"Creating a World Wide Web-based Multimedia Portfolio"
Copyright 1999 by Brian Wasson
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Chapter II-Literature Review
A history of the Internet and World Wide Web
A history of other Internet-mediated communication forms
Publishing on the World Wide Web
Legal considerations of Web publishing
Introduction
The creation of a Web-based multimedia portfolio requires knowledge in several disparate areas. Most obviously, a basic understanding of the Internet's origins, structure, technologies, and future is needed. "The Net has its own unique characteristics, and understanding them will help considerably in using the tools and resources available [. . .] " (Morville, Rosenfeld and Janes 2). Narrowing it further, a look at the World Wide Web will provide the framework needed to consider style and design concepts peculiar to the medium. The current state of job-hunting online will be considered. Finally, certain legal and copyright considerations must also be addressed.
A History of the Internet and the World Wide Web
Since the early 1990s, the Internet has been a hot topic of conversation. It seems to have come from nowhere to be the thing everyone wants to be a part of. Yet, few really understand it. Albert Gore, Jr., then a US Senator, gave the Internet its most famous and overused nickname: the "Information Superhighway." In 1991 Gore wrote: "What we need is a nation-wide network of 'information superhighways,' linking scientists, business people, educators, and students [. . .] " (21). Yet, what Gore was calling for had already existed, at least in a basic form, since 1969.
The Internet
Scientists had been working since the early 1960s on the idea of a wide-area computer network (i.e. one distributed over some distance, rather than in-house). In 1965 scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) connected a computer in Massachusetts with a computer in California over a telephone line, creating "the first (however small) wide-area computer network ever built" (Leiner et al. 2). This networked connection was based upon a "master/slave relationship (or as we now say 'client/server')" (Hardy 5), where there was a main computer with a terminal drawing information from it.
Following the success of this initial networking test, researchers began to explore more reliable ways of transferring information between remote computers. MIT researcher Leonard Kleinrock had been researching packet-switching, a way to send messages from one computer to another, since 1961 (Zakon 1). Packet-switching was to be the technology that would drive the first rudimentary attempts at what we today call the Internet (Leiner et al. 2).
"Packet-switching is a method of fragmenting messages into sub-parts called packets, routing them to their destinations, and reassembling them" (Hardy 5). For example, if a file is to be sent from one computer to another, packet-switching software will break the single file into numerous smaller files (packets). "The packets are then routed from the originating computer to the receiving computer and reconstituted as information once the packets have arrived at their destination" (Kahn and Logan 3).
Software on the sending and receiving ends generates an algorithmic number based upon the information in the file. The numbers from the two ends are compared, and if found to be different, the missing packets are re-sent to the recipient. "Because no transmission medium is 100% reliable, packet-switching allows one 'bad' packet to be re-sent while other 'good' packets are uninterrupted in their transmission" (Hardy 5).
Packet-switching allowed large files to be transferred over a network with a fair degree of reliability, setting the stage for the computer-based communication advances to follow.
Soon, computer networking caught the eye of the US government, and especially the military. The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), an agency of the US Department of Defense (DOD), commissioned a network utilizing packet-switching in 1969. This network, the predecessor of the Internet, was dubbed the "ARPANET," and was designed "both as an experiment in reliable networking and to link together DOD and military research contractors, including the large number of universities doing military-funded research" (Levine and Baroudi 11). "By the end of 1969, four host computers were connected together into the initial ARPANET, and the budding Internet was off the ground" (Leiner 3).
One promising aspect of the ARPANET in the DOD's eyes was that it was designed to be a network without a central location. "The philosophy was that every computer on the network could talk, as a peer, with any other computer" (Krol 13), in contrast to the master/slave relationship evidenced in earlier networks. In essence, any individual location could be off-line and the network would still be available. With nuclear war on planners' minds in the bleak Cold War days, this was an attractive selling point (Levine and Baroudi 12).
The ARPANET grew steadily over the next few years, but was still primarily a network used by scientists and defense contractors for the transmission of files. It was computers talking to computers.
