WebBoard (Forum, Message Board)

The Class Forum

for Fall 2005 both sections is at: http://Discussion Forum.ucc.edu:8080/~cis100combo72054.
It is a combined board for Section 009, 8am Tues &Thur and Section 072 in Plainfield on Wednesday evening.

Students will not be able to log onto the Discussion Forum until they have send me an email so that I can establish their identity with the Discussion Forum and invitation to join the Discussion Forum can be sent out by the Discussion Forum.

The Discussion Forum is the heart of this course - the place that you will spend a minimum of 4 hours of class time per week is the .
This is where students will post their answers to all assignments. Here students read and comment (suggest improvement to) the work of fellow students. It is class discussion and your Posts and Replies are an integral part of your grade.

WebCT does provide a Discussion board (a.k.a. Message Board, a.k.a. discussion or Forum), but is vastly superior since the author of a post, or the moderator of the board (me), can edit or even delete posts. If you post something in the incorrect conference, I can move the post and its replies, so the board will stay organized.

The first assignment is to Introduce yourself and then comment on the introductions of your fellow classmates.

Instructions are available online from Discussion Forum and from UCC and also from Discussion Forum's Help (the rightmost item on the top of the Discussion Forum Screen) Before you use the board, familiarize yourself with its operation.
There are several online tutorials on my UCC faculty site too. Time spent learning a software product will save you much more time in frustrating attempts to accomplish what your want.

This is a long page. It is important that you read it all carefully. It explains:

	How to Customize your profile
	How to Write a Post and a Reply and the difference
	How to create link to other web pages
	Some HTML that you should use to increase the readability of your posts

Your username is your first name and your initial password is simply the first letter of first name plus the first letter of your last name (A student named John Doe would have a login id of John and a initial password of jd). Thus it is imperative you change it immediately, per below.

Customize your profile

Immediately after signing on for the first time, select More and My Profileto customize your profile:

change your password. Here are some rules for good passwords

be sure to make it something you will remember. You must remember your user name and password. No one can provide it you. In most cases the administer can reset it to something that you must again modify.

use a combination of letters, upper and lower case and numbers and special characters (the top row of the keyboard)

don't make it something associated with you like your kids name or your birthday.

don't make it a word that is in the dictionary like college

have two (or more passwords). One for school and less important stuff, and who really cares if it is discovered, and one for money matters.

see some good sites about creating good passwords

	http://www.alw.nih.gov/Security/Docs/passwd.html
	http://www.cs.umd.edu/faq/Passwords.shtml
	http://www.mit.edu/afs/sipb/project/doc/passwords/passwords.html
	http://www.securityfocus.com/infocus/1537

correct the spelling of your First and/or Last name (if needed)

put in your home or work city and state (2 characters for state NJ for New Jersey)

add a signature (similar to an email signature)

select Yes for "Automatically mark new msgs read: When I log off mark all messages as read"
Which implies you will read ALL new messages before logging off"
Use Discussion Forum

Help and UCC's instructions

Familiarize yourself with the menu on top of the screen
Plan on logging onto the Discussion Forum several times a week to read new postings.

When you log on it will say
You have ?# new message(s).

Click on that Hyperlink to see only the new messages.

Expand a conference to see all the topics posted in that conference.

Do a search for what has been posted since the last time visited

Open the posts one by one in a new window (right click).

The Forum (Discussion Forum) is the equivalent of class discussion, which is a chunk of your grade.

The discussion host (me) gets to select the conferences. We start with:

	General Questions (for students to ask question and student and/or the prof to answer)
	(for the prof to give instructions to the student)
	Introduce Yourself
	Student Lounge

As new subject matter is discussed in class, I will add new conferences the forum to continue the discussion online. Only the owner of the forum (that's me, your Prof.) can add new conferences. So if you think we should add one, either send me email or post a new message in the General Questions topic.

Everyone is required to read every message posted. So following a few rules will make the board efficient and pleasant to use:

use an email reply when your message is ONLY for the person whose post you are replying to

post things in the correct conference

use a Post for a new thought and a Reply when commenting on or adding to some else's thought

if and when a Post is no longer relevant, please Delete it.

Only make posts that are course relevant and move the conversation and learning forward. The entire class is required to read every message that is post so don't waste every one's time.

