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ITSS WebDev Guide

Getting started

This section covers topics to help you make some decisions about your web site before you get started.

Do it yourself or contract?

You have several options for creating your web site:

• Create it yourself - If you like web development and have the time and skills to create and maintain a site, this may be the best option for you. Use the WebDev Guide as your reference tool.
• Use your department's student workers - Many departments have chosen this route in the past, with varying success. Problems most often occur when the student leaves, and a new student must relearn what was previously done.
• Hire an external vendor - If you choose this option, ITSS staff will work with the vendor to ensure compliance with University policies.
• Hire ITSS web developers - ITSS offers web development services to the campus that include design, maintenance, custom programming, and more. ITSS staff have detailed knowledge about the UMD web site, web server, and University policy and procedures. In addition to design skills, our staff are well-versed in accessibility and usability issues, and have extensive web programming experience (forms, databases, e-commerce, etc.). For details on this service, see: Web Development Services.

Personal vs. official web pages

There are two types of web pages you can have on the UMD web server: personal and official. The following table explains the main differences between the two types of pages.

Student organizations

Student groups have several options for hosting a web site:

• Host a free group page on the UMD CollegeLink site.
• Host a free site within the myUMD portal using the Group Collaboration feature.
• Host a free site on Google Sites (which will soon be part of the University's Google Docs initiative).
• Host a site on the UMD web server. You will need to purchase a sponsored Internet account for this option - you may request the account here: Application for Computing at ITSS

Opening a web development account

If you are creating a department or other official web site, ITSS recommends that you open a central system account that is specifically used for web development (and not email, Novell, Peoplesoft, etc.). This account allows you to transfer files to the web server, and is the account that is billed for web server disk storage. To request an account, see: Application for Computing at ITSS.

Requesting a URL

Personal web pages: You do not need to request a URL. Your personal web space is automatically created when your UMD Internet/email account is opened; your URL will be: http://www.d.umn.edu/~username

Official web pages:You may request a specific URL by completing the online request form: Requesting Storage on the UMD web server. The guidelines for URLs on the UMD web server are as follows:

Colleges and departments:

http://www.d.umn.edu/dept/
http://www.d.umn.edu/college/

Student organizations:

http://www.d.umn.edu/orgs/organization_name/ or
http://www.d.umn.edu/~organization_name/

Faculty and staff pages:

http://www.d.umn.edu/dept/username/ or
http://www.d.umn.edu/~username

Special events, outreach, misc:

http://www.d.umn.edu/outreach/name/

Requesting a link from the UMD web site

Official UMD web pages serve to carry out official University business. Requests to include a link on the UMD site are reviewed by the Campus Web Committee and are subject to approval. Personal web pages are not linked from the UMD home pages. Pages that do not comply with University policy and web guidelines may be rejected.

UMD's web server specs

The UMD web is not a single machine serving the web, but is a collection of systems with multiple web servers and technologies on them. Sometimes a single web application can span several servers and systems. If you are planning to create a web presence on the UMD web server, the following information may prove helpful:

Main web server

Our main web server (www.d.umn.edu) is an Apache server running on Solaris (SunOS) operating system. Both HTTP and HTTP + SSL are supported on www.d.umn.edu.

Web development technologies

Web developers at UMD can incorporate the following into their web site:

• Java
• PHP
• MySQL - for department projects only; ITSS will create the database and access; web developers can then create tables, queries, etc.
• CGI scripts

Before creating a web site, contact ITSS to determine the current version of server software.

Setting up ecommerce & secure sites at UMD

Before setting up an E-commerce web page or other secure site (i.e, collecting social security information or other confidential data), there are several things you should know.

• You must already have the ability to do credit card transactions. ITSS does not conduct transactions with credit card companies.
• ITSS will charge your department for the setup of the secured web page.
• After the credit card information is obtained by someone in your department, you still need to be very protective of the information so that someone else does not obtain it. For example, do not print the information out and forget it at the printer.

There are several steps to getting an E-Commerce web page ready for use. Since the information that is obtained from the web page should not fall into the wrong hands, certain precautions and careful planning must be implemented. If your department would like to conduct credit card transactions via the web, please follow the steps below.

1. You will need to create the web form with all of the fields for the necessary information. Several fields need to be present and have certain names to ensure correct validation of a user's credit card. You can get the code for these fields here and modify the range of options as you see fit.
2. After your form is ready, you will need to contact ITSS to have the form converted and secured. ITSS will need to know what fields MUST be filled in and also any dependencies. For example, if one field is filled in, does another also need to be filled in?
3. ITSS will do several things with your form to ensure safe handling of the e-commerce transactions.
   • Javascript validators will be inserted into the form.
   • Variables will be encoded into the transaction mechanism.
   • The form will be placed on the secured web server.
   • ITSS will notify you of the URL to link to the new form.
   • ITSS will provide instructions for handling the transactions.
4. You will now be able to link to the new secured form.

University policies

The University and UMD have specific policies regarding web publishing, the use of URLs, domain names, and linking to the UMD home page. For details, see the following:

• UofM: Web Standards and Requirements
• UofM: Accessibility of Information Technology.
• UMD: Creating, Storing and Linking Pages to the UMD Web Site
• UMD: Domain Names
• UMD: Copyright at UMD

Rev: 9.10 sab