SOKOINE UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE

CoNAS-DIIT

CIT300: Information and Communication

Management

Module 5: Web publishing

Dr. Michael P.J. Mahenge

Module description
 Developments and Using ICT Based
Applications for Agricultural Information and
Knowledge Communication
What is Web/online Publishing?
The process of publishing
content on the Internet.
It includes creating and
uploading Web sites,
updating Web pages and
posting blogs online.
The published content may
include text, images,
videos and other types of
media.
What is Web/online Publishing? 
Web publishing continues to change and develop
with the introduction of new programming languages

Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is still the most

widely used web programming language

Extensible Markup Language(XML) is another valuable

language because it allows publishers to create content and
data that is portable to other devices such as mobile devices.
What is web 2.0?

 Communication and information technologies, hosted by web-based

interfaces, which allow users to contribute, share, and collaborate with
others via the Internet.
 The content generated by Web 2.0 technologies is always based on
collaborative effort from their users, as opposed to the first
generation Web applications that creates the content by individual sources.
Web 2.0..
Allow users within web based communities to
both access and contribute to website content

It is focused on ability to access and share

information online (Read-Write feature).

It has provided a version of internet experience

that encourages individual users cooperate in
knowledge creation and sharing their ideas.
Web 2.0..

 Application of Web 2.0 technologies does not require any web

design or publishing skills to participate, making it easy for
people to create and publish or communicate their work to the
world.

 Among others, Web2.0 technologies includes: wikis, blogs,

social networking, podcasting, RSS feeds, content hosting
services, etc.
Web 2.0 tools

Examples of Web 2.0 tools

Web 2.0 tools
1. A wiki (e.g. wikipedia) is a web space where
people can work together to build and publish
content.
Database for creating, browsing, and
searching through information.
Hypertext publication collaboratively
edited and managed by its own
audience directly using a web browser.
Web 2.0 tools
2. A blog is a type of website, usually
maintained by an individual that contains
regular commentaries of events and advice or
other materials such as images, videos or
links to external web pages.

Contents can include online personal

reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks,
videos, and photographs provided by the
writer
Web 2.0 tools
 Blogs may be used in a variety of ways:
 Networking and personal knowledge sharing
 Instructional tips for students
 Course announcements and readings for
students
 Knowledge and experience sharing
 Blogs also facilitate critical feedback, by letting
readers add comments - which could be from
teachers, peers, customers or a wider audience.
Web 2.0 tools
3. Social bookmarking is one of the ways in which
users on the web use tagging to share and aggregate
their knowledge. It helps users take advantage of the
collective web browsing and tagging that thousands of
people do every day. Web users can benefit from
social bookmarking in various ways:
 Keep track of sites for ease content discovery
 Increase collaboration through sharing of sites among
students, instructors, researchers and other colleagues.
 Create subject directories and share them with interested
users.
Web 2.0 tools
4. Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is an increasingly popular
way of accessing the latest news published on dynamically
driven websites.
Websites usually use RSS feeds to publish frequently updated
information, such as blog entries, news headlines, episodes of audio
and video series, or for distributing podcasts.
The main purpose of an RSS feed is to provide users with an easy
way to subscribe to web content. Instead of visiting a website over
and over again to see if there's an update, users can receive a
notification, a summary or even the full text of an article once the
new content is available.
This reduces search efforts on part of users.
Web 2.0 tools
5.Podcasts is a digital media file, usually digital audio or video
that is freely available for download from the Internet (e.g.
YouTube).

 The digital content can also be broadcast via community

radio where there is no internet connectivity.
 Podcasts can be used in offering online courses as a
method of delivering course content to students.
 Podcasts can also be used for extension purposes to
deliver content to various beneficiaries.
Web 2.0 benefits
 Create a large and strong network
 Easy and cheap method to promote your business online
 Allows people to participate in discussion and forums to share
their views and ideas
 More interaction leads to a higher exchange of knowledge
 Build strong relationships
 Opportunity to stay in touch with many people
 Easy to share huge amount of information in short time such
as good quality of images and video.
 etc
Web 2.0 disadvantages
 People are highly dependent on the internet
to network.
 Wastage of time.
 Risk of spamming, frauds and hackers.
 Risk of privacy violation
 Integrity of information???
 etc
Summary: Web 2.0 tools that enhance
interactivity (Reading assignment)
 Podcasting
 Blogging
 Tagging
 Curating with RSS
 Social bookmarking
 Social networking
 Social media
 Web content voting
 etc
ASSIGNMETNT (Group discussion)

