EDUC-F500: Website Design, Management and Evaluation in Education

Fall 2006

Credits:  3
Prerequisite Courses:  None
Students:  open to graduate and undergraduate students
Class hours: Tues./Thurs. 11:15 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. in ED 2015

Instructor:  Ted Frick
Office and phone number:  ED 2218, (812) 856-8460

Short Description:

This course covers Web design processes:

• needs assessment of stakeholders,
• rapid prototyping,
• usability evaluation and
• Website development and production. 

Students will learn to use software products to:

• create Web pages, digital images and Flash movies and
• style sheets to simplify site maintenance.

Students will learn how to conduct usability tests to improve sites.

Students will also gain experience with a Web content management system and how to facilitate user searches of Websites.

More Detail

The course instructor, Ted Frick, has directed and managed the School of Education Website from 1994 through 2005.  He will share his experiences in designing, developing and managing a very large Website that receives approximately 40,000 page views per day and ranks very highly in Google searches.  Try typing ‘school of education’ into Google and see what happens. Students should be comfortable with word processing and e-mail, but no other knowledge of Web design or development is assumed.  Students will create their own résumés or portfolios by themselves, and they will also work on teams to create a Website for an educational or other non-profit organization. Students will learn:

• how to conduct needs assessments of stakeholders,
• rapid prototyping and iterative design processes,
• how to conduct usability tests to identify problems with a Website, and
• to use software tools including:  Dreamweaver, Fireworks, and Flash.

See an overview of this process.

Learning Goals

• Demonstrate basic computer competencies with Web development tools by creating your own Web résumé. This is an individual project, constituting 20% of your grade. Your résumé needs to meet the following criteria:
  
  
  1. Uses a Dreamweaver template (5%).
  2. Uses a cascading style sheet (CSS) (5%) .
  3. Consists of 3 or more Web pages, with clear navigation among pages (5%).
  4. Includes at least one image (.jpg or .gif) no greater than 30K in file size (5%).
     
     Due date for résumé: Oct. 2.
     
     
• Understand and apply Web design processes. Demonstrate your understanding by creating and evaluating an educational Website for actual use by a target audience. This is a team project, working with 2-3 other students in the class, constituting 80% of your grade (which is both team grade and your contribution to the team effort as evaluated through self- and peer-evaluations).
  
  
  1. Conduct needs assessment of target audience to determine goals and content for Website (10% team, due Oct. 17) .
  2. Create rapid prototype (paper-based) (10% team, due Oct. 24.)
  3. Evaluate rapid prototype by usability testing with at least 3 users from target audience, and revise based on usability results (10% team, due Oct. 31).
  4. Do peer- and self-evaluations of team contributions thus far (10% individual, due Nov. 14 ).
  5. Create computer prototype (10% team, due Nov. 21):
     • Apply design principles from Krug: Don't Make Me Think.
     • Create and use one or more Dreamweaver templates with a consistent navigation scheme and that utilize CSS.
     • Use Macromedia Contribute to rapidly build your Website prototype.
  6. Evaluate computer prototype by usability testing with at least 3 users from target audience, and revise based on usability results (10% team).
  7. Write final report and present to class (10% team: presentations on Dec. 5 and 7 in class, final report with usability results due Dec. 11).
  8. Do peer- and self-evaluations of team contributions for remainder of project (10% individual, due Dec. 12).

Grading Scale

• A+ = 100
• A = 95 - 99
• A- = 90 - 94
• B+ = 85 - 89
• B = 80 - 84
• B- = 75 - 79
• C+ = 70 - 74
• C = 65 - 69
• C- = 60 - 64
• etc.

Texts and Readings

Bardzell, S., Bardzell, J. & Flynn, B. (2006). Macromedia Studio 8: Training from the source. Berkeley, CA: Adobe/Peachpit Press. (required)

Boling, E. & Frick, T. (2002):  Practical Web Development (available online at:  http://www.indiana.edu/~pedagogy/preview/pwd/index.html free to IU students)

Books24x7 (Web Programming and Development):  free to IU students via IU Libraries

Frick, T. (1991). Restructuring education through technology. Bloomington, IN: Phi Delta Kappa Education Foundation. ISBN 0-87367-326-3.  (free online)

Frick, T., Su, B. and An, Y.-J. (2005). Building a Large, Successful Website Efficiently through Inquiry-based Design and Content Management Tools. TechTrends, 49(04), 20-31 (free online).

Krug, S. (2005). Don’t make me think:  A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability (2nd ed.) .  Indianapolis:  New Riders. (required)

Note: Texts are not at the IU or TIS bookstores. Just order them at Amazon.com by clicking on links above (or from other vendors). This applies to only the Bardzell et al. and Krug books.

Mini-Movies

We will use the same demonstrations on basic computer competencies for Web development that are used in R547, taught at a distance. See the F500 Resources for links (IU network ID and password required).

Department of Instructional Systems Technology
School of Education
Indiana University Bloomington

Last updated:  November 16, 2006 by T. Frick
Copyright 2006, The Trustees of Indiana University