A) Identification (Who is who)
Remember five W's:
Who, What, When, Where, Why, and last one is woh. (It's "how" backward)
Who- A sort of history, mission, vision, expectations, values and goals of the company.
B) Appearance- Does the site look good? Is it current and continuous? Is the site compelling?
C) Search Layer- We should focus on this layer. In order to be able to criticize a search program you need to be familiar with how to write a search. Choose a search from the book and try to code it. Dr. Ebrahimi will help you.
Your tutorial should include a search program. Look in the book for the solutions. We've done one type of search (a search based on If statements in an earlier class. Take a look at the class notes for more info.
D) HTML layer- Know the ten commandments of HTML.
E) Script Layer- Know JavaScript is the most used web script. Don't be surprised that most people do not differentiate between Java and JavaScript. The difference between the two is that Java is on the server and JavaScript is client based. JavaScript also cannot manage files
F) Server and Database layer- CGI, Domain names, ASP
G) Privacy, Security and Ethics- The design of the site should enforce the privacy and security of the site users. Your site should be original and information should be cited where appropriate. Content should not be abrasive.
Our goal is to meet all seven of the above criteria when building your tutorial.
Topics in MIS Project
Hanlu Xu
In this project, I will analyze Yale University WebPages throughout the following criteria.
1) Identity (What, Where, When, Which, Who, Why, How. )
2) Appearance
3) HTML
4) Search Engine
S1) Most common entries like Smith.
S2) Search for a known entry to see the result.
S3) Search for Blank
S4) Search for Special Characters- +, &, ?
S5) Search for Case Sensitivity
S6) Search for itself.
S7) Search for Partial information or equivalencies.
5) Javascript
6) Server Database Criteria-
D1) What language are they using?
D2) What database are they using?
D3) What is the operating system?
i.e. Sun Solaris, Linux, Windows
D4) What web system are they using?
IIS, Apache, TomCat
D5) What CGI Technology are they using?
PHP, ASP,SSP
D6) Is the domain friendly and appropriate?
D7) How is the Database integrated with HTML.
7) Security, Privacy and Ethics.
1) If you understand and can explain an encryption program.
2) Give examples of some evidence of security
3) Give evidence of privacy.
4) Give evidence that the operation of the site is ethical.
5) Is the security breakable.- Did you try to break through their security.
6) Other problems
7) Is there validation in their data fields? What is validation?
i. Identity
˛ What: Yale has a full page about its history, it answers what is Yale, what is Yale’s educational purpose.
http://yale.edu/about/history.html, and also a link to an illustrated timeline of its history, which demonstrates it’s over 300 year’s history according to a time axis. However, I cannot find any page introduces Yale’s mission, goals, or values, which supposed to be an important part of a university’s website.
˛ Where: it’s a crucial problem that there is no exactly illustration about where Yale University locates in Yale’s home web pages. Even go to“contact us”, we see:
Yale addresses and phone numbers
If you need to contact someone at the University, check the online directory for telephone, address, and e-mail information.
But the online directory is directly linked to its search engine searching Yale phone book to find a specific person.
˛ When: Yale is founded in 1701, it answers “when” in the first layer.
˛ Which: In about Yale page we learn that Yale has three major academic components, and each component has its own website.
˛ Who: the general information about all the members of Yale, both students and staffs, are listed in Yale Facts.
˛ Why:
Why did Yale set up? It is described in Yale’s history, which demonstrated above.
Why we apply for Yale? The web describes the advantages of Yale everywhere; persuading students try their best to apply for it. However, as the worldwide top school, Yale never worried about its student resources
Why we visit Yale? It is about Yale’s environment, Yale’s culture, Yale’s history, Yale’s reputation, and so on. All these are described in “about Yale”
˛ How:
How do Yale maintain its high quality of education? Let us check its academic program.
How can you apply for Yale? There is carefully description.
ii. Appearance
1. content, context
Content refers to the volume of information on website that is informative.
Context- The material on your site is meaningful and appropriate to your site. Context gives meaning to the page’s content.
First of all, obviously, there is too much space left in Yale’s home page, only left 50%
part is used. And there is little content there.
Secondly, the news posted on the main page is an external link to a news webpage. As a top school web, it supposes to have its own news system, other than link to public news sites.
2. correctness, credibility
Correctness means information should be correct. Credibility means information should be verified and backed up by data, references and other materials.
3. currency, continuity
Currency Information should be relevant to the present.
Continuity- Information should have a vision and continue into the future.
Secondly, the latest news on campus is on February 23, 2007. It even can becomes a joke.
4. completeness, coverage
Completeness- Information should be complete.
Coverage- Information should have enough volume.
a. there is no copyright claim in Yale’s main page
b. As in the search engine, we typed George Bush, the result turns to be:
It shows that the Yale doesn’t collect a perfect information of its alumni.
