LAR5007

Electronic publishing

D Schauder

8 points
* 8-10 hours per week working through course material (on campus this may involve 2 hours per week in seminar), 3 hours per week in private study and directed reading and 3 hours per week in project/assignment work
* First or second semester
* Clayton
* Distance

Objectives At the completion of this subject students should be able to assess the suitability of material for publishing electronically; develop strategies for the publishing of material electronically with regard to type of media, type of software and level of interactivity; develop a basic World Wide Web site in terms of its content and software requirements; and understand current indexes and indexing techniques so as to most efficiently publicise and locate electronic products.

Synopsis The course provides a broad overview of the current state of the art in electronic publishing. It deals with technical, legal and commerical issues in electronic publishing in addition to the implications of the changing nature of publishing. The course will have a practical focus, and will examine a range of products published on CD ROM and the Internet, with a view to evaluating their effectiveness. Students will also jointly develop and publish a World Wide Web site, allowing hands-on access to the software and a more immediate examination of the issues. Topics to be covered include the nature of the market sectors, products and media used for electronic publishing; the market for electronic publishing, including user access to the technology; hypertext; use of multimedia; the nature of CD ROM and its uses; the nature of the World Wide Web and its uses; the technology (tools and techniques); interactivity, instant communications and the implications for publishing; project management and other roles in the electronic publishing process; evaluation of electronic publishing products; standards and their evolution; legal issues such as copyright and licensing; archiving of electronic publishing products; and `bibliographic' control of electronic products, including the role of metadata and indexes.

Assessment Project report: 60%
* Practical assignment: 40%

Prescribed texts

Commerce in content: Building Australia's international future in interactive multimedia markets Cutler, September 1994, http://www.nla.gov.au/lis/govnii.html

Recommended texts

Networking Australia's future: Final report of the Broadband Services Expert Group December 1994 http://www.n;a/gov.au/lis/govnii.html
Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML). World Wide Web Consortium 1997 http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/MarkUp/