In 1972 the ARPANET took a turn toward becoming the Internet we know today. Ray Tomlinson adapted a program he wrote the year before which allowed "electronic mail" (e-mail) messages to be sent across a network. Finally, people could correspond with other people via the ARPANET and its associated computers (Zakon 3). It was also in 1972 that the International Network Working Group was formed in an effort to develop a way for various networks to communicate with each other. From this seed grew the concept of an "internet" (4).
An internet is the "result of connecting two or more networks so that computers in each network can share data and devices [. . .] networks are interconnected, but this doesn't mean all the networks are directly connected to each other" (Fahey 96). An internet allows disparate networks to talk with each other via an established "protocol," or communication addressing scheme (somewhat akin to a language). Advances in protocols, especially the development of Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol (together called TCP/IP), opened the door to open architecture networking. "In this approach, the choice of any individual network technology was not dictated by a particular network architecture but rather could be selected freely by a provider and made to network with other networks through a meta-level 'Internetworking Architecture'" (Leiner et al. 4). Systems operators were free to choose any computer technology they wished, as long as TCP/IP could run on it.
The creation of TCP/IP finally allowed true internetting, and led to the Internet itself, a combination of individual networks running TCP/IP. The ARPANET had begun its inexorable transition into the Internet.
The ARPANET continued to develop, but it was not until the National Science Foundation (NSF) created the NSFNET in 1986 that internetted computers began to be available to non-military researchers. The NSF established five super-computing centers at major universities in the United States (Princeton, Pittsburgh, University of California San Diego, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Cornell), with the idea that other universities could share the computing resources over the NSFNET (Zakon 8). The NSF built the NSFNET to connect the super-computer centers' remote locations. The NSFNET was completely separate from the ARPANET, and was much faster (Levine and Baroudi 14). "In fact, by 1990 so much business had moved from the ARPANET to the NSFNET that, after nearly 20 years, the ARPANET had outlived its usefulness and was shut down" (14). The year 1990 also saw the first linking of the Internet with a commercial e-mail provider (MCI Mail), with most other commercial e-mail carriers following in the next two years (Cerf 4).
A key to the Internet's growth has been and will continue to be "bandwidth," which is the "range of transmission frequencies a network can use" (Fraase 11). The higher the bandwidth, the more information can be transferred in a given time. As communication technologies continue to develop for the Internet, increasing bandwidth will be a major concern.
Nineteen ninety-five was a watershed year for the burgeoning Internet. The NSF officially reverted the NSFNET back to a research-only network, and turned control of the Internet over to a consortium of communication providers. The Internet continues to this day to be owned by no single entity, and is only loosely governed by the Internet Society (ISOC). The ISOC is "a voluntary membership organization whose purpose is to promote global information exchange through Internet technology" (Krol 16).
Also in 1995, the Federal Networking Council (FNC) passed a resolution finally defining the term "Internet." They defined the Internet as:
[. . .] the global information system that-(i) is logically linked together by a globally unique address space based on the Internet Protocol (IP) or its subsequent extensions/follow-ons; (ii) is able to support communications using the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) suite or its subsequent extensions/follow-ons, and/or other IP-compatible protocols; and (iii) provides, uses or makes accessible, either publicly or privately, high level services layered on the communications and related infrastructure described herein. (Leiner et al. 15)
Although the ARPANET had paved the way for the Internet, it was the NSFNET that brought the concept of the Internet to a wider audience, as thousands of university researchers, students, and staff began to use it in earnest. But still the Internet was an unknown entity to most of the world, catering as it did to research and science. It was not a technology for the masses.
The World Wide Web
In 1990, though, Tim Berners-Lee, a computer scientist at CERN in Switzerland, "one of the world's largest scientific laboratories" (CERN, CERN), invented the World Wide Web, and thus began the Internet's change into a medium for the masses.
The Web, like the ARPANET and NSFNET, was designed for science. It was "originally conceived and developed for the large high-energy physics collaborations which have a demand for instantaneous information sharing between physicists working in different universities and institutes all over the world" (CERN, A CERN Invention).