5. consistency, conciseness
Consistency- Site deign should match and be recognizable throughout the site as well as be relevant and to the point.
As we can see, the department sites were not consistent with the design of the school site, instead, each department has a very unique design but forget the school main page.
6. compelling, complement
Web site is impressive and appealing however it should consider the reality of institution.
However, as a top school, the Yale webpage is not as compelling as expected.
Its main page is too plain to attract a visitor.
7. community, customization
Community- Site should be designed and cater to your audience.
customization- Site design should be mindful of your intended audience.
They apply the communication ways for visitors.
iii. Search engine
1．Most common entries like Smith.
I put smith into the search bar, the result turns to be like above:
Your query was rejected by the server at directory.yale.edu as being too broad…. You need to narrow your query.
2. Search for a known entry to see the result.
We all know that President Bush is graduated from Yale University. His name, at least, should be listed in the alumni. But the result is:
3. Search for Blank
As we see below, after we put a blank in, it shows us
”
Your search - - did not match any documents.
No pages were found containing " " ”
4. Search for Special Characters- +, &, ?
First of all, we put “+” in, the result is similar to the previous one:
Your search - + - did
not match any documents.
No pages were found containing "+".
The same as -, ? &
5. Search for Case Sensitivity
Let us try to put “ebrahimi” into the search engine, then put “Ebrahimi” with the first letter capital, the results exhibit same as below
It means the Yale search engine is able to tell the case sensitivity.
6. Search for itself
Let us search “Yale”
There are 159000 results for searching Yale, it is obviously a broad research.
7. Search for Partial information or equivalencies.
Let us put David Smith into the search bar
It shows out a list of David Smith, and the information it gives is basically correct. In this meaning, Yale search engine is able to tell the partial information and pick out the match ones to narrow and further the research.
HTML
Html has 10 commands:
1. html:
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
2. a
<a href="about/president.html">President’s welcome</a>
3. img
<img src="http://www.yale.edu/opa/images/bluepage/epoll.jpg" alt="" name="" id="" align="left" style="padding: 3px 10px 0px 0px"/>
4. table
<table width="208" border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
<tr>
<td width="130">hello</td>
<td width="28">lulu</td>
<td width="50">love u</td>
</tr>
</table>
<input class="hsfield" name="q" type="text" size="16" alt="Search." />leave your name here
<select name="gateselect" onchange="MM_jumpMenuGo('gateselect','parent',0)">
<option value="../gateways/prosp_students.html">Prospective students</option>
<option value="../gateways/students.html">Students</option>
<option value="../gateways/parents.html">Parents</option>
5. li
<li id="t1"><a href="http://www.yale.edu/search/index.html">Web Search</a></li>
6. select
<select name="site">
<option value="Yale_University">Yale_University</option>
<option value="Yale_Libraries">Yale_Libraries</option>
<option value="Yale_News">Yale_News</option>
<option value="Medical_Center">Medical_Center</option>
<option value="Medical_Library">Medical_Library</option>
<option value="Yale_College">Yale_College</option>
<option value="ITS">ITS</option></select>
7. input
<input type="hidden" name="entqr" value="0">
<input type="hidden" name="output" value="xml_no_dtd">
<input type="hidden" name="sort" value="date:D:L:d1">
<input type="hidden" name="client" value="bluesite_frontend">
<input type="hidden" name="ud" value="1">
<input type="hidden" name="y" value="12">
<input type="hidden" name="oe" value="UTF-8"><input type="hidden" name="ie" value="UTF-8">
<input type="hidden" name="proxystylesheet" value="bluesite_frontend">
<input type="hidden" name="proxyreload" value="1">
<input type="hidden" name="x" value="12">
JavaScript Layer
1) You get three points for identifying the program as JAVASCRIPT.<SCRIPT LANGUAGE=>
<script src="res/code/scripts.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">
(+3)
2) You get three points for identifying the variable declaration. (Var).
var n = 1; // default image
var r = 10; // total number of images -1
(+6)
3) You get three points for identifying input/output (prompt and write).
document.write('<img src="res/images/splash/hm_' + n + '.jpg" width="575" height="310" border="0" alt="Images of Yale." title="Yale University." usemap="#reset">');
it is output
(+9)
4) You get three points for identifying if or switch statement.
if (document.images) {
n = (Math.round(Math.random()*r) + 1);
}
function random_image() {
this is if statement
5) You get three points for identifying the loop (For or While).
for (var i = 0; i < document.forms.length; i++ ) {
document.forms[i].reset();
6) You get three points for identifying function body and function call.
