COST

How much time did you have available to create and maintain your Web site?

 Hours during the day  - very few !

 Hours weekday nights - spent on average 10 - 12 hours per (14 weeks October to December 2001 )

 Hours during weekends - spent on average 10 -12 hours per week ( 14 weeks October to December 2001 )

Approximately 300 hours in total. Creating the website was enormously time intensive as this was a learning activity and involved substantial experimentation and multiple revisions. The learning of new skills will be of great benefit and should mean future projects will hopefully require much less time.

Do you already possess webpage construction skills?

I have been experimenting with simple webpages and developing very basic intrabnet sites using Netscape Composer (during 1999)and Microsoft Front Page 2000 (during 2000 - 2001)

How much time can you free up to create, produce, and maintain your Web site?

Hours weekends - hopefully I can find 10 hours to revise and add new content once every term - An additional 1 hour per wek will be devoted to maintaining the email contributions etc.

Do you currently own any software programs suitable for creating Web sites?

After developing elementary skills using Netscape Composer and MS Front Page I decided to utilise the Macromedia Dreamweaver Suite _ Dreamweaver 3; Fireworks3 ; Flash 4 and Freehand 8 as my main tools for this project. Other Image enhancement software used extensively included Adobe Photoshop 5.5 which includes Adobe Image Ready2.0 and Typestyler 3.7.2. I was fortunate in having access to these programs at my workplace and was able to utilise them on my laptop

Do you own the right hardware?  

I have access to a Macintosh G4 Powerbook andan Imac both of which have 256 mb ram enabling me to operate with several programs simultaneously.

I have also used a scanner; digital camera and CD burner during the making of the site

Have you researched freelance design resources in your area? 

If yes, what is their range of prices?

Have you contacted any of their past and present clients? If so, who?

What did they have to say about co-operation and pricing?

How were unexpected problems resolved?

Have you researched professional graphic design firms in your area?

 No 

 Yes

If yes, what is their range of prices?

Who seems to do the best work in your area?

Have you contacted any of their past and present clients? If so, who?

What did they have to say about co-operation and pricing?

How were unexpected problems resolved?

How much will an Internet Service Provider charge to host your Web site?

$ _______to $______

Are you satisfied with the quality of their work?

Have you contacted any of their past and present clients? If so, who?

What did they have to say about co-operation and pricing?

How were unexpected problems resolved?

Intranet Hosting

A number of options for hosting the site were explored. Initially as the main audience was internal I chose to mount the site on the school intranet. As the school has no webserver at present, the site was loaded on the Users Shared drive on the school network and all browsers inthe Library and Primary classrooms gained access via a link from the Shool Library Homepage.

Choosing an external web hosting service

I also decided I would like to have the site hosted externally on the world wide web. This would allow access for students from home and also facilitate peer feedback from other TLs.

"Aussie School House" provides 10mb free space for teachers wishing to have their educational site hosted. Contact was made by email. Within several days I had a reply from ASH. A project officer from ASH provided details of suitable ftp software; procedures for file naming and file mangement conventions; pretesting the content; ftp passwords and procedures for uploading the website to the ASH web server.

Did you, or the individuals producing your Web site, do everything possible to reduce file sizes so that your Web site is as fast-loading as possible?

All image files have been optimised for the web.I have also removed all extraneous files and reduced the original web folder from 22mb to less than 10mb. Files which may be needed for editing at a later stage such as native "png" "psd" files and trial quicktime movie files have been stored in a a separate working folder on my home computer.

Did you allow enough time to elapse between production and posting so that you can view your Web site from a fresh perspective?  

 The website was largely finished by December 2001. A trial site was loaded on the Intranet at St Michael's in late January 2002 for the start of the year. I have continued to work on the process section and make minor revisions since then.

Adapted from "Worksheets and checklists for web site publishing and evaluation" by Roger C Parker (online) http://www.newentrepreneur.com/Resources/Worksheets/Web_design_Wk_Sht/web_design_wk_sht.html . Accessed 12 September, 2001

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