Web Crossing (WebX) Introduction & Guidelines

The purpose of this page is to provide you with the information you need to in order to understand:

the expectations of you for participating in WebX discussions
the etiquette -- better known as "netiquette" for participating in online discussions
how to use WebX effectively to participate in our online class discussions and
how to self-assess your contributions to the WebX discussions

Expectations for participating in WebX

This WebX Forum enable us to extend the face-to-face (F2F) component of the course. The WebX discussions provide you with opportunities to share your thoughts on that what you are learning (from F2F class time as well as from independent learning activities), to continue discussions beyond F2F class time, and through doing so to engage and challenge each other in extending your learning. Helen will notify you via e-mail when a new discussion topic has been posted, but you may use this forum to post questions about the class and to communicate with each other outside of class.

Ground Rules & Netiquette Guidelines

Welcome to our Educ 5413 Summer 2005 Web Crossing Discussion Forum! Before you begin participating in our online class discussions, it is important for you to understand the context and "ground rules" of our 5413 learning community.

Online discussion forums, like Web Crossing, open up wonderful opportunities to extend discussion outside of the classroom or to extend the "classroom" beyond the confines of a specific physical learning space and time. Increasingly schools, universities, and businesses across the USA and around the world are offering components of or whole courses/training modules online. Discussions among participants through synchronous (at the same time) and asynchronous means form key components of many of these online learning opportunities and enable students to extend their learning beyond the confines of traditional face-to-face (F2F) classrooms. However, web-based discussions can also raise problems that are unique to this method of communicating. It's all too easy to fire off a message that you later regret--one that you would not have articulated if you were speaking in the physical presence of your classmate(s) or one that was taken the wrong way because your tone was misunderstood.

Because of the potential for (usually unintended) abuse, web users have formulated what they call "netiquette," or rules or etiquette for corresponding over e-mail or through web-based forums. Most of these rules involve common sense and common courtesy -- the same rules that apply in the classroom. For example, it is important to argue your own position but still treat your classmates with respect. You should challenge ideas with which you don't agree and state your own convictions as forcefully as you want, but keep the arguments diplomatic and friendly and never attack the people who hold ideas different from your own. The goal is a challenging, lively, friendly, and free (non-intimidating) exchange of ideas about topics that matter to all of us.

Because tone IS difficult to convey without visual and aural help, one of the ways to indicate tone in your message is through using "emoticons" or explicit cues [e.g. :) or "grin"]. However, even if classmates and instructors do not use these to help convey the emotional time of their message, you should assume that they are as well intentioned as you are; don't be quick to take personal offense over what is said. But realize, too, that people's feelings can be easily hurt. Without compromising your own stand or avoiding debate out of "Minnesota niceness," do express yourself with sensitivity to and respect for the emotions of others.

Other principles of WebX netiquette:

Use the WebX Forum only for matters that concern your classmates. Most of the discussion should involve topics directly related to our course. We do have a Class Community Center folder for you to engage in very informal discussions among yourselves and to post announcements of happenings that will interest your classmates, but NEVER pass along chain-letters or "spam" (e.g., solicitations).
When you are responding to someone else's comments, be sure to do so by clicking on the "reply" button so that your comments are attached to the original as part of that discussion thread. When you do so, it may be helpful to refer to or quote relevant and necessary parts of the original.
If you post a question or follow-up comment to someone else's posting, do follow-up and finish the discussion with that person (so check back to see if they responded to you and if there is a need for you to reply).
If you wish to respond to others privately about their posting (so that others do not see your response) you can e-mail them directly (by clicking on their picture next to their posting). If you do this, copy and paste their posting or relevant parts of their posting so that they know the context for your e-mail. [Note: this is important netiquette when responding to e-mails, too. If you are replying to someone's e-mail, it is very important for you to include their original e-mail or relevant parts of it before or following your comments. Don't assume that that remember the details of what was in their original e-mail! Also be sure to include the topic in the e-mail subject line.]

Other resources:

The Netiquette Home Page: especially refer to the 10 golden rules
List of emoticons (aka "smileys" or "smilies"): while not all of these are commonly used, this is a useful reference and tool
Acronyms, emoticons and smileys page: especially link to the list of acronyms. Again, not all are commonly used in online chat, but use of the basic ones can be a great time saver.

Note: These netiquette guidelines have been adapted with permission from directions originally written by Steve Adams, UMD.

