wazmac || Web Publishing

School Web Publishing

Traditional Web		Read-Write Web			Online Office
	Create a fully featured school web site on the Internet, or... Create an Intranet site to publish student e-portfolios and teacher resources.			Create & publish internet sites, blogs, photos, etc, with no more than a browser installed on your computer.			Create and store documents, spreadsheets & presentations online, with only a browser installed on your computer.

This page provides information about creating and uploading school web sites, for NSW DET schools.

See also Wazza's Govt & DET Policy Links Page for info about
IAUP and Publishing permission notes.

The NSW DET provides a facility for schools to publish web pages. Schools have the option of publishing to either the Internet, or the DET Intranet.

School web sites published to the Internet are available to anyone in the world with an Internet connection.

School web sites published to the DET Intranet are visible only from within DET schools in NSW.

There are three basic steps involved for DET schools to set up a Web page:

1. Plan your page
2. Create your page

3. Upload your page to the Web

1. Planning Your Page

Where do I Start?: The first step in creating a school web page is to check out some other schools' pages. Evaluate them. Criticise them.

Come to some sort of understanding of what your Web site is for - what is its purpose? Who are the intended audiences for your site?

This may take some time, and (hopefully) involve input from various groups within the school. You may find that it will be best to provide each group a publishing space, under some basic overall guidelines.

Layout your site on paper (as a flowchart), clarify the major pages in the site, and any sub-pages. Maybe allocate responsibility for different parts of the site to various personnel.

DET schools should also be familiar with the Web Publishing Guidelines Checklist (pdf)

2. Creating Your Page

As the web-publishing world becomes more mainstream, you can choose to design and build a site yourself, or outsource the work to a specialist provider, who specialise in creating school web sites (often for much less than the cost of releasing school staff to do it!)

The information below is provided for schools who choose to go down the DIY path...

Where do I start?

Somewhere PS - Example (for iWeb)
Use the templates included in iWeb to make a professional-looking site for your school.
Local examples: North Nowra PS | Mt Kembla PS.
Somewhere PS Web Site Template (for Mozilla/FrontPage)
A very basic primary school Internet site that you can edit to suit your own school's needs - to get started at least. Just change the name on each page, and you are up-and-running.
Download SPS Web Site Template for Mozilla/FrontPage (zip - 403k).
Content Management Systems (CMS)
Content Management Systems, such as Joomla and Drupal provide the option for multiple site editors, each responsible for different sections of the site, but with no need for specialised web-publishing knowledge - all editing is undertaken through a browser interface. But there is a steep learning curve in the building of the site!
Local Example: Narwee PS
Commercial Providers
It is often an economically reasonable alternative to have your school's web site created by a commercial web designer. QuikDesign, for example, can create and publish basic school site, or a site using a CMS, so that you (and others in your school) can edit the site, without any special web-editing knowledge.
Local Examples: Mt Keira PS | Mt Terry PS | Oak Flats HS | Jamberoo PS,
Somewhere PS - GooglePages
An alternative to traditional web sites is the use of Web 2.0 applications such as GooglePages.
Example: Manorbrook PS (UK)

How do I edit web pages?: Obviously this information will vary, depending on the software you choose to use. The information below describes the editing process using the free Mozilla Composer software. However, the process is much the same in other packages, once you work out where everything is!; Editing a Web Site with Mozilla - Mac (pdf - 900k)
Edit your website using Mozilla Composer. Use in conjunction with the SPS template above.

Editing a Web Site with Mozilla - WinXP (pdf - 800k)
Edit your website using Mozilla Composer. Use in conjunction with the SPS template above.

See also...
Wazza's Intranet Publishing Tutorials
More detail about editing a web page to use as an Intranet "gateway" for use on a school intranet.

RapidWeaver Tour (Mac)
Getting started using RapidWeaver - videos and other support materials.

iWeb Tutorials (Mac)
Use Apple's video turorials to learn how to create a web site with iWeb (part of the iLife suite).

Sandvox Screencast (Mac)
Using Sandvox - Getting started video.
DET Web Publishing Guidelines: Teachers in NSW DET schools should be familiar with the DET Web Publishing Guidelines Checklist (pdf) which provides some basic info about school web publishing guidelines.
Web Editing Software: Web-editing and publishing software is no different to any other computer software - there is a learning period required to master the software.

Remember to Keep It Simple. You don't need to use every colour, font, and special java effect all on one page!

Design your site with your intended audience(s) in mind.

