Welcome to the TS
Procedures Manual!
| QUICK LINKS: | check sheet for common procedures | bullpen | deletepen | copyediting guide |
| authors page | board page |
Overview of TS Editorial Process
When the editor considers articles for publication in TS, he reviews each article personally before sending it, without the author's name, to three members of the board. These board members comment on the article and make recommendations as to whether it should be published. The reviews are posted anonymously to the article on the TS Web site, and the author is invited to view and respond to them. After the author has revised the article, it is copyedited and slated for an upcoming issue.
Your role in this process is to help with each of the steps listed above. The editor will assign tasks to various members of the staff. When you get an assignment, you should acknowledge receipt immediately and let the editor know when you think the task will be completed. These are crucial steps! If you find that you can't finish the task when you initially thought, email the editor and give him a revised estimate. There is no "penalty" for late work, but the editor does need to know when he can expect work to be finished.
Also, you should thoroughly read this manual each time you approach a task you haven't completed before. If the instructions aren't clear, stop what you're working on and send out a general email to the staff, asking for clarification. When the clarification comes in, the editor may ask you to make proper adjustments to this manual.
1. Bullpen: "A large detention cell where prisoners are held until brought into court" (courtesy Webster's Ninth Collegiate). Though working with the bullpen can sometimes make you feel like a prisoner, the TS definition of the word is slightly different. The bullpen is where articles are "held" while they await review and revision. (Articles in the bullpen will not necessarily be published in TS.) Each article is listed by its number and title, and has a section for comments. In the comments section, the editor gives instructions for getting articles ready for publication and notes on tasks already completed. Every time you work with a TS article, you should update its comments section so that everyone can keep track of what is left to be done. The bullpen is one of our most important pages, so each time you work with it, make a copy of it in the ts/editor/ folder entitled "bullpen back-up." Thus, if a problem with the bullpen arises (as sometimes happens, particularly with FTP), the important information in the bullpen will not be lost. A simple way to make the back-up file is:
1. After you're done working with the bullpen and are
ready to upload it, delete the current backup from the server.
2. Rename the bullpen file *on the server* as bullpen-backup.html.
3. Upload your changed bullpen as bullpen.html.
2. Deletepen: We use the deletepen to keep track of articles that have been moved to the mock-up (defined below). After you add an article to a mock-up, you should cut its entry from the bullpen and add an entry for it to the deletepen. If the title has changed during the revision process, the old title should appear in parenthesis under the new title, like this: TS Staff: Life on the Edge (Original Title: "How Working for TS Can Make Your Life Better").
3. Holdpen: The holdpen contains articles whose authors have lost touch with TS after promising to send revisions.
4. Mock-up: The mock-up is a model of the issue that we are preparing for publication. After an article has gone through the revision and editing process, the editor directs it to be posted to the mock-up. Essentially, the mock-up is the contents page before for an article before it is published (more on contents pages below). Working with mock-ups is discussed below, but they are generated through entries into our database.
5. Contents page: The contents page is the first page readers see when they go to the TS site. It is largely generated by our database, and is created as we put an issue together. You will see more information below on how to work with the contents page.
6. Database: Much of the TS website is now generated through an Oracle database. Instructions on the structure and use of this database are found in the new database manual.
NOTE: You cannot work in the databases from outside the office. As many procedures now involve the database, please keep this fact in mind: if you start a project at home, you may have to go into the office to finish it. Read all the directions in this manual to make sure you don't need the database.
Working on TS on your home computer is almost the same as working in the Peabody office. However, there are a few things to keep in mind while you work in the TS "virtual office."
1. To work on a file of any sort -- an article, the bullpen, the contents page, etc. -- download it to your computer from the TS site. Do not use Netscape or Internet Explorer's "edit" function to do this; that causes problems with the original HTML code. Also, NEVER use Netscape Composer to edit an article! Instead, use an FTP (file transfer) program such as WS_FTP (for Windows) or Zterm (for Mac). Both are available for free from ATN's shareware service. When you launch the FTP program, a box will pop up called "Session Properties." In the "General" folder of this box, enter "Horizon" as the Profile Name, "horizon.unc.edu" as the Host Name/Address, and then enter the Host type appropriate for your PC. Then enter your TS username and password. Your username must be entered in the form HORIZON\username. You also need to reset the port in your FTP program. In WS_FTP, this option is available on the "Advanced" menu. You should reset the port to 5634.
2. You'll now see your computer's directory on the left ("local system"), and a blank box on the right ("remote system"). To bring up the menu of TS folders, you will need to type in "/HORIZON" and hit enter. You may want to keep a special folder in your computer's directory for your TS work (and within this directory, have subfolders for the different sections of TS). Open the TS folder in the Horizon site. When you transfer files between the server and your computer (or vice versa), make sure that you click the option called "binary." After you are done working with the TS document, click the "Refresh" button under "local system," click on the document you are uploading, and then click on the arrow pointing to the remote site. Don't forget to check your work in IE and Netscape after you've completed this process.
3. When working on an article in the "articles" folder, be sure that you download it from this location. DO NOT open it from the default.asp or display.asp location on the website (where the article appears in TS format).