It is important to note that the "Web is not identical to the Internet. It is one of many Internet-based communication systems" (CERN, The Web). The Web is an independent entity that relies on the Internet for its communication medium. The Web was "made possible by the widespread adoption of the Internet" (CERN, What Was) and its related networking standards. It is a "convergence of computational concepts for presenting and linking information dispersed across the Internet in an easily accessible way" (December and Randall 7).
The Web makes use of the idea of hypertext: "text with links to further information, on the model of references in a scientific paper or cross-references in a dictionary. With electronic documents, these cross-references can be followed by a mouse-click, and with the World Wide Web, they can be anywhere in the world" (CERN, What is). Hypertext allows the Web user to navigate from one term or concept to another in a potentially endless, seamless way by simply clicking on a bit of hypertext. "The interactive ability of hypertext lets you make selections and navigate further into the text [. . . and] allows an information publisher to convey more specific detail and a greater variety of information than you could find otherwise" (Powell and Wickre 9); it "is a way to link and access information of various kinds as a web of nodes in which the user can browse at will" (Berners-Lee and Cailliau 1).
Although hypertext was invented by CERN researchers Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau, a scientist had suggested the concept some 45 years prior in a visionary paper titled "As We May Think." Vannevar Bush, director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development during World War II, published his thoughts on the future of science after the end of the war. Among his many ideas was one which would prove to be well before its time: the idea of a "Memex," a device "in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate support to his memory" (10). Bush went on to describe what can only be considered a hypertext document: "Wholly new forms of encyclopedias will appear, ready-made with a mesh of associative trails running through them, ready to be dropped into the Memex and there amplified" (12). He understood that the human mind does not process information in a linear fashion, but rather works through associations. "With one item in its grasp, it snaps instantly to the next that is suggested by the association of thoughts, in accordance with some intricate web of trails carried by the cells of the brain" (10). His description of the Memex itself could be the computer on which this paper has been composed: "It consists of a desk [. . .] . On the top are slanting translucent screens, on which material can be projected for convenient reading. There is a keyboard, and sets of buttons and levers" (10), and his "new form of encyclopedia" bears an uncanny resemblance to the World Wide Web of today.
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) drives the Web. HTML is "the format in which Web pages are built and Web information is distributed" (Powell and Wickre 36). In order to read a Web page written in HTML a Web browser is required. Simply stated, "A Web browser is a program which is used to visit Web pages" (Boutell); it is a program that translates the HTML code into a readable format viewable on a computer monitor.
HTML is unique in that it is a coding system that "allows each WWW client to format the text in a way that is appropriate for the display that the client is using, providing for effective use of text formatting [. . .] . HTML also enables you to include in-line images (pictures in documents that can be displayed by the graphical WWW clients)" (Wetsch 1).
The Web was originally designed as a document retrieval tool to help researchers manage vast amounts of data and information. Robert Cailliau, who along with Berners-Lee first proposed the use of hypertext at CERN, wrote that the idea behind online information was "that the Web version is the original, and if you really need paper product you derive it from there [. . .] . Our idea was that the original document is on the Web. What's on the Web is not a conversion from something else, but rather, it's what you start out with, it's how you think" (2). This culture of online documentation persists to this day; in fact, virtually all original documentation and personal narratives concerning the formation of the Internet and the Web are still available primarily online.
Although it was developed as a scientific tool, the Web's standard interface and ease of use quickly caught on with non-scientific users. "When Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) was designed, no one imagined that this humble page-layout language would become the foundation for one of the biggest media domains of the 20th century" (Carton and Branwyn 885). Many pundits see the Web as the future of the Internet, with Web browsers being the standard interface for all types of data transfer. According to Web founder Berners-Lee, "The Web is an architecture which will also embrace any future advances in technology, including new networks, protocols, object types and data formats" (1). He believed that the Web "is currently the most advanced information system deployed on the Internet, and embraces within its data model most information in previous networked systems" (Berners-Lee 1). Interestingly, the previous quotes were written by Berners-Lee in 1992, a lifetime ago in the development of technology. Yet, they still ring true today.
