Guidelines for Web Crossing
Discussion Forum
Developed by Helen Mongan-Rallis for ITSS workshops & student users.
These guidelines provide step-by-step directions for some of
the common tasks in the Web Crossing discussion forum. You can
read through this page in order, following each step of the guidelines,
or you can click on a specific task in the list below:
Registering to use Web Crossing
NOTE: Students who are using Web Crossing for a class
do not need to register (unless you added the
class after late) as you will automatically be registered. Students in classes
such as these should therefore skip this step and go directly to Logging
in to Web Crossing once you are a registered user below.
- Go to Web Crossing
Login Page at http://webapps.d.umn.edu/cgi-bin/etc/webx/WebX
- Register as a WebX user: the first time you go to the WebX page, you need
to register as a user. To do this, click on the Register
button (no need to fill in your name and password -- you will do this when
you get to the next screen).
- The "Register" button takes you to a New User Registration
screen. Enter your name (the same as your UMD login e.g. hrallis); Choose
a password and enter this; then enter your e-mail address. You may use the same password as your UMD x.500 password as WebX is on a secure server.
- Click the Register button. Then click the OK button. Bingo! You are
now a registered user.
[Next time you log in to Web Crossing, you will need to enter your name and
password again, but do not need to register again. Instead, after typing in
your name and password, click on the Login button
and enter your name (first and last) and password.]
- You will then be taken to a list of Web X folders to which you have been
given access. Click on on the folder you wish to access.
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Logging in to Web
Crossing once you are a registered user
- Go to Web Crossing
Login Page at http://webapps.d.umn.edu/cgi-bin/etc/webx/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.
- From there choose the folder you wish to join. You can then read and/or
participate in discussions.
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Changing your password
You can change your password at any time if you wish. (However,
to do so, you need to know what the password is that you want
to change!) To change your password:
- Go to Web Crossing
Login Page at http://webapps.d.umn.edu/cgi-bin/etc/webx/WebX.
- 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.
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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.
- 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.
- 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).
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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.
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