4. The bullpen is one of our most important pages, so each time you work with it from home, make a copy of it in the ts/editor/ folder entitled "bullpen back-up." Thus, if a problem with the bullpen arises (as sometimes happens when using FTP), the important information in the bullpen will not be lost.
1. When working in the office, you should FTP the files to the computer you are working on INSTEAD of opening them directly in FrontPage (FP). Directions for how to use FTP are found above in the Working from home section.
2. Open the files you have downloaded in FP and make any changes there. Save again and FTP them back to the server (these directions are also above).
Be sure to save all articles with the tag .htm, like this: filename.htm, not filename.html.
3. Many of the steps below involve the use of "the database." This is an Oracle database that can, at present, only be accessed from in the office. The database file is found at HORIZON/databases/search_oracle.mdb and can be opened in Microsoft Access. Once you open the database, you will have be given a list of tables to choose from. The instructions for the various processes below will tell you which table(s) you need.
Posting new articles in the bullpen
When the editor determines that a new article may be publishable, he will ask a staff member to give it a number, add a new entry in the bullpen, and post it to the TS site with cursory editing. Here's what you should do:
1. When working with TS documents—articles, the bullpen, the deletepen, mock-ups, the contents page, and so on— use FrontPage Editor. Programs like Microsoft Word and even Netscape Composer may cause problems with the document's HTML code. You need to use an FTP program (see "working from home," above for more details) to download the file to your computer and then upload it to the server when you are done.
2. To assign a number to a new article, open the search_oracle.mdb database and select the "articles" table. In the fields provided, enter the information you have about the current article (you will not have all the information, for example, the contents description will be entered later). Assign the article the next number available according to the numerical listing in the database. You will also need to enter at least basic author information (name, contact information, etc.) into the "authors" table at this time. Then, go to the "authors-articles" table, where the drop-down menus will allow you to link the author and article information. Select the appropriate name and title from the menus. NOTE: if an article has more than one author, you must create an entry in this table for each author. Create the entries in the order in which you wish the authors' names to appear on the article. Finally, go the "Articles-Bullpen" table, where you can enter in the article title and the section of TS in which it will appear (Case Studies, Commentary, etc.).
3. Save the article in HORIZON/ts/articles according to the number assigned in step 2. ALL articles should have 5 digits in their filename, insert zeros as necessary. For example, article 841 would be saved as 00841.htm and article 1327 would be 01327.htm.
4. Now, open the authors page in FrontPage Editor, page down to the last entry in the "Numerical Listing of Authors" section, and list the paper there with its new number and the author's name. Link the number to the article (the link will be in the form http://horizon.unc.edu/ts/default.asp?show=article&id=841, if the article number is 00841) then add the author's name and link it to the author's e-mail address. If there are multiple authors and we are missing one or more e-mail addresses, get the missing ones from the authors for whom we do have contact info. Next, complete the information required for that article in the "Alphabetical Listing of Authors" section, which is below the numerical listing. List the article only once, according to the name of the author listed first on the article. Include all the other authors names in this entry.
5. When you post the article, you should edit for obvious errors only and basic formatting problems. Use this checklist as a guide of what to look for:
a. do not include either the title or the
author's name at the top. The title will be automatically added from the
database, and the author's name will not appear until we are ready to publish.
b. Format it in TS format, making sure that there are no
paragraph indentations or abstracts, that there is only one space between
sentences (this can be done with a "find and replace" function), and that the
headings and subheadings are properly formatted. Headings should be in bold and
subheadings in italics.
c. Run spell check to avoid simple spelling
errors.
d. If a document is submitted in Word, make sure you have
removed all "smart quotes." This can be done by going to
Tools>AutoCorrect>AutoFormat as You Type. Uncheck the "straight quotes" with
"smart quotes" box. Now, do a universal find and replace in the article,
entering " or ' in both the find and replace fields.
e. View the article on the Web. Make sure all of the
fonts are the same style and size (if not, correct this in the HTML tags of the
article). Also check to make sure all the links work.
6. The article must also be listed in the bullpen. The editor will tell you under which section he would like the article placed when he forwards the article for posting. Scroll down to this section of the bullpen and create a new table entry (if there is not a blank one). Include the article's number, the title (linked to the article in the same format as in the author's page), and note the date on which it was posted.
7. Check the file folders in the TS office to see whether we have bios, letters of agreement (LOAs, which allow us to make editing changes, relieves UNC from liability incurred by plagiarism, and requires authors to affirm that they will not attempt to publish TS anyplace else until we have rejected the article), and photos for the bio for the article's author(s). Bios and photos may also be found in the database (in the "authors" table), so check there as well. Enter "yes" or "no," as appropriate, in the boxes in the bullpen. If we do not have one or more of these, alert the editor.
Note: When working on the bullpen from home, please e-mail the other staff members with the subject heading "downloading bullpen." If you are working from the UNC LAN and will be done quickly, there is no need to notify everyone, but if you will be doing more extensive work, please do notify everyone. When you are done working with the bullpen and have uploaded it to the server, please send an e-mail with the subject heading "bullpen back online." Before uploading your changes, be sure to make a copy of the bullpen in the ts/editor/ folder entitled "bullpen back-up."
