News Stories (continued from page 1)

Online Informatics PhD Program

Focal areas for study are available in systems or informatics, vulnerable populations, and biobehavioral responses to injury mechanisms. For more details, go to their website.

The Media - A tool for change?

In response to the rapid growth of e-health services across Europe, the European Commission has released a new set of quality criteria for Web sites providing health information to EU citizens. The over-arching principle is that a health-related Web site must state clearly its target audience and take care to "ensure that both the style and nature of the information, and its presentation, are appropriate for the chosen audience". According to the Commission, national and regional health authorities, relevant professional associations and private medical Web site owners are now expected to implement the criteria in a manner "appropriate to their Web site and consumers."
- read entire article at Europemedia.net

Health Infrastructure Report Released

Information for Health: A Strategy for Building the National Health Information Infrastructure. This report and recommendations from the U.S. National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics, which advises the Secretary of Health and Human Services on health information policy, is the result of extensive input from individuals and organizations around the country. The full length 100 page report is available for viewing online (pdf) at http://ncvhs.hhs.gov/nhiilayo.pdf

HTML Highlights Series: Part 1 HTML Rationale

by June Kaminski

All designers know that several WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) web editor programs are available that they can use to design usable and attractive websites. From the beginner's Microsoft's Frontpage to the industry standard Macromedia's Dreamweaver, editor programs create HTML code for the designer. Web sites created with these editors are accepted as "professionally" designed even when software was used to actually write the code. The existence of these editors often leads new designers to assume that they do not need to actually know how to write HTML code. Yet, if they care whether they themselves are up to the current industry's standards, they will think again. .

Whether an editor is used or not, a professional designer will know the HTML code that would program a particular design idea. They may not actually choose to code it out line by line, but they would instantly know what the code would look like.

The ability to hand code a design in HTML (short for Hypertext Markup Language), both versions 3.2 and 4.0 is a basic critical expectation of any professional designer. In essence, HTML is a language with it's own syntax and grammar rules. Hand coding websites produces clean easy to load code, far superior to the heavy "nonsense" laden code produced by editors. It also gives you complete control of your coding as you proceed with your work. As well, you can ensure your code will be viewable by all browsers and computer platforms. .

Any designer worth their salt is going to ensure they can produce any layout they have in mind from scratch by hand in a simple text editor like Notepad, the free editor available in Windows. All web pages are written as ASCII text but published as .htm or .html files.    - read entire article

This is the first article in a series of five on the critical topic of HTML for designers. The series will look at the importance of mastering HTML, & review HTML v 3.2 & 4.0 plus XHTML and DHTML. Pt. 2 coming in the next issue. .

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