Dean of Student Life Office
Guide to Developing On-Line Computer Resources

Last page update 4/6/95

Electronic communication is becoming an increasingly important way of transmitting information. This is paper is designed to give you a brief overview of different options and the directions that the office is moving towards.

[Since some of this material requires some familiarity with the Internet, this paper is not designed to go into details on topics such as how to use email, how to transfer files from another computer (ftp), how to connect to another computer (Telnet). If you are not familiar with these concepts, you can get documentation from the Information Center at CIT or check out the on-line documentation available from Gopher].

Listproc

 LISTPROC is a distribution list management package. It allows groups of computer users with a common interest to communicate among themselves, while making efficient use of computer and network resources. It makes it easy for even novice users to discover, join, and participate in these interest group mailing lists. LISTPROC also provides facilities for logging and archiving of mail traffic, file server functions, and database searches of archives and files. LISTPROC functions as an email hub. Any message sent to the hub is forwarded to all subscribers. This allows people to post questions and receive answers and post information.

Listproc’s are an excellent way communicating among workgroups, committees, and across departments. Since Listproc runs from the mainframe (PUCC) it will work in any situation where people have an email address either on PUCC, UNIX machines like Phoenix, or one of the Novell servers. On UNIX machines you can set up a UNIX list to accomplisg the same thing.

In order to start a list one must have a mainframe site on the Internet and someone at that site to be the Listproc administrator. This person handles basic list maintenance such as new subscribers, responding to error messages, etc. To set up a Listproc or UNIX List contact the authorizing office at CIT contact Listproc@lists.princeton.edu).

Distribution Lists

 Email distribution lists are another way to send information out efficiently. Most email software has a facility for setting up a distribution list. The list is given a name and specific email addresses are entered into the list. Any message sent to the list is distributed to all members. You will need to check on the documentation for your particular email package to determine how to set up a list.

Distribution lists exist locally on an individual’s email account. So distribution lists tend to be a "one-way" messaging system, for an individual out to a group. In order for members of the list to respond and everyone else get the message, each user would need to have a copy of the distribution list for their particular email package. This makes it difficult to maintain the list since every change in the list must be updated on many machines.

Gopher

 Gopher is being used as Princeton’s Campus Wide Information System (CWIS). Gopher is a program that runs on a variety of different platforms (Mainframe, PC, PC-Windows, Mac, or UNIX). Gopher uses a layered menu structure to allow you to access documents.

Below is a sample of the Princeton Gopher top level menu

Various files are stored on the Gopher server and can be accessed by moving down through the menu list. If you select a document the Gopher server will bring up the document as a file to read. If you select a menu, you will be taken down to a more specific menu list. Using Gopher, you can work your way down through menus to get to the documents you are interested in.

Offices can submit documents to be included in the Gopher menu structure. If you need to determine where you items should appear in the menu or a need new menu for your information, contact Hannah Kaufmann at CIT. Check here for details on submitting Gopher documents.

You can also use Gopher to do searches either across the information stored on the Princeton Gopher or across the Internet. To search at Princeton go to the Search Menu Items at Princeton You will be prompted for a text string. Enter the text and Gopher will bring up all documents that contain that text string. You can also search across the Internet using a search tool called Veronica. Enter your keywords and Gopher will pull up all indexed files that have those keywords. Some of those might be documents, or Internet newsgroups, or a listing in a on-line library card catalog. The advantage in searching with Gopher is that it insulates the user from having to link to a specific machine and do a time consuming search on one computer somewhere, only to discover the info you wanted isn’t there and then have to start again somewhere else.

CIT maintains versions of Gopher for all supported platforms. From PUCC or UNIX machines, type Gopher at the ready prompt to access the Gopher main menu. There are also client versions for DOS, Windows, Mac, and X Windows. The client versions of Gopher typically display a series of dialogue windows as you "burrow" down to deeper levels. Client versions also allow you to save "bookmarks" when you find items you want to return to at a later session. The versions that use a graphical user interface (GUI) like Windows or the Mac also allow you to pull more that just text across, you can bring across pictures, sounds, etc. if you have the proper hardware and viewer software on your machine. To get more information on how to get a client version of Gopher or how to submit documents to Gopher, go into Gopher and Search Menu Items at Princeton, enter Gopher as the search string.