Also, each time you work with the bullpen, take care to download the latest version from the Horizon server rather than working on a version you've already saved on your hard drive from the previous day. Otherwise, extra changes made to the bullpen by Dr. Morrison or other staff members (changes made since your last session with the bullpen) may be lost when you upload an outdated version of the bullpen page. If you work on the bullpen from a home computer, this is also important: if you have an older version of the bullpen on your hard drive and upload it to the horizon server, you will lose any changes you may have made with the office computer since then.
1. When a new article has been posted as described above, the editor will assign outside reviewers. If he sends you an e-mail asking you to "post reviews," you should do two things: one, make sure that the article(s) have a note in their comments section that reviews have been assigned; two, update the editorial board page. You do this by adding the article number and the date the review was requested under the reviewer's name. The article number should link to the actual article.
2. The editor will ask reviewers to send a written review or a copy of the article annotated with his/her comments. If the reviewer chooses the second option, he/she will send us the file (as an attachment) with corrections and comments in bold red. The editor will forward everything to a staff member once all reviews are in. If the reviewer sends a written statement, append it to the end of the manuscript. If the reviewer makes comments on the manuscript itself, save the file in the TS/articles/reviews folder, titled according to the article's number and the reviewer's anonymous title. Always use the 5 digit ID for the reviews. Example: TS/articles/reviews/00196VV.html.
3. At the end of the article to which you are posting the reviews, type "Critical Reviews" in bold 14 pt font and insert a horizontal line underneath it. For each review, type a bold 12 pt heading with the reviewer's anonymous title. Example: Critic CC. (These reviewer letters can be found on the board page.) If you are pasting text from an e-mail message, make sure the text is in "Normal" size font. If you are linking to a file (such as 196CC.html), just link the words "Critic CC". Next, bookmark "Critical Reviews" at the bottom of the page and link it to "view critical reviews" at the top of the article.
4. Each time you post reviews, document it in the in the bullpen and on the board page. On the bullpen, you can simply note that reviews were posted. On the board page, you must find the entry for each reviewer that has the date on which the review was assigned. List the date the review was completed in the appropriate column.
5. After reviews are posted, the editor will ask the author to take them into consideration for a revision. When the author sends the revision, the editor will forward it to a staff member to be posted. We may send this revision out for review. If this happens, post the reviews to the revised draft as with the original draft and include a link to the previous version of the article. Each succeeding draft should be posted in the same manner. See the following section for instructions on numbering these revisions.
An article may go through several revisions before it is ready for publication. The newest version of any article is always labeled with the "plain" number. The version just before it is then re-labeled with the number + the next available letter in the alphabet. Always use the 5-digit article ID! This example should make it plainer:
We receive the original article and name it 00325. We request reviews and post those to the bottom of the article 00325.
The authors respond to the reviews with a revised article. We edit that revision and name the revision 00325. The original article (with reviews) becomes 00325a.
The authors respond to our edit with another revision. After we edit that, it becomes 00325. The original is still 00325a, but now the second version -- what was 00325 before -- becomes 00325b. If we get a further revision, it becomes 00325, and the previous version becomes 00325c.
In other words, the current version of an article always has a "plain" number. The article's "historical" versions are numbered in alphabetical order, with the original at "a" and more recent versions following in order. Each version of an article should link back to the "previous version"--the next most recent version--at the top. In the example above, 00325.htm would have a link to 00325c.htm, and 00325c.htm would link back to 00325b.htm, etc. This audit trail allows the editor to examine author's changes, suggestions made by copyeditors, and reviews throughout the course of an article's development.
Each time you post revisions, document it in the in the comments section for the article in the bullpen.
1. Before you download and begin editing an article, make sure there is a "yes" typed in the column titled "LOA" in its entry in the bullpen. That way you won't waste time copyediting a piece that an author hasn't officially committed to publication in TS. Remember: when working with TS documents—articles, the bullpen, the deletepen, mock-ups, the contents page, and so on—use FrontPage Editor. Programs like Microsoft Word and even Netscape Composer may cause problems with the document's HTML code.
2. When you are copyediting an article, download the file from the server using FTP (see directions on working from home above). Make sure you download the latest version (the one with the "plain" number, as discussed above). Make all of your changes in this html file, saving it frequently to your hard drive. When you are done with your edit, email the file to the editor for his approval and for re-posting to the server.
2. As you copyedit an article, place any editorial comments or questions in [bracketed, bold red script] within the text. Do not actually change the original text; rather, highlight any text you think should be revised in red (not bold red) and immediately follow this text with your revision in bracketed, bold red. If you think certain words or sentences should be deleted, highlight these words in red and immediately follow them with the word [delete] in bracketed, bold red. Add any minor grammatical or spelling changes directly to the text in bold red, e.g. "Technology Source copyeditors are brilliant, beautiful, sophisticated, and worthy of praise."