You will need to create all your web pages and graphics, and check that they "work" using your browser on your own computer. You should check your site using a number of different browsers (IE, Safari, Mozilla, FireFox, etc), and on both Mac & PC platforms.

Suitable web editing software for DET schools is listed at Wazza's Web Software Page.
Publishing your Web Site: When you are happy that everything is working satisfactorily, it is time to make your site available for the whole world to see!

To do this you will need to "upload" it from your desktop computer to a computer which is permanently connected to the Internet (a web server). The DET provides this web server facility on its state-wide network.

This publishing process is carried out using software that is designed to use the File Transfer Protocol (FTP).

You can download "standalone" FTP software, however, most web publishing software includes a built-in FTP facility.

3. Uploading Your Page

Overview: The DET provides a generic web page for all DET schools. The pages you create will replace this generic site.

Transferring (copying) files from your computer to the DET Web server is called uploading. Before uploading, you should have already created your site, and checked that it operates correctly on your own computer.

Your "introductory page" should be named index.html or default.html (or index.htm or default.htm) as should any "index" files in sub-folders.

Software configuration - Editing Packages: If you are using dedicated web publishing software (Dreamweaver, Go-Live, RapidWeaver, etc) the uploading process is usually a "one-click" operation, once you have setup the preferences of the software to recognise the DET hosting site.

Each of these software packages has a preferences window where you can configure the settings of the web server to which your site will be uploaded using FTP.

Below are examples of the settings in Dreamweaver and RapidWeaver:

When FTPing to DET hosts, make sure that Passive Mode is disabled. Usually the opposite for commercial providers.

Note: Uploading to your DET-hosted website can only be done from within the DET network.
Software Configuration - FTP software: If you do not have access to a dedicated editing package with bundled FTP, you can use dedicated FTP software to transfer your site to the DET hosting server. This can only be done from with the DET network.

The following FTP software is readily available and easy to setup and use:

Macintosh FTP software
Fetch (Free for education)
Transmit (Shareware)
Captain FTP (Shareware)
Cyberduck (Freeware)

Windows FTP software
Internet Explorer (already installed on your computer)
FTP Explorer (Shareware)
FreeFTP (Free)
WinFiles FTP Page - huge range of FTP freeware and shareware.
QuickStarts...: How do I upload web pages?
FTP with Transmit - Mac (pdf - 1Mb)
Upload your website to the DET web server using Transmit.

FTP with Internet Explorer - WinXP (pdf - 120k)
Use IE6 to upload your site to the DET web server.

See also....
DET Web Publishing Support pages
Provides DET info on publishing web pages via their school network.
Mainly Windows info. DET Intranet access required.

An Overview of the Upload process: You will need to use a DET network connection to upload your site to the DET server.

Before transferring files with FTP software, you should ensure that the computer that you are using connects to the Internet, via the DET network. Your FTP software will then use that connection to transfer your web site to the DET servers.

Once you have configured your FTP software to access the ftp.schools.nsw.edu.au server, and entered your user-id and password information (as shown above), click on Connect and you will be able to see the Internet and Intranet directories which have been setup for each school by the DET.

Open the Internet directory (by double-clicking on it) and you will see the generic welcome.htm file created by the DET, and some other folders.

Replace the generic welcome.htm file and images with your own files (by "dragging and dropping"), as well as any other sub-directories which may be part of your site.

All these files and directories/sub directories must be inside your Internet workspace. (Full details of this procedure are contained in the QuickStarts listed above)

The last step is to check that they actually work when you access them "live" with your browser, by going to the address - http://www.schoolname-p.schools.nsw.edu.au/

The process above sounds fairly complicated, and it is often difficult to describe in text. As with most computer operations, it is reasonably simple once you have been through it a couple of times!

DET Hosting Alternatives

Some schools setup their official DET website to redirect to a non-DET host, so that they can maintain the site from outside the DET network, or utilise features and facilities not available on the DET hosting site.

Dedicated hosting companies such as Quikdesign and Hostingshop, provide cheap hosting space along with Domain Name registration, cPanel and Fantsico (useful for setting up Calendars, Content Management Systems, etc).

Most local Internet Service Providers, such as Exetel, also allocate a small amount of free web space for registered users.

Some other web hosts, such as Aussie Schoolhouse, have been setup to support schools. These hosts are not ISPs. They only "house" your site. You will need an ISP account to upload your site to these host sites from home (external FTP is not available on the DET network).