The original Web browser as developed by Berners-Lee only allowed text to be viewed, although his HTML standard allowed for the incorporation of images and other media. However, it was not until the early part of 1993 that this capability became a reality with the release of the Mosaic browser for the Unix operating system by the National Center for Supercomputer Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Sachs and Stair 8). "This software allowed the display of coloured images [. . .] [and] stirred the exhibitionist in many Unix/Internet programmers" (Frodet). A few months later, the NCSA released versions of Mosaic for Macintosh, IBM-compatible/Windows, and X-Windows computers (CERN, A Little History). In keeping with the spirit of the Internet, Mosaic was available for free (well, not actually-federal research dollars paid for it).
Just as Tomlinson's e-mail software opened the Internet to common usage, so did Mosaic open the doors to widespread use of the Web. With the release of Mosaic, the Web "proliferate[d] at a 341,634% annual growth rate of service traffic" (Zakon 12). In early 1993, before the release of Mosaic, 50 Web servers existed worldwide. By the fall of 1993 over 500 servers existed-a phenomenal 1,000 percent growth within a six-month time period (CERN, A Chronological). Within less than a year, there were 1,500 servers, and by the end of 1994 10,000 servers were available on the Web (Frodet).
In 1994, the author of Mosaic, Marc Andreensen, left the NCSA and founded his own company, Netscape Communication Corporation, to write and market a more sophisticated Web browser. In December 1994 Netscape v.1.0 was the first major browser to be released, and quickly eclipsed Mosaic as the most popular browser for accessing the Web (CERN, A Chronological). The Web continued its meteoric rise, with an estimated 400,000 servers online in 1996, and 700,000 servers in 1997 (CERN, Where Are). Since then, "the Web has grown into the huge system we see today. It is now so big that reliable statistics are hard to find, and they quickly become unreliable as the situation evolves" (CERN, Where Are).
Although the number of Web servers is difficult to estimate, "it is even harder to estimate the number of [Internet] users" (CERN, Where Are). Since the Internet is comprised of thousands of individual networks it is nearly impossible to ascertain the true number of users who have access. Counting user identification names or addresses does not work, as one user may have several (for example, this author personally has seven e-mail addresses available to him). That is not to say that a myriad of industry groups, marketers, and researchers do not try. A plethora of numbers are bandied about by the news media, industry pundits, and office workers by the water cooler. Internet industry watcher Nua Internet Surveys noted "The art of estimating how many are online throughout the world is an inexact one at best." Their best guess, as of January 1999, is 153.25 million worldwide, with 87 million of those users in the United States and Canada. Another respected industry watcher puts the number a bit lower, at 147 million users worldwide (Computer Industry Almanac, Inc., Over 147 Million), and projects 327 million users worldwide by the end of the year 2000 (Computer Industry Almanac, Inc., Over 300 Million).
Today, the Internet is a "huge spider's web of intersections and interconnections, each of which defines a path for the flow of information" (Altman 34). Altman compares the Internet and the Web to a tree: "From its trunk grows the big branches that represent the main arteries-the 'backbones' of the Web. Smaller branches that grow off of the big branches represent the hundreds of thousands of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and large organizations with high Internet demands" (34). Altman's analogy works well. The Internet still relies on its "backbone," or main connections. But with its exponential growth has come a myriad of branches, or connecting networks. These networks, or "ISPs," are what has driven the growth of the Internet. One ISP, such as America Online, may have hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of users. That is the design of the Internet; one big network comprised of many smaller networks, none of which is dependent upon the other.
Other Internet-Mediated Communication Forms
Introduction. Although the Web is clearly the current driving force behind the Internet, there are other technologies that are also popular. Perhaps the most ubiquitous and well-known is electronic-mail, or "e-mail" as it is commonly called. Other communication technologies that make use of the Internet include Usenet newsgroups, File Transfer Protocol (FTP), and streaming media.
E-Mail. Electronic-mail is "The all-inclusive term used to describe messages sent over computers" (Coblentz 38), or "The electronic exchange of messages between individuals via computers" (Fahey 63). The key term in both definitions is messages. Messages are different from files in that they carry specific and personal information from one person which is intended for another person.