3. Check the comments by reviewers. If the author did not address a reviewer's comment, and if you think he/she should do so in order to improve the quality of the article, then re-examine the comment and insert it in bracketed, bold red in the appropriate spot in the text. It's better to show the author where exactly in the text he/she should address a certain question, rather than simply repeating comments at the end. If you have a more global concern, you can put that at the top. Make sure to question (politely) the authors about anything in the article that is unclear or that you think readers may not easily understand.
4. Make sure that all items in the References section of the article are actually cited in the text. If they are not, point this out in a note to the author and ask if citations have been mistakenly left out of the text. If no citations are missing, these items should be deleted from the References section. Similarly, if the author has included in-text citations but neglected to cite the work in the References section, ask for that information
5. Make sure that all hyperlinks in the text actually work, contain the information the author says they do, and are relevant to the article.
6. Make sure the text is in the proper form. Sometimes parts of the text will appear to be uniform when they are not, especially when they have been pasted onto a page from e-mail. Make sure all text in the article, including section headings, is in default font, normal size. Also, never add more than one space in a row anywhere on the TS pages.
7. That tricky little em-dash: When using an em-dash (—), you will need to add it from within the HTML code. To do this, click on the "HTML" tab at the bottom of FrontPage, then find where you would like to add the dash. Type in — to add in the dash, then return to normal view by clicking the "Normal" tab. Em-dashes should not have spaces before or after them.
8. Paragraph tags: with our new system, it is vitally important that the HTML tags for each paragraph in an article be in the form <p>, with no other text in the brackets. FrontPage and other editors often insert style tags inside the <p> tags--these should all be deleted from the HTML. In addition, check to make sure that no paragraphs are separated with double line breaks (<br><br>). This could mess up any images in the article!
9. Make sure to spell check all documents that are posted to the site.
10. Copyediting style: the preceding paragraphs tell you about the technical aspects of copyediting. For the stylistic aspects of copyediting, see the TS copyediting guide. In addition, make sure you're familiar with the TS author guidelines, the guidelines we provide to authors writing articles for us.
11. The author guidelines and the stylesheet are both located on the server in the directory: /HORIZON/ts/boilerplate-text/.
12. If the copyeditor can correct an error, he/she does so, rather than asking the author to do so.
Once an article has been thoroughly reviewed and gone through several edits, the editor will direct it to be posted to the mock-up. Here's how to proceed:
1. Always use FrontPage editor. Again, when working with TS documents, using anything other than FrontPage Editor (such as Microsoft Word and even Netscape Composer) may cause problems with the document's HTML code.
2. Create a new mock-up (when necessary). Use the "Sections- Issues" table of the "search_oracle" database to do this. Create a new record in the database. The issue # should be the next one in order, the section number is 1, the month should be the first month of the issue (i.e., 7 for July/August) and the year should be the issue's year. Open the bullpen and add a entry at the top for the new mock-up. Link this listing to the new issue. If the necessary mock-up exists, skip to step 3.
3. Check your work.
a. Check the HTML tags for the article--there should be no
"include file" or other extra tags at the beginning or end of the document.
b. View the article at its new URL, http://horizon.unc.edu/ts/beta.asp?show=article&id=X
to verify that it is working.
c. VERY IMPORTANT: The
person who gives the article its final review also needs to review the paragraph
tags in the HTML. All paragraphs should begin with a tag in the form <p>.
There should be no other information inside this tag. You can delete any HTML
that may have been added by FrontPage. This allows the system to number the
paragraphs correctly for the positioning of images and other items.
4. Ensure the article is in the
database. The article should have already been listed (see
instructions above on how to post articles to the bullpen), but if it was
initially received when we were using the "old system" it may not have been.
If that is the case, enter it according to the procedures above and then follow
these steps to keep the audit trail clear:
a. All the old versions of the article should be renamed
(i.e., what was 210f.html might now be 00861f.htm) and saved in the articles
directory. Make sure you leave a copy of the old files in the editor
directory in case anyone is trying to access them there. At the top of the
most recent version in the editor folder (i.e., 210.html) put a note like this:
**A more recent version of this article is now available at
http://horizon.unc.edu/ts/articles/00861.htm **
b. When making a deletepen entry (see below, #7), put the old
bullpen number in the "bullpen #" column and the new number in the "database #"
column. Also, change the link from the title of the article to the new location.
5. Add the article to the contents page. The article must already be listed in the database to proceed. If it is not, follow the directions given in how to post articles to the bullpen, above, and then return to this step. Open the "Articles-Issues" table and in a new record, select the appropriate issue. Then choose the title of the article, the section in which it belongs, and the position the article will take in the contents page (whether it will be listed 1st, 5th, etc.). If you are moving the order of articles, be careful--the database will not allow more than one article to be assigned the same position.
6. Additional steps: if the article is a Spotlight Site article, see the section on handling Spotlight Site communications below.
7. Cut the article from the bullpen and add it to its section of the deletepen in numerical order.
8. Letters to the editor: Letters to the editor now need to be SEPARATE documents with separate entries in the database.
9. e-mail the editor. Send a message to the editor reporting that the article has been posted to the mock-up. Include the URL, the issue, the section, the author's last name, and the article number.