World Wide Web

 The World Wide Web (WWW) expands the Gopher menu capabilities to a higher level. For those who are familiar with the Macintosh it acts like a Hypercard Stack. A document can have "hot links" to other sections within the document or to other documents. Clicking on a link will jump you to that other section or document. The "document" can be a text file, a graphic, sound, video image, etc. and all of these items can be imbedded within one document or spread across a number of documents. What is so useful about the Web is that those documents can be located on PUCC, a UNIX server, or on servers across the Internet. All you need is the correct address pointer for the hot link called a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) to get to the other document. So the WWW is a hypermedia system that works not only across the Princeton campus, but also across the Internet. There are a number of excellent resources referenced in WWW Information - A Summary Page.

You use the WWW through a browser program. The most common is Mosaic which was written by the National Center for Super Computing Applications. CIT is currently supporting Netscape. It is available for Mac, PC-Windows, and X-Windows. Both Netscape and Mosaic are able to read and display both text and images, and do sound and video if you have the right hardware and software.

A Web Browser is the superset of Internet access tools. The URL codes (see below) contain the information on the type of document (is it a text file for reading, a file to be transferred, a graphic image to display, a sound file, etc.) Mosaic then does the work to pull across whatever it is. You never have to enter complex commands, just point and click. Mosaic can access Gopher menus and documents, search for files, access databases, and download files all without having to know lots of arcane commands.

When you make a document request from your Web client to the server, the server goes and gets the document you want and sends it to your client. The actual document that is sent is just plain ASCII text. Embedded with the text are a series of codes defined by HTML (Hypertext Markup Language). These are formatting codes like headline1, bold, numbered list, etc. Your Web client reads the codes and knows how to display that formatting on your screen. The Web Browsers also have the ability to display graphics and these are also transferred along with the document.

Dean of Student Life Office and the WWW

 Transmitting information is a fundamental part of the work of all units within the Dean of Student Life Office. We hope to increase the amount of material that is available in electronic form. This has a number of advantages. One is increasing distribution, for example, an office can post a brochure to the entire campus. Another is reduced cost. An office might not have had the funds to print copies to send to everyone. It also can reduce paper use on campus. On-line systems will also allow us to create new ways of finding information, like the on-line University events calendar that is currently under development.

One recommendation is that every newsletter and brochure which is produced on paper should also be available electronically. In the short run I suggest that such electronic documents be created as simply text files and uploaded to Gopher. This allows the document to be accessible from every machine on campus that is connected to campus Ethernet. In the long run, I would like to see departments move to develop their own home pages for the Princeton Web server. Many of the documents referenced in the home page can still exist on Gopher, but the Web offers a simple and extremely powerful interface that is likely to become the next standard across the Internet. At the moment the Dean of Student Life Office has a home page that is accessible on the Web server. The URL to access the Dean of Student Life Home Page is

Back to the Student Life Resources Home Page This home page will give you an idea of the types of things that we can do. This page currently has links to a number of items. Browse the system and think about what types of information you can create links to.

Here are some other sample Web documents to check out.

 NCSA Demo Document

Honolulu Community College Home Page

Campus Calendar

The other reason for developing our expertise with this Web software is the wealth of resources at other campuses across the country. Using tools like Netscape makes it much easier both to share and gather information from colleagues. Institutions across the country are expanding their Campus Wide Information Systems to include Web servers.

Creating WWW Documents

 Home pages are simply text files (ASCII text) with special formatting codes added to the text. This format is called HTML (Hypertext Markup Language). The Web browser software like Mosaic reads those codes and knows how to format the text for your computer screen. Other codes are used as the address pointers to other documents. These are coded in a special format called URL (Uniform Resource Locators).