E-mail is considered to be a "store and forward service," where the "sending and receiving machines need not be able to communicate directly with each other to make it work" (Krol 105). E-mail is quite similar to regular mail (called "snail mail" by Internet aficionados), in that an individual writes and sends a letter, the letter gets delivered, and the recipient reads it. But with e-mail, "The biggest advantage [. . .] is convenience. You don't have to print your message, put it in an envelope, stamp it, and take it to a post office" (Crumlish 120).
Assuming a user is connected to the Internet, e-mail is free of charge, whether one is sending a message across town or across the Atlantic Ocean. E-mail is also much faster than traditional mail; in the above example, the message across town will most likely reach its destination in about the same time as the one traveling across the ocean. E-mail has made long-distance communication possible for many who may not have otherwise been able to afford it. Grandparents are able to e-mail their children a continent away. Missionaries in remote locations can keep in touch with friends. Schoolchildren in Europe can send messages to researchers in Antarctica. The uses are nearly endless.
In addition to simple text messages, most users have the ability to attach computer files to an e-mail message, making it easy for workers in far-away locations to share both thoughts and word-processing files.
The Internet, like a postal system, works by the use of addresses. Internet e-mail addresses have two parts: the user name or identification, and the host computer's name. A sample e-mail address would be "briawas@regent.edu." The letters or numbers before the "@" (at) symbol identify a particular user. The symbols after the @ symbol identify the individual network host computer (called a "mail gateway") which will handle delivery of the e-mail. When e-mail is sent via the Internet, the network only concerns itself with getting the message to the correct mail gateway (in the above example it is "regent.edu," or Regent University's mail gateway). "Once it has delivered a message to the named machine, the network's task is over" (Krol 106).
Although e-mail is faster than regular mail, it still provides a record of the communication, which can be valuable for archival purposes. E-mail also allows a single message to be sent to multiple people, a potentially time-saving ability.
Usenet. Usenet is like a large bulletin board, with users able to post messages and replies. It is built around the idea of newsgroups, where users can read and post "articles." Usenet is a network in only a loose sense; "In fact, it's part of Usenet lore that except for a technical description, you cannot define what it is [. . .] " (Anderson, What is Usenet). The best definition of Usenet would be "a collaboration of separate sites which exchange Usenet news" (Anderson, What is Usenet). Usenet is actually older than the World Wide Web, having been invented by two graduate students in 1979 (Anderson, Usenet History). The majority of Usenet traffic is carried by the Internet (Anderson, How Does).
Usenet news is generally accessed using software packages called newsreaders, which allow a user to read the messages in a particular newsgroup. "Unlike e-mail, where the messages are actually sent to your computer and stored on your own hard drive, newsgroup articles are stored on a news server, at the site that services your account" (Fraase 111). A newsreader facilitates the reading of an article, allows a follow-up or new message to be posted to the group, and keeps track of what articles have been read or viewed (Fristrup 20).
"One may consider a newsgroup a forum for articles relating to a common topic. All newsgroups are arranged in a hierarchy, with each group's name indicating its place in the hierarchy" (Anderson, What is Usenet). For example, one might participate in the newsgroup "rec.photo.technique.nature." The name reads from right to left in ascending order of the hierarchy. Thus, this newsgroup about nature photography techniques is located in the general "rec" hierarchy (representing all newsgroups of a recreational nature), "photo" sub-group, "technique" sub-group. There are other "technique" newsgroups, including "rec.photo.technique.people" and "rec.photo.technique.art."
Usenet newsgroups cover virtually every conceivable topic of discussion. They are an excellent resource for learning about a particular subject, as group contributors are generally quite willing to post detailed answers to questions and problems. For the job seeker, there are over 300 newsgroups dedicated to employment issues. Some are venues for employers to post help-wanted ads, such as "gov.us.topic.gov-jobs.offered.misc" for government jobs or "phl.jobs.offered" for jobs in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania region.