10. Add a description to the contents page. If you are asked to create the contents entries for a mock-up, you will place the article descriptions into the "Articles" table in the summary field. They will automatically appear in the contents page.
11. Check the placement of the options menu. When an article is in the mock-up, an options menu appears at the end of the article. This menu should appear either 2 paragraphs before the end of the article or in the paragraph before the references. This is a default setting and cannot be changed. However, if the menu is NOT appearing in this position, that means that there is an error in the article's HTML that is causing the problem. Check the <p> tags to make sure that every paragraph has one; also make sure that the <p> tags have lower-case p's. This should correct the placement of the menu. If the options menu appears within the references list instead of at the end of the article, then look at the tags around the heading "References." Those tags should have this form: <p><strong>References</p></strong> (i.e., strong tags instead of bold <b> tags). Changing the HTML tags around the "References" heading should re-locate the Options menu at the end of the article, rather than within the References section itself.
12. Create keywords for the article. To create keywords, you will need to use the search_oracle.mdb database.
1. Posting photos and bios can be done only from the Horizon office. Use the Microsoft Access to open the "search_oracle" database.
2. It is easiest to post the photo before posting the bio. Most authors will either e-mail their photos or provide a URL from which you can copy their photos. (If an author sends a photo by snail mail, you will need to scan it in the Peabody computer lab and e-mail it to yourself, or post it to the correct part of the Horizon site from the lab). Once you locate the photo, copy it, save it as a .jpg file (i.e., no .htm extension) and post it to the /images/bios section of the Horizon site, labeled according to the author's last name, e.g., "smith.jpg." Once the photo is posted, open it using the photo editor program to make sure it is a good size for the author biography. Ideally, it should be between 250 and 300 pixels in height and width. The computer in the office with the smaller screen has a photo editor (Paint Shop Pro) which can be used to change the image size.
3. When you're ready to create an author's bio, again open the "search_oracle" database in Microsoft Access. Choose the "authors" table. If you are updating an author's bio, highlight the last name of the first bio that appears, and use the ctrl+f function to search by the author's last name. If you are creating a record for an author that does not already have a bio in the database, then click on the little sideways triangle that is followed by a star, which you will find at the bottom left of the record. This will create a blank record. Fill in all the fields (first name, last name, title, e-mail address, etc.). In the "name" row enter from left to right: First, Middle, and Last name of the author. IMPORTANT: be sure that the author's title is capitalized in the title field only and NOT in the bio itself. Then copy the text from the bio the author sent and paste it into the record. You'll have to add the html codes (<p> and </p>) for paragraph formatting to get the text in the right form (If you're not sure how to do this, look at any article in HTML view, and you'll be able to figure out how this coding works). Make sure you list the record name as the author's last name. Also, list the security level as "0." Fill in the BioURL field with the same name as the .jpg file (e.g., smith). You can view the spankin' new biography by using the following type of URL: http://horizon.unc.edu/TS/default.asp?show=bio&id=# where # stands for the author's identification number. Now e-mail the URL to the author so that he/she can review it. Proofread the bio carefully, and take special note of any strange characters. For example, if you cut and pasted from a document with smart quotes, these quotation marks may have been changed into question marks. You will have to edit these characters in the authors table.
4. After adding photos and bios to the database, go into the bullpen and note that they have been added. There should be a "no" recorded in these columns if the bios/photos were not previously on record. Change this to a "yes" so everyone knows the bio/photo is there.
5. If an author's photo or bio has been received by snail mail, these hard copies should be filed once they have been added to the database. Make sure that the author's name has been printed on the photo or bio, and then place it in the appropriate folder in the filing cabinet. If bios or photos are received but cannot be entered right away, place them in the folders labeled "Incoming Bios" and "Incoming Photos," located on the small table in the office.
6. Sometimes authors send electronic photos and bios to TS along with their manuscript submissions, even if the editor has not committed to publishing the manuscripts. When this is the case, we include the photos and bios in the "pending bios" folder instead of posting them to the database. This folder is located in the TS/editor section of the Horizon server.
When referencing a biography, do not use the directory /bios/ when you mean to show the person's TS bio. Use /TS/bios/, as it will retain formatting for the publication.
Working with images & graphics
Within the contents page and the articles themselves are images. Many articles have a picture at the beginning of the article, and except for "Letters to the Editor", these images are different every month. Smaller versions of some of these images are also included on the contents page.
All the images should go in the directory "/TS/images/<date>/". In other words, images for May of 1999 would go in the directory /TS/images/1999-05/. Each image for the top of a page is named accordingly, i.e. "sites.jpg" for the Spotlight Site picture, "vision.jpg" for the Vision picture. The pictures to be used on the contents page, smaller versions that have been resized in an image editor (see below for more information on this), have "-sm" after them ("vision-sm.jpg", "sites-sm.jpg", etc.).
Aside from the Spotlight Site picture (which is usually taken from the site's logo), these are chosen by TS staff (that's us) each month. Once they're chosen, save them according to the naming system described above; if you're not sure of it, check one of the past months' issues to see how it's done.