Briefly explain five (5) applications areas where web

2.0 can be used

Choose one case study related to your

profession/specialization and explain how you will use
web 2.0 tools(one or more) to enhance Information
and Knowledge Communication/sharing
Take Away (Individual)

Read the article “World Wide Web and Its

Journey from Web 1.0 to Web 4.0” and
summarize the comparison of the web
generations
PBworks: Online Team Collaboration
 PBworks is a wiki, i.e., it is an online workspace that
allows users to collaborate in teams on various kinds
of written projects.

 We will use Wikis as a case study for collaborative

agricultural creation and sharing

 A wiki is a website that allows visitors to edit or add

their own contents to the pages on the site.
 Pbworks………
 Most wikis support a graphical interface that allows
you to create a wiki site in just a few minutes without
having to know any HTML or other markup code.

 A wiki is a collaborative web site whose content can

be edited by visitors to the site, allowing users to
easily create and edit web pages collaboratively.
 Setting up a Wiki on PBworks
 PBworks is a popular wiki that provides free
accounts for educators.

 PBworks is an information resource, a

collaboration tool, a tool for building e-
learning content, and an icebreakers
(enhances interactivity).
 Setting up a Wiki on PBworks …….
To set up a new wiki on PBworks:
Go to http://pbworks.com and click on the sign Up
link at the top of the page.

Select the Basic plan. This is the free plan that

includes up to 2 GB of storage space.

Choose an address for your PBworks wiki and

make sure to select the For education option.
Setting up a Wiki on PBworks …….

 Click GET STARTED at the top right

Setting up a Wiki on PBworks …….

Click the EDUHub

Setting up a Wiki on PBworks …….

 Choose the basic plan or any of the plan preferred

Setting up a Wiki on PBworks …….
Setting up a Wiki on PBworks …….
 Click on Next. A confirmation email will be
sent to the email address you provided.
 Open the email and click on the activation
link to return to PBworks and continue
setting up your account.
 Choose the privacy settings for your wiki
(who can view or edit your wiki whether
anyone or only people you invite).
Setting up a Wiki on PBworks …….
Setting up a Wiki on PBworks …….
 Check the box at the bottom of the page to
indicate that you agree to the terms of
service and click on the Take me to my
workspace button.
 Your new wiki will open with some
placeholder text already added to the wikiʼs
first page, which is also known as the
FrontPage. To begin editing the wiki, click on
the Edit tab at the top of the window.
Setting up a Wiki on PBworks …….
 Once you have set up a wiki you can assign permissions that
will determine the level of access visitors to the wiki site will
have:
 Administrator: as the wikiʼs creator and owner, you are
automatically assigned this role. This role allows you to add
and remove users, change permissions and access the
settings page.
 Editor: can rename and delete pages, files and folders. You
should be careful in assigning this role as it allows the
removal of content from the wiki.
Setting up a Wiki on PBworks …….
 Writer: can edit pages and revert them to previous
versions, as well as upload files and add pages.
This is the recommended role for most of the
people you will invite to work on the wiki.
 Reader: can only view content on the wiki and
does not have the ability to make any changes.
 Page-level only: allows you to give someone up
to Editor level permissions on a single page
without giving them access to the rest of the wiki.
Practical Assignment
Choose the inspirational topic/idea related to your profession and
write a WIKI page (approx. 400-1000words) describing a
summary of the idea which include the background, significance,
real-world applications, etc. NOTE: In order to write a WIKI
page, you need to SIGN UP in Pbworks or any other tool that will
enable you to complete the task.
Submission Requirement
1.The link to your page (For example:
http://cit300.pbworks.com/w/page/147515169/FrontPage#view=p
age
) (cit300 can be replaced by any name e.g. NanaCIT300).
Remember to write your full name and ID