Student Activities
Please report on these activities as part of your online directed tasks.
Make a list of formats of information presented to you on the web as you come across them and of software/plug-ins needed to read these formats. Note when the file you are being taken to is not an html/XML file and research the meaning of the file extension if you do not recognize it. Also note when the browser indicates that new software will need to be downloaded to read the item.
Test out various file formats available through the Web to determine if they are indexed by search engines. Using a distinctive phrase from the document should work well.
View the page source of web sites (available through the browser View menu) to determine
(a) whether metadata has been used
(b) whether scripts are used to access external data and manipulate data.
You should always aim to view web pages intelligently, understanding the nature of their content. (See Appendix 1 below for a note on the evaluation of page sources.
Resource #1
Robertson, J. (2002). Losing sight of the content in a content management system. Step Two Designs. Available at http://www.steptwo.com.au/papers/kmc_content/.
File format:
This page is a html page, even though this is not immediately evident from the above address. I was able to confirm the file type by using “Page Info” from Firefox (see below).
Was it indexed by a search engine? — Yes.
I did an advanced search in Google on the phrase “support in CMS is often weak” which returned the following results.
- Losing sight of the content in a CMS » Step Two Designs
5 Mar 2002 … Authoring support in CMS is often weak, so be prepared to spend extra effort setting this up. Make it easy for authors to help your users …
www.steptwo.com.au/papers/kmc_content/index.html – 22k – Cached – Similar pages - Losing sight of the Content in a Content Management System II
This makes ease of use particularly important. Sufficient training will also need to be provided to all users. Authoring support in CMS is often weak, …
www.intranetjournal.com/articles/200204/pkm_04_02_02b.html – 14k – Cached – Similar pages
Was metadata present in the page — Yes (see below)
<title>Losing sight of the content in a CMS » Step Two Designs</title>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
<meta name="description" content="Why spend millions on managing content that no-one understands or needs?
This article provides tips for getting the best value out of your business content. " />
<meta name="keywords" content="authoring, content, content management, decentralised, quality" />
<meta name="generator" content="WordPress 2.7" /><!-- Please leave for stats -->
Are scripts used in the content — Yes, there are a few scripts called in the <head> section of the page
<!-- Start Of Script Generated By cforms v10.2 [Oliver Seidel | www.deliciousdays.com] -->
script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.steptwo.com.au/wp-content/plugins/cforms/js/cforms.js"></script>
<!-- End Of Script Generated By cforms -->script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"
src="http://w.sharethis.com/widget/?wp=2.7&publisher=8e6a6754-11c3-4796-915f-bdf592d6c179"></script>
As well as the above scripts there was also a script for the Google Analytics tag just before the closing html tag. This is placed at the bottom of the document to ensure that the document has fully loaded before Google registers that a page has loaded.
<script type="text/javascript">
var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");
document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-789813-1");
pageTracker._trackPageview();
</script>
Evaluation of page sources : <meta name=“generator” content=“WordPress 2.7″ />
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Resource #2
http://www.genuki.org.uk/org/standards.html
File format — page is html using transitional dtd.
Was it indexed by a search engine? — No.
I did an advanced search on the following exact phrase “amily History is a hobby in which we tend to gain an intere” which returned 0 results. That said, when I did another search on the text “GENUKI Server standards” which is exactly the same text as the title tag I was able to see the site as the first result in the Google natural search.
Was metadata present in the page — No.
(Excluding title tag)
<meta http-equiv="Content-Script-Type" content="text/javascript">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
Are scripts used in the content — Yes.
<script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">
<!--
if (top.frames.length!=0) top.location=self.document.location;
// -->
</script>
Evaluation of page sources – Not a lot of info about the page source as it looks like it has been hand coded.