To link to the new images:
If you need to capture an image from the computer screen to use in an article, you can use the PrintKey tool. This tool is installed on the office computer with the small monitor (can be accessed from the Start>Programs menu), and can also be downloaded from http://newlife-win98.server101.com/printkey_info.htm. This tool easily "takes a picture" of the computer screen (or a selected portion) and allows you to save it as an image file to include in an article.
Adding figures/graphs/other images:
Many authors include figures, images, tables, etc. with their articles. If these
items are small, we can leave them in the text of the article, but more
frequently we want a separate link to the image. In either case, the file needs
to be saved in a specific format and entered into the "search_oracle" database
following these steps:
1. Save the file in the appropriate directory under /TS/resource/, unless it is an image, which goes in the /TS/images/ directory. Files do not have to be named to match their function, but do need to be labeled clearly so the staff can determine what they are. That is to say, 00852-3.htm doesn't necessarily have to be Figure 3. You can relate that file to figure 92 in the database and it would show up as "figure 92" when popped up by the user.
2. The actual metadata about the exhibit/figure/etc is
stored in a table called Articles-Extras in the database. This table takes an
article number, a type of item (i.e. exhibit, figure, etc.), a number for that
item, a title for that item (optional), a filename for that item, a location in
the article for that item (done by paragraph number; if you don't want it placed
in the article itself but just have a link to it, the paragraph number would be
set to 0), and a width and height for the pop-up window (if you're doing a
link). Quite a lot of stuff, yes, but a lot of it can be left blank. For
example, an image in the first paragraph position would just need a type
("image"), a number (1), and a paragraph number (1) as well as whatever filename
the image has (this is the name assigned in step 1).
3. To add a link to a given figure, you just add a tag based on the type and the
number (both mentioned above) to create
the link. Here's the idea: you can put the tag around any text simply by using
the markup (in the HTML!) <type_number>link text</type_number>. An example, if I
wanted to link the phrase "this figure here" to Figure #4, I'd mark it up like
<figure_4>this figure here</figure_4>.
4. Troubleshooting: if an image is not appearing where it ought to, check and make sure that the article has <p> tags on every paragraph. Because the image's placement is done by paragraph number, this could cause a problem. You may need to add <p> tags around <li> tags if there is a list in order to get the images to display properly.
5. If you are inserting a figure/exhibit WITHIN an exhibit, you follow these same procedures. Just place the link to the exhibit/figure in the HTML of the original ("parent") exhibit.
When changing the size of an image, remember: When you place the graphics in the contents page, you must resize then in an editor (Photoshop works well). Do not try to resize the image in FrontPage! When you resize a graphic in FrontPage, it does not mean that the graphic is smaller, just that the HTML is showing a fixed-width image. You must use an image editor to first scale down the graphic.
Also remember: Every viewer's screen is different! Making the image too large will cause the entire page to scroll off one side of the window. If an image is accompanied by text that wraps around it, it should be no bigger than 300-350 pixels wide and 400 pixels tall. If an image is too big to include comfortably, use a thumbnail (very small version) of the picture, and link it to the full-sized version.
Using graphics from another site:
When we want to use a graphic from another site (e.g., for the spotlight site),
we first get permission from the Webmaster and then insert a statement at the
bottom of the site description something like the following:
"All graphics are [or this graphic is] the property of [name of organization] and are being used with the permission of [name of organization]."
Handling Spotlight Site communications
Occasional articles in TS highlight particular Web sites that are deemed interesting and valuable to the educational community. In addition to the normal steps for working with these articles, make sure to do the following:
1. When we first get the article from the author and post it to our site, write the webmaster of the highlighted site to inform them of our choice. Also ask for permission to post their logo on our website. Send the letter to Dr Morrison first, giving him the proper email address and name of the webmaster. He will forward the letter to the webmaster. Click here for a sample first-step letter.
2. Once the article has been "published" -- i.e. when the issue of TS in which the article appears is the current issue -- write the webmaster again, and suggest that he/she include the Spotlight logo on his/her site. Make sure that you attach a copy of the logo to the letter; do not give out the URL where the logo is located. When you receive this permission, print it out and file it with the Letter of Agreement for that article. Again, send the letter to Dr Morrison first, and let him contact the webmaster directly. Click here for a sample second-step letter.
When received, letters of agreement are filed in the office filing cabinet drawer labeled "Technology Colloquium." If the LOA is for an article that has already been placed in a mock-up, it should be filed in the folder for that issue. (If the article is in the mock-up you can find it in the deletepen.) If it is an LOA for an article in the bullpen, it needs to be placed in the "Pending LOAs" folder. Write the number of the article on the LOA and place it in the file in numerical order. If an LOA comes in for an article that has not yet been posted to the Bullpen, there is an "incoming LOAs" file on the small table in the office. Place it there so it can be located when and if the article is posted.
When moving an article to the mock-up, make sure to take its LOA from the "pending" file (it can be located by number) and place it in the file for that month's issue. When an article is moved to the holdpen or deletepen for reasons other than being placed in a mock-up, its LOA should be removed from the "Pending" folder and placed in either the "Holdpen LOAs" or "Deletepen LOAs" folder.
