Syllabus

Extent of the course

• 2 SPPW (semester periods per week) or 30 units (30x 45 min) of teaching
• 2 ECTS or 50 hours of work per student

Organization Type

• F2F Sessions
• webinars
• tasks

Module

Digital Publishing

Short Description of the Course

The course offers insights into digital publishing technologies, focusing on publishing in the open web.

Contents and Methods

• Structure and functioning of the Internet and the Web
• HTML and CSS basics
• Frontends and backends and their role in publishing
• Versioning systems
• Static vs. dynamic content generation
• Introduction to static content generators (Eleventy, Hugo)
• Writing structured, accessible content for digital publishing

Aims and Skills

• Students gain an understanding of the Internet, it’s services and inner workings.
• They learn to use versioning systems.
• They’ll understand how to write content accessibly.
• Furthermore, they train communicating about digital (online) publishing with programmers and engineers.

Prerequisites

General information and communications literacy.

Teaching and Learning Method

• Short lectures, guided lab work, guided self-study.
• Documentation of content per session, quality assurance through teacher's feedback, update  of documentation.

Literature

• Frank Chimero: What Screens Want
• Jeremy Keith: Resilient Web Design
• Henny Swan, Ian Pouncey, Heydon Pickering, and Léonie Watson: Inclusive Design Principles
• Additional, optional reading: Laura Kalbag: Accessibility for Everyone

Evaluation

Evaluation on continuing basis through (single and group) tasks to be fulfilled.

Grading

The course is graded as follows:

• You will receive the default grade of “2” if you attend all lectures, complete all reading, and complete both assignments.
• If you desire an advanced grade of “1” you will need to contact the instructor for one extracurricular assignment.
• If you do not complete all coursework, you will receive an unsatisfactory grade.

I do evaluate both assignments, but I do not check attendance for the lectures, nor do I verify that you have completed the reading. I assume you are taking the course to learn the material, and therefore I trust you will complete the work.

1 Introduction & History

Slides / Video

In this lecture, we’ll introduce ourselves and talk about the general information on this course. Then a lecture that covers the history of the web and why we are here to talk about “Digital Publishing Platforms” in the first place.

Assignment 1: Watch a talk and write a blog post about it

Every student picks one conference talk (about 45 minutes) that is summarized in a blog post (about one A4 page long). The main focus of the blog post should be on new learnings and re-enforced views. Summarize briefly and then describe what you learned (or what you feel is missing).

Add your choice to this spreadsheet.

• Tim Kadlec — Unseen — btconfBER2016
• Charlie Owen — Dear Developer, the Web Isn’t About You — Parisweb 2018
• Marcy Sutton — How to Win at Mobile Accessibility — btconfBER2015
• Stephen Hay — Maintaining Simplicity — beyond tellerrand Düsseldorf 2014
• Jeremy Keith — Beyond Tellerrand — beyond tellerrand 2013
• Jen Simmons — Everything You Know About Web Design Just Changed — An Event Apart 2018
• Val Head — Building More Expressive Products — An Event Apart 2018
• Rachel Andrew — Graduating to Grid — An Event Apart 2018
• Ethan Marcotte — The World-Wide Work — New Adventures 2019
• Tatiana Mac — How Privilege Defines Performance — PerfMatters 2019

2 HTML, CSS, & the Semantic Web

Slides / Video

• Frontend Technologies:
  • HTML
  • CSS
  • JavaScript
• Semantic Web
  • Why the Semantic web matters
• Markup Languages
  • XML vs. HTML
  • Markdown
• Setting up GitHub
• Making first steps with HTML
• Making first steps with CSS

3 Accessibility Principles

Slides / Video

Information about accessibility principles and how to use them.

4 Online Publication

Slides / Video

Hello! I’m editing here!

5 Publishing across devices and technologies

Slides

6 Full-Day Workshop

This day of online learning replaces the face-to-face meeting in Graz. Rough preliminary schedule:

• 9:00–10:00: Breakfast/setting up GitHub (not recorded, please attend if you have issues with GitHub)
• 10:00–11:30: Introduction to the template and activity 2, dividing up in groups of about 5 people (recorded)
• 11:30–12:00: Orientation in breakout rooms.
• 12:00–13:00: Lunch break
• 13:00–15:00: Asynchronous work on the web business cards. (Breakout rooms and Slack, not recorded.)
• 15:00–17:00: Show your progress, ask questions.