment until it is complete with all the required printouts (unless it is the end of the semester, in which case you should turn in whatever you have.) The lateness policy is very reasonable and it encourages you to complete your work as soon as you can but does not penalize you severely for a little lateness.
The specific point deductions will always be taken according to these guidelines below, and may also be indicated on the syllabus.