Editing the Board and Staff pages
1. To add a new member of the editorial board to the masthead, enter their bio and photo into the authors section (see above). Next, open the "Board" table and list the board member in a new record there. You should be able to select his/her name from the drop-down menu, then select "Technology Source" and enter the year in which he/she joined the board.
2. Next you need to manually add them to the board page (ts/editor/board.html) for review assignments. Enter their name into the table at the top in alphabetical order. Then scroll down the page to where their entry belongs and create a table by copying and pasting an old one. Make sure all the information in the table is correct, including that the e-mail address links correctly. Create a bookmark to this table and link it to the listing at the top of the page.
3. The new board member must be assigned unique reviewer letters in order to provide anonymous reviews. Look over the table and select the next unused letter combination in order to do this (i.e., if AA is taken, the next one would be AB).
4. To remove someone from the staff page, open the "Staff" table in the "search_oracle" database in Microsoft Access. Find his/her name in the table and in the "left" column, enter the date when the person left the TS staff. This will remove him/her from the staff page. You also use this table to add a new staff member to the masthead.
5. To post review assignments on the board page, go to the reviewer's table on the board page a fill in the appropriate columns regarding when the review was assigned and which article should be reviewed. Be sure to link the article number to the article itself.
1. Clear the cached version of the page so that your changes take effect. Under the new system, when someone views a TS page, the content of that page is generated from the database and displayed on their browser. The page that has been generated is saved on our server for 2 days and any new requests for that page will display the same version. If you have made changes that you wish to appear faster than 2 days, you need to delete the cached version from the server following these steps:
a. Open the directory /TS/content
b. Located the record for the page you are working on. For an article, the
format would be display_show_article_id_#__ie.htm or
display_show_article_id_#__ns.htm (ie being for pages accessed through internet
explorer, and ns for pages accessed through netscape). Other types of files are
saved in a similar format, such as display_show_bio_id_#_ie.htm.
c. Delete the file from the server. Don't worry, if you mis-delete any of the
files in /TS/content/, it's no big deal. The next time a request is made for the
page you "deleted," a new file will be created.
Posting to the Conferences Page
When you are adding to the conferences page, open the "search_oracle" database in Microsoft Access. Select "Conferences." To begin a new form, click on the button with a triangle and a star (at the bottom of the form screen). All you have to do now is enter the information and save it when you are finished.
To edit an existing entry, highlight the title field, click "Ctrl" + "F" and type in the name of the conference you need. Remember to save the entry when you are finished.
Working with mailing lists in the database
When the editor asks you to add e-mail addresses to or delete them from the mailing lists, you'll do this in the "search_oracle" database. Open up the database and select "Mailing."
To add addresses, scroll down to the bottom of the table and fill in the appropriate information in each column of the very last, blank row. If the editor tells you a specific category to add the addresses to, use the drop-down menu in the last column to select this category. If he does not give you a specific category, select "personal" in this menu.
When the editor asks you to delete an address from the mailing list, search for the address in the database. Place the cursor anywhere in the column of e-mail addresses and use the ctrl+f function to search for the address you want to delete. When you locate the address, select and delete the entire row in which it appears. If for some reason you can't find it there either, try searching for only a part of the address and use "any part of field" under the "Match:" drop-down menu. You can also search the "name" field. If you still can't find it, you're sunk--e-mail the editor and wait to see if the address shows up again during the next mail-out. Sometimes there may be a quirk of the database which will not allow you to delete an address (you will receive an error message and the database will close out). The only known solution to this problem is to do something else in the mailing table BEFORE you try to delete any addresses. Adding a new address is the simplest way to do this--if you have no addresses to add, you can invent one as long as you delete it later!
In order to maintain site traffic, it is important to have the Horizon sites registered on all the major search engines. Every few months it is necessary to search these engines and make sure the site is still listed. If it is not, it needs to be re-registered.
When registering pages, do ALL of the following Horizon pages: TS (http://horizon.unc.edu/TS), Welcome (http://horizon.unc.edu/welcome.asp), Projects (http://horizon.unc.edu/projects), Common Sense Management (http://horizon.unc.edu/projects/monograph/CSM/), and Workshops (http://horizon.unc.edu/projects/seminars/), and the main Horizon page (http://horizon.unc.edu). To add these pages, go to the search engine links below and follow their instructions. When a contact address is required, use morrison@unc.edu. For more information about search engines, go to this slide show: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/spiders/august/august.html.
When site descriptions are required, use the following:
For the Horizon site:The mission of the Horizon Web site is to provide an information database and a forum that (1) explores the implications of a rapidly changing world on educational organizations and processes, and (2) examines ways in which we can make educational organizations and programs more effective.
For TS:The Technology Source, a free peer-reviewed bimonthly e-journal, provides thoughtful, illuminating articles that assist educators as they face the challenge of integrating information technology tools into teaching and into managing educational organizations.
