In constructing our website (public administration), I have run up
against a couple of issues on which I am interested in receiving feedback:
1) Length of Publications on Web: I know that the initial pages on the
web should be fairly brief. But I and my grad assistant have engaged in
a debate over whether long publications-files should be included anywhere
in the site. He basically argues that everything should be kept very
short and attractive to visitors while I argue that part of the purpose of
our site was to provide long publications (e.g., student manuals,
resumes, papers) to improve access and save eventually on money. I am
interested in any ideas on rules concerning length of web publications.
2) I am also interested in how to put files on the web for downloading
that would include binary files. We use the corn server as our server
and, according to John MacAnally, they have not until now allowed other
people to use it as an FTP site--ofcourse they have their own ftp site
(Nirvana). He suggests that we just put the binary documents out there
with other files and that when visitors try to view them, they will get a
message that the browser can't read them and ask if they want to download
them. (I am also interested in other people's experiences with using the
web as a means of receiving and sending binary files such as student
papers, etc. How has it worked? What is the best way to do it?)
Bruce
Bruce Rocheleau, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Northern Illinois University
DeKalb, Illinois 60115
(815) 753-6147 (campus)
(815) 756-2169 (home office)
(815) 753-2539 (fax)
BROCHELE@NIU.EDU (My MVS electronic account which I check most days).
Office Hours: Wednesdays 2-4 p.m. and by appointment