Guidelines on How to Use Web Crossing

These guidelines provide step-by-step directions for some of the common tasks in the Web Crossing discussion forum.

Logging in to Web Crossing and Changing your password

Go to Web Crossing Login Page at http://webapps.d.umn.edu/cgi-bin/etc/webx/WebX.
The first time you login to WebX, Enter your Internet (e-mail) ID and the default password of webx. [Note: you should change this password from the default to one of your own choosing once you have logged in. See the directions below for how to do this].
Click on the Login button.
This takes you to a list of folders to which you have access.
Next you need to change your password from the generic "webx" to one that only you know. To do this:
Click on the preferences button.
This takes you to a screen with a series of links. You can experiment with changing these later as you become more familiar with Web Crossing. For now, click on the change password link.
Enter in your new password in the first box, enter it again in the second, and enter your old password in the third box. To make it easier for you to remember this password you may choose the same password as your UMD x.500 password (your current e-mail password). Web Crossing uses a secure server so it is safe to use this same password.
Scroll down to the end of the page and click on the Set Preference button.
You will get a screen saying "preferences updated" and showing you your new preferences. Click the OK button.

Posting & editing messages

To read and to participate in a discussion, click on the discussion of your choice (discussions are shown by a picture of two small pages followed by the discussion name or question which is in blue and underlined).
When you click on a discussion it will show you the initial discussion question as well as any responses others have made to the question.To participate in a discussion related to this topic, you must type a message in the message post box. Caution: If you type a message that is more than a few lines and/or if you take more than a few minutes to compose your message, it is a very good idea to compose it in a separate word processing document (such as in MS Word or even a simple text editor) and then paste it into the message post box in WebX when you are done. The reason for this is that WebX "times out" after about half an hour if you haven't been active, and you will loose all your hard work! (when you post your message you may find that it doesn't show up -- and you are left thinking, "I know I posted a message!" This means you took too long to post it after you first began typing in the post message box).
When you have typed your message in this box, to post it to the discussion board you need to click on the button that says "Post My Message." That's it!
Once you have posted your message, you may go back and edit the message if you want to add to it or make any changes (to do this, click on the "edit" button that appears next to the message that you have posted.This will bring up a screen with your old message in a text box. You can click on the part that you want to edit, make your changes, and then submit these by clicking on the "post my message" button.

Creating a link

To insert a web link as part of your message, type (or copy-and-paste) the URL into the text of your message. Be sure to have a space following the URL (if you don't, then your URL won't show up as a clickable link). If you would like to use a more advanced method of creating a link, link to How to Create a Link to a URL in Web Crossing

Inserting an emoticon

To show readers your non-verbal facial expressions or the emotions you intended to convey along with your written message, you can insert an emoticon in the appropriate place in your message. To do this, just click on one of the emoticon icons that appears below the post message box

Attaching a file to your WebX posting

If you want viewers to look at a document or picture along with your posting, you can attach this to your message. To do this, scroll to below the post message box
Next to where it says, "attachments" click on the button that says "choose file"
Navigate to where the file you wish to attach is located on your computer, and select this
The name of your file will now appear next to the "choose file" button.
Click on the "post my message" button.

Inserting your photograph into Web Crossing

Once in Web Crossing you will see that some people have their photos next to the messages that they post. This feature is especially useful in classes in which students may never see each other face-to-face, but with any size or type of class it adds a personal touch and helps you to get to know the people in the class. To insert your picture you need to do the following:

Scan in a photo of yourself or have one taken with a digital camera.
Open the photo using an application such as PhotoShop or PhotoDeluxe.
Crop the photo so that it shows only your head (try to cut out any extra space so you can make the photo as small as possible).
Change the size of the photo so that it is about .75 inch square and at a resolution of 72 dpi, with a size around 5K bytes (The maximum size of the graphics image should be 10K bytes). Having a small picture reduces the time the page takes to load and also means your picture takes up only a small space on the discussion screen.
Save this photo into jpeg or gif format.
Login to Web Crossing (Go to Web Crossing Login Page at http://webapps.d.umn.edu/cgi-bin/etc/webx/WebX)
Click on the preferences button.
Click on the link for Your picture.
Click the browse button and locate your picture on your computer and upload it.
When you are done, scroll down and click the OK button.

To learn how to customize the appearance of your posts, take a look at: Using Some Simple HTML Code to Enhance Web Crossing

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