If you need to contact the owners/administrators of a site indexing service or electronic database, you can use this form letter (a Word document) to do so.
http://home.lycos.com/addasite.html (Lycos)
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest/ (Yahoo!)
http://www.nbci.com/LMOID/resource/0,566,-1077,00.html? (NBCi.com, formerly snap.com)
http://www.altavista.com/cgi-bin/query?pg=addurl#form (altavista)
http://search.aol.com/add.adp (AOL)
http://www.google.com/addurl.html (Google)
http://www.northernlight.com/docs/regurl_help.html (Northern Light)
http://www.excite.com/info/add_url (Excite)
http://hotbot.lycos.com/addurl.asp (Hotbot)
http://www.dmoz.org/add.html (Dogpile)
http://www.go.com/AddUrl?pg=SubmitUrl.html&svx=HP_addurl (Go.com, formerly Infoseek)
http://submit.looksmart.com/info.jhtml?synd=zdd&chan=zddhome (MSN)
As a TS assistant, you will be continually receiving e-mails regarding your work. It is highly recommended that you use a UNC e-mail (ISIS) account to receive these messages, as many other e-mail clients will not support this volume of mail. You should create a "tasks" folder on the ISIS server in which you will place all of your incoming tasks as you receive them. (To create a folder in Outlook Express, click on File/Folder/New.) If you wish, you can create subfolders for specific types of tasks, e.g. a "posting" folder to keep all tasks related to posting articles and a "contacts" folder to keep all tasks related to mailing lists, etc. This will vary depending on what tasks you focus on in your work.
When you have completed a task, you should have a procedure for removing the e-mail from your "tasks" folder. You can set up a "done" folder if you wish and move the e-mail there, but you may have to periodically clean it out so as not to take up too much space. If you reply to the message noting it as done, this will create a record in your sent-mail folder, which should eliminate the need to have a separate folder.
Our virtual office protocol: working in and out of the office
When emailing the editor regarding an article, include the following:
·
the “subject” line of your email should the issue
(e.g. March-April), the section (e.g. Vision), and the author's last name (or
an abbreviated version of the title).
·
the first two lines of your email should be the
full article title and its URL, which lets the editor access the article
quickly. Example:
E-learning for Adults: Who Has the Goods?
http://horizon.unc.edu/TS/default.asp?show=article&id=882
And remember above all, if you have questions, ask somebody! (If no one is in the office, send out an e-mail--someone will usually read it and respond within an hour!)
Details of working with HTML and HTML editors
Adding bookmarks
The "View Critical Reviews" feature, and occasionally others, use bookmarks.
These are links that take you to a different place on the same page, instead of
to a different page. To add a bookmark:
a) Go to the place on the page that you want the bookmark to link to (i.e., the heading "Critical Reviews" at the bottom of an article), and highlight that text.
b) From the menu, choose "Insert - Bookmark". The default name of the bookmark will be the text you have selected (i.e., "Critical Reviews"). This is fine, so click "OK". When you return to the page you are working on, you will notice that the highlighted text now has a dotted underline to show the bookmark.
c) Now go back up to the point you want the bookmark to link from (i.e., the top of the page: "View Critical Reviews"). Highlight that phrase, and then right click on it and select "hyperlink." Then you can do one of two things: a.) insert the name of the bookmark in the url line with a "#" before it ("#Critical Reviews"); b.) click on the "Bookmark" drop-down menu (under "Optional") and select the bookmark name that you'd inserted in step b ("Critical Reviews"). Then click "OK."
d) After you've saved this change and uploaded it back to the directory, test the bookmark by looking at the file in your browser.
Formatting
paragraphs might require writing some HTML
When left-, right-, or center-justifying something, the entire paragraph is
justified. A line break (<br> in the HTML code, Shift-Enter if you're adding it
in) does not mean a new paragraph is started; a paragraph break (<p> in the
code, Enter if you're adding it) does.
Keeping tables
under control.
Making a table too wide can cause the page to be too big for the browser window.
Be careful when adding tables to keep them to 90% or less of the page. When you
need to resize the cells in a table, do not simply click-and-drag the
borders—this will cause FrontPage to give the cells a size measured in pixels
rather than percentages. Instead, select the cells you wish to change, then
right click on them, go to "Cell Properties", and change the size there.
Remember when resizing table cells that other cells are not automatically resized to fit! If you have two 50% cells, and resize one of them to 75%, you end up with a table 50+75=125% wide, which will always be too large for the window. You must manually resize all the cells.
Keeping page width
under control
When you re-size the window, the entire page should stay visible, with words
wrapping rather than going off the right-hand edge. (Few things get readers more
annoyed than having to scroll sideways to read an article; most will just
leave.)
If you put information on the right side of the page using non-breaking spaces rather than right-hand justification, the page *has* to be that wide, since non-breaking spaces by definition can't be split across more than one line.
In order to get the info where it belongs, just highlight it and hit the "right justify" button on the toolbar. Also, in order to make sure that *only* that text is treated (the alignment holds for an entire paragraph), there must be a paragraph break (hit "enter") before the information, and one after it, rather than a line break (hit "shift-enter").
