The title of this class is Building a Basic Website, and it will run for six weeks starting on May 20, 2013.
This class will cover the skills necessary to build a basic website. Over the course of twelve lessons, the class will introduce you to design principles, HTML5, CSS, working with images, modifying templates, incorporating external plugins, and putting your site online with FTP. There will be twelve lessons to practice these skills, and in the process you'll build your own website.
The interactive online class will begin on May 20 and run through June 28. Though the 1,000 spots in this class have been reserved, you can still put your name on the waiting list. Even if you don't sign up for the class, the video lessons, most class materials, and interviews with professionals will be public, free and open to all on this page starting on May 20.
Each of the twelve class lessons will be video based, and our goal is to produce pithy, fun lessons– not dull lecture snoozefests. Each lesson will also include self-guided exercises to help you understand the topic more fully. Students enrolled in the class will log in to participate in quizzes, coding exercises, moderated class discussions and more. Enrolled students will receive feedback on their progress and a certificate of their achievement if they complete all twelve lessons.
Though these skills are useful for journalism students, this class is designed for a general audience. If you want to earn credit and focus on the journalism field, we're offering a paid class called Web Design for Journalists this summer.
This is an exciting experiment for us in the Journalism Program and for UMass Amherst. As journalists, we believe in open information. As teachers, we know these web design and development skills are in demand. As employees of a state university, we want everyone in Massachusetts to have access to a good public education. We think this model could be a great way to prepare students for more advanced topics here at UMass Amherst and beyond.
No, you will not earn credit from UMass Amherst. You will earn a certificate of accomplishment if you enroll and pass all twelve lessons. If you want to earn UMass Amherst credits, you can enroll in one of our ten summer online journalism classes or online classes in other subjects.
As long as you have access to a computer sold in the past five years, you should be fine. The Office of Information Technology at UMass Amherst has useful general guidelines for minimum Windows and Mac system requirements. You will need to download free programs like the Firefox web browser and sign up for a free Google account if you don't already have one. If you want to publish your site online, you will need to buy server space and a domain name to host it.
To provide the best possible student experience, we've limited enrollment to the first 1,000 students, and those spots are already reserved. You can join the waiting list by filling out this form.
Brian McDermott joined the journalism faculty at UMass full-time in September 2009 and has been the co-director of the Journalism Online program since 2012. In 2010, Brian developed and began teaching a class called Web Design for Journalists that covers many of the same basic skills you can learn in this MOOC. From teaching that class, and from learning the subject himself years earlier, he understands both the desire to learn these skills and the frustration at how confusing basic web design and development principles can be to learn without guidance.
Brian began his career as a photojournalist, and since going west to Montana for graduate school in 2005 has taken a new media path. He has designed and built numerous websites, including the UMass Journalism Program's site.
You can visit his website for more information, and sign up for the course here.
