All users of the Aurora University computer system who have a valid ID can publish their own personal web pages on the AU web server. Faculty may use this resource to create instructional web pages for their courses, and students may develop web-based personal resumes to use as job search tools, but in general personal web pages may be on any topic as long as they do not violate the published policies of Aurora University. This document provides a summary of the steps you need to follow in order to set up a personal web site. Consult the AU Web Publishing and Design Standards documents for details on AU's web publishing support. A copy is available on the AU web site.

Acquire a User Account

To run your own web pages, you must have a regular email account on mail.aurora.edu, AU's mail server that is also configured to run web server software.  All AU students, faculty and staff by default have an account on this machine.  If you're not sure if you have an account, contact Information Technology Services for assistance.  User accounts on the server must be properly configured to run web pages. This involves setting up a special directory in your account called public_html. For most users, this directory already exists, but if you're not sure ITS staff in the Computer Center will check to make sure it's there or set it up for you. Note that the alias name web.aurora.edu can be used when referencing the web server hosted on this machine.

Quick Personal Home Pages the Easy Way

If all you need is a simple personal home page, we've provided a web-based content development tool that makes this process about as simple as it could be. All you need to do is fill out a form to create your home page. Changes are very easy in this system -- all you need to do is return to the form later to make modifications. Note that this service is currently only available to faculty and staff. If your plans require a more complex personal web site, see below.

Creating and Uploading Your Web Pages

In order for your web pages to be accessible to others on the Internet, they must be uploaded from your local machine into your public_html directory. Most users will want to build their web pages in the familiar environment of their own desktop computers using any of the standard HTML editing tools.  Additional details on using HTML can be found in Easy HTML: Creating Simple Web Documents.

When your web site files are ready to load, you can use any FTP ("file transfer protocol") program to move them up into your public_html directory on the server. There are several ways to do this. Composer has a built-in publishing tool that will send your HTML files directly to your publishing directory on web.aurora.edu.

A Note on File and Directory Names

One key to a successful web page is getting the file names right. Here are a few useful file naming rules for web pages:

• All HTML document names must end in .htm or .html
• Filenames in the unix environment are case-sensitive. It will make things easier if you use all lower-case characters.
• Filenames may not contain any spaces, or any dots other than the one right before the .htm (or .html) extension.
• Keep file names short, but descriptive.

It's worth pointing out a few things about path names, which specify the hierarchy of subdirectories in which your files will be stored. All individual user accounts on the mail/web server are located in the directory /usr/users/userid, where "userid" is the individual's user ID. For example, let's say your name is William Blake. Your personal user space would normally be located in the directory /usr/users/wblake. Since published web pages must be stored in the subdirectory public_html, the full path name for your web page area would thus be /usr/users/wblake/public_html/. Suppose you created a personal home page and called it homepage.htm. The full path name to that file would be /usr/users/wblake/public_html/homepage.htm.

But there is a complication: Although the web server knows how to locate those files you placed in your personal public_html directory, it does not refer to them by the actual path name noted above, but uses instead the official name of the Aurora University web site, plus a special naming convention involving your user ID and the tilde character. Your home page file, stored in reality as /usr/users/wblake/public_html/homepage.htm, would actually be accessed through a web browser by its official URL of http://web.aurora.edu/~wblake/homepage.htm. The latter is the URL (or Universal Resource Locator) of your web page.

One more point relating to your web pages: When a web browser processes a request for an URL that does not contain an actual file name (using the example above, http://web.aurora.edu/~wblake/), the system will look in that directory for a file with one of the standard "default" names (such as index.htm or default.htm). If this file is not present, the browser will attempt to show the user a display of the directory contents. This latter is to be avoided, and on some servers is not permitted. In our example, the best solution would be to rename the home page from homepage.htm to index.htm. This not only avoids problems with the display of the raw directory when the users don't use the complete URL, but it also shortens the URL by making it unnecessary to list the filename itself.

Design Recommendations

1. Include links to relevant documents, but check regularly to make sure links to external pages are still working. You can also use links as navigational aids to the user. Linking text (the words that appears in blue underlined text on most browsers) should be informative. Avoid using the phrase"click here" as a link -- instead, use a word or phrase that describes the linked document.

2. Avoid large graphics, particularly those that do not contain useful information. Large graphical images cause substantial delays for users with slow network connections, and excessive use of graphics tends to be frustrating to users who are looking for information. Animated graphics are particularly distracting and will make your text more difficult to read. When using graphics as hot links, include alternate text for users who do not have access to graphical browsers (for example, Lynx users, or users who turn off their browser's graphics for faster access).

3. Be aware that frames use up valuable screen space, are difficult for some readers to use, and in some cases interfere with printing and the use of the back button.

4. Avoid lengthy documents -- if necessary break large documents into sections and load them individually. Remember, however, that text-based documents divided into multiple parts are difficult for users to print out.

5. Avoid backgrounds or text-background color combinations that impair readability.

6. Not all display devices are as good as yours. Test new or newly revised documents using a variety of browsers and hardware configurations. In particular, pages developed on high-resolution screens should be tested at standard VGA (640x480) screens.

AU Web Policies

1. All pages must be in accord with AU Acceptable use policies.

2. Generally, web pages on the AU server should include the following elements:
   • The identify of the person or office responsible for the content of the page
   • The date of the most recent revision
   • A link to the AU home page (official pages only)

3. Web page developers must make sure that opinions expressed on personal web pages will not be taken by readers to be the official position of the university.

4. Recognize and abide by all relevant copyright restrictions and conditions.