Student Lounge conference has been provided for "chit-chat". Everyone has to read all new stuff and chit-chat slows us all down. Send email or chat for one-to-one discussions.

When you get to the forum, read the new messages. Use Search to find messages after a specific date.

If you wish to respond to a message select REPLY at the bottom. You can also email the message to anyone (a forum member or anyone whose email address you know).
When you write the post/reply, you can EDIT or DELETE it.

Now you type your message to be posted on the forum or sent as private mail to the person who wrote the message you are replying to.

Here's a good suggestion: since there is the spelling checker on the forum is cumbersome and there i no thesaurus, type your response into a word processor, spell check it, then copy it onto the clipboard and paste it into your Forum message. Sometimes the forum seems to delete messages for no reason, and a word processor where you are working locally, not online, won't lose you work.

Use Post for a new topic

If what you have to say is NEW, then choose Post under the correct conference. It is extremely important to make the Topic(subject) of the post/reply meaningful. You could include your name as the part of the subject of the post. A new post is called a "thread", mean a new train of thought. It is very important to reply when you are talking about the same thing and do a new post when it is different. Of course there are times when that isn't a clear call. When this is done wrong, the Forum becomes like a file cabinet with everything misfiled!

Topic subject:

When you post new, your subject is VERY important because that is all that shows in the left window. Really describe what you're going to talk about and possibly identify yourself (include your first name.) If your are a lousy a speller/typist as I, you might type your message in to a word processor or the Front Page Editor, then run the spell check, then copy it onto the clip board and finally paste it into your Forum message. Each Topic (like the subject of an email) whether for a post or a reply should summarize the contents of the message and intrigue the reader to read the message – let’s see what fun and interesting topics you can post!

Attachments

The beauty of forums is that you can add both attachments and hyperlinks to your messages. To attach a word document or a picture or a sound or... Click on attach and type in or browse around and highlight the name of a file you wish to attach.

Link to other web pages

To put a hyperlink to a URL either type the WHOLE THING like http://www.ucc.edu.

When you read a message that has a hyperlink, be sure to open it in a new window (by RIGHT clicking and selecting "Open in New Window" from the menu) so you don't loose your place when your want to return to the forum.

If you want to have words be the hyperlink rather than the http://address then

type <a href="

the URL (which should be copied and pasted)

type spacebar target="_blank" if you want it to open in a new window of its own

type ">

type the words to be underlined as a hyperlink

type </a>

If you want to have an image be the hyperlink rather than the http://address then

	type <a href="
	the URL (which should be copied and pasted)
	type spacebar target="_blank" if you want it to open in a new window of its own
	type ">
	type <img src="
	Paste the URL of the image (get this by right clicking on the image in a browser, selecting Properties from the short menu, highlighting the address and copying it to the clipboard)
	type">
	type </a>

Use HTML to emphasize text

To bold something put before it and after it. ( and is equally good.)

To italicize something put before it and after it.( and is equally good.)

Bold and italics would look like this something

Change color with words that you want to be red (other colors are blue, brown, green, ....)

Make the text big with words that you want to be BIG<

To make things more readable

	Skip to a new line with <br>
	Skip a line and start a new paragraph with <P>

Add Pictures in your posts and Signature

Just like you put pictures in your signature, you can put them in any Post or Reply.

Include Pictures (graphics), which make your post so much more interesting to read.

For example,

the HTML <img src="http://facultu.ucc.edu/business-greenbaum/images/faces.gif"> points to a the graphic .

It must be entered EXACTLY as above:

< (less than) before everything

> (greater than) at the very end

img src with a space in-between img and src (that is the only space between the < and the >.)

two double quotes "

	before the http
	before the >

The best way to get the web address of of graphic is to

	right click on it
	select Properties
	highlight the complete URL
	copy the ENTIRE address to the clipboard
	paste it between to "s.

Step by step

go to window with the web page that has the graphic you wish to use
right click on the graphics (be sure that you have permission to use that graphic)
select Properties from the short menu
highlight the URL (everything from http:// to gif or jpg)
point at the highlighted letters
right click
select copy from the short menu
go to the window where you are creating your signature
type <img src=""> Note there are two double quotes
click between the two " (quotes)
paste (Ctrl+V or right click Paste) this name that is on the clipboard from step 7 between the two "