For example, to make text display as headline style1 you format the text with the following additions

<H1>Your Headline</H1>

With a Web Browser the program will read the formatting tags and display the text in the following way:

Your Headline

To point to another resource on the Web you include a URL like this

<A HREF=http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Software/Mosaic/Docs/whats-new.htm">NCSA Mosaic's 'What's New' Page</A>

The first part is the URL or address pointer. The http code (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) tells the Web Browser that this is a hypertext document, other codes are Gopher, File, FTP, etc. The only thing the user sees on screen is the description of the document NCSA Mosaic's 'What's New' Page which will be a different color or highlighted to tell the user that it is a hypertext link. Click on the link and you jump to the other document. For more information on HTML check out the following documents:

HTML Documents: A Mosaic Tutorial

A Beginners Guide to HTML

HTML Aids

 It takes a little work to create the HTML documents although there are new tools coming out everyday. Here are some of the current options.

Putting up Your Own Web Pages

You can create your own Web pages to put up pages on the Internet. To do so you need a computer that can be connected to the Internet (preferably 24 hours a day). Files must be located in a public access directory that allows anonymous login. The files you have on the system can be HTML documents, files for ftp, or connections to a Gopher system. HTML documents can be created with any word processor that can save files as ASCII text. It takes a little learning to get the proper HTML codes down so that your document displays well. There are a number of good resources on the Internet that describe the HTML codes as well as some software that will automatically insert the proper codes. There are a number of excellent resources available on the Web that talk about how to create Web documents. Check out the following URL's which are presented in HTML Format.

HTML Information

 There are also a number of good books available: There is a translation program which takes Rich Text Format files (RTF) which can be generated from most popular word processors and translates the format (like heading 1) into the proper HTML codes. This software is available for the Mac and UNIX machines.

RTF to HTML

There is a PC Windows program called HTML Assistant which is a simple text editor that allows you to select text with the mouse and press a formatting button (H1) to add the headline 1 codes to the text.

For Word for Windows 6.0a and above there is a free add-on from Microsoft called Internet Assitant for Word that automatically adds formatting tags to standard Word documents as saves them in text format as *.htm.

Web Software

 CIT is currently supporting Netscape as the University Web access software.

Netscape will be found in all CIT Student Clusters. On Macintosh computers, it can be found on the Desktop and also in the Basic Software volume in the Information Access folder. If you are using MS-Windows, you can find Netscape in the Information Access Group window. Netscape also is available on all public Unix computers under X Windows with the command netscape.

To use Netscape on your network-connected Mac or MS-Windows system, you must install the program on your computer. While commercial users will pay a small fee, Princeton and other educational and non-profit users can get a copy of the browser at no cost. The Macintosh version is available on the CIT Mac software server, and the MS-Windows version is available to those with access to a Novell server on campus from the Netscape directory on Arachne\Tryitout.

System requirements for MS-Windows:
Hardware: 386SX processor (minimum)
Memory: 4 MB RAM (8 MB RAM recommended)
Disk space: 1 MB
Software: Windows 3.1 or later

System requirements for the Mac:
Operating system: System 7 or later
Memory: 4 MB RAM minimum (8 MB RAM recommended)
Disk space: 1 MB
Hardware: 68030 processor
Software: MacTCP

On-line help on using Netscape is available by clicking on the Help menu at the top right of the Netscape screen. As part of the Spring Education Series, CIT will offer classes on using Netscape to explore the World Wide Web as well as workshops on writing HTML documents.

Questions about World Wide Web and Netscape should be sent to www@princeton.edu

Mosaic X-Windows Browsers

Mosaic for UNIX machines running X Windows.

Line and Terminal Mode Browsers

What do you do if you don’t have the hardware to run Mosaic or other GUI browsers? There are several browsers available for line and terminal mode users. These are not as slick and easy as Mosaic, but get you to the information and it allows access for people connecting over modems and SLIP connections. You need to at least be able to Telnet from your machine. These systems are not GUI based so do not display graphics but allow you to access and read all text files.

There is a line mode UNIX browser called Lynx that is available on some UNIX Systems like Phoenix.

Prepared by Rick Curtis. Rcurtis@princeton.edu