<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
function resetForms() {
for (var i = 0; i < document.forms.length; i++ ) {
document.forms[i].reset();
}
}
//--></script></head>
<body onLoad="resetForms()" dir="ltr"><!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
7) You get three points for identifying array
<script language="JavaScript">
<!--
var programOptions = new Array();
programOptions[ 0 ] = new Array( 1, 1, 1, 1, "ALL", "ALL");
programOptions[ 1 ] = new Array( 1, 0, 0, 0, "ACCT", "Accounting");
programOptions[ 2 ] = new Array( 1, 1, 0, 1, "AFAM", "African American Studies");
programOptions[ 3 ] = new Array( 1, 1, 0, 1, "AFST", "African Studies");
programOptions[ 4 ] = new Array( 1, 1, 0, 0, "AKKD", "Akkadian");
…
// -->
</script>
Server Database Criteria
1. What language are they using？
Let’s look up Yale’s resources
Basically Yale webpage uses html language for most of its information resources.
<html><head>
<meta name="robots" content="NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
It also use JavaScript
<a href="javascript:;" onmouseover="togLyr('my-menu','1');"><img id="my-button" src="http://www.yale.edu/search/resources/images/magic-y.gif"
width="21" height="28" border="0" alt="" title="" /></a></td>
2. What is the operating system?
As the webpage tells us, the operating systems of Yale are:
- Windows:
- Software Update Services (SUS): for campus desktop computers [Windows 2000/XP]
- Automatic Update: for computers unable to use SUS (e.g., remote/home computers or campus servers and laptops) [Windows XP/2000/2003/ME/98]
- Manual Windows Update: for computers unable to use SUS or Automatic Update [the ONLY solution for Windows NT/95]
- Macintosh OSX:
Software Update for campus or remote/home computers
[MacOS X 10.x]
- RHEL (RedHat Enterprise Linux) & Fedora: Up2Date or apt-rpm for campus or remote/home computers
- SuSE: YaST/AutoYaST
- SUN Solaris: SunSolve Patch Support Portal
- IRIX/SGI: IRIX® patches
3. What web system are they using?
http://ontoweb.med.yale.edu/tomcat-docs/
http://www.yale.edu/its/security/Presentations/ByDate/2005/20050316-IIS6.ppt#256,1,IIS 6
http://tp.its.yale.edu/confluence/display/TP/Apache
obviously, Yale web system uses all of tomcat, IIS, and Apache systems for different objections.
4. What CGI Technology are they using?
Yale college uses various CGI technology to build its webpage, in order to perform all kinds of tasks
1) PHP http://dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=25843
2) ASP
Portage Central High School Website
|
For more information, call 617-495-3192 or visit www.ssp.harvard.edu.
... Located on the campuses of Georgetown, Princeton, Yale,
Stanford and Northwestern, ... |
3) SSP
Here is a related website about Yale which using SSP technology: http://www.smartstep.se/ssp/sportpsychology/module.asp? ...
However, I cannot find much SSP technology used in the school web, instead, PHP is the most prevalently used.
5. What database are they using?
This is Yale’s library’s database guide; it provides many ways to help a visitor find out the data.
Meanwhile, there are many other databases:
Yale microarray database http://www.med.yale.edu/microarray/
Yale image database http://research.yale.edu:8084/divdl/eikon/
The ALlele FREquency Database http://alfred.med.yale.edu/alfred/
And so on…
6. Is the domain friendly and appropriately?
The Yale’s main page domain name is relatively simple and friendly. www.yale.edu/
For the other links, basically we can easily identify where we are by the domain, though sometimes there are some excessively special characters. For example, http://www.tmcnet.com/viewette.aspx?u=http%3a%2f%2fwww.tmcnet.com%2fusubmit%2f2006%2f04%2f20%2f1589796.htm
It is a news about Yale expected Chinese President’s visit
7. How is the Database integrated with HTML.
Security, privacy and ethics
1) If you understand and can explain an encryption program.
Encryption software is software whose main task is encryption and decryption of data, usually in the form of files on hard drives and removable media, email messages, or in the form of packets sent over computer networks.
2) Give examples of some evidence of security
This is one example that requires the ID and password in order to reach the resources.
3) Give evidence of privacy.
Here is the whole page of Yale University Health Services Privacy Statement
http://www.yale.edu/uhs/privacy.html
4) Give evidence that the operation of the site is ethical.
I think the declarations in the red circle is an evidence of the site is ethical.
5) Is the security breakable.- Did you try to break through their security.
I don’t know how to break through a security, so I didn’t try.
6) Other problems
There is no an entire declaim about their security in operating the websites.
8) Is there validation in their data fields? What is validation?
Validation refers to the process of verifying that a user or computer program is allowed to do something.
The information listed inn the red Colum is all the resources that validate in their data fields.
When some other requires member ID and pass words.