Usenet news is a perfect example of the Internet doing what it was originally designed to do: provide a forum for collaboration on many topics for users dispersed throughout the world.
FTP. Prior to the arrival of the World Wide Web, File Transport Protocol (FTP) was the preferred method for accessing remote computer files via the Internet. "FTP enables you to transfer files from your computer to a host, from a host to your computer, or between hosts" (Fahey 70). FTP is still used to transmit and receive files from computers world-wide. The most common type of FTP is "anonymous FTP," "an Internet service that allows anyone to enter publicly accessible file archives, practically anywhere in the world, without having an account on that archive" (Fraase 148).
FTP excels at transferring text and data files quickly and efficiently. It is a bare-bones approach to file transfer, and requires that the user know what he or she is looking for and where to find it. FTP sites can be accessed by a wide range of software products, including Web browsers. In fact, many Web authors use FTP as a means of transferring their Web pages to a remote server.
Streaming Media. Multimedia files have been available over the Web almost since its inception. Still images, sounds, and even videos are available on many pages. Yet, in the past, files needed to be downloaded completely before they could be viewed. Although the transmission of live audio and video was theoretically practical, the limited bandwidth of most Internet hook-ups precluded it. It wasn't until the introduction of streaming technology that it became a reality.
"Streaming, in simplest terms, is a process which allows a file to be opened before the entire file has been transferred or copied to the hard drive or other media" (Hendricks 1). Using streaming technology, an audio or video source can be broadcast over the Internet to a user's computer with little loss of quality, even if a relatively slow connection is being used. Streaming media uses codecs (data compression and decompression routines) to compress the data to such a degree that it can be sent over the Internet (Heid 1).
What this technology has translated into is the birth of Internet broadcasters. "Streaming media [. . .] is expanding the reach of traditional broadcasters, replacing videotape for many training and business applications, and democratizing broadcasting for anyone with a message and a microphone" (1). Although the technology has come quite a way, streaming video is still not very effective except for high-bandwidth connections. Streaming audio, on the other hand, "can be quite effective [. . .] Low data-rate codecs have moved beyond just being very cool technology to making streaming audio [. . .] quite palatable" (McMaking, Murphy, and Sauer 3).
Seeking to address some of the problems with streaming video, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an international consortium that works to develop common protocols for the Internet (World Wide Web Consortium 3), developed the Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language ("SMIL," pronounced "smile") in 1998. SMIL enables authors to "combine text, still images, audio, video, and animations to create interactive multimedia presentations of broadcast quality" (Stanek, SMIL).
The actual production of SMIL-based content requires only a knowledge of eXtensible Markup Language (XML), a common Internet coding scheme (Stanek, Exploring SMIL). To view a SMIL-based production, however, requires a software player designed to take advantage of the protocol (such players are currently available from several major software vendors, and are generally available for free on the Web).
Although streaming media technology is still in its infancy, it holds promise for the producer of an online multimedia portfolio. Archived audio or video clips of a presentation, news broadcast, or theater performance can be broadcast over the Internet, providing potential employers with an on-demand and instant look at a job-hunter's skills. An actor may choose to have a performance broadcast live, so that talent scouts or producers in remote locations may view his or her performance without having to leave their offices. A scaled-down version of this concept is already in place on at least one Web site: "Virtual Headbook" "allows producers to hear and view potential actors before they call them in" (Bellinger 4). Film producers, directors, and technicians can put their best work online, saving the expense of mass duplication of video tapes. The possibilities for those involved in audio-visual pursuits are nearly endless.
The Future of the Internet
Introduction. Attempting to predict the future of a technology as vast and changeable as the Internet can seem as fruitless as trying to count the grains of sand on a beach. Within less than 30 years the Internet has gone from a nearly unknown computer network for scientists to a worldwide phenomenon which shows no signs of slowing down. New technologies are introduced daily and computing power and bandwidth resources increase exponentially every year.
Yet, the Internet has remained remarkably true to its roots throughout the years. As newer technologies like the World Wide Web evolve, they tend to gather up and include past Internet technologies rather than making them obsolete. It seems that those who drive the technology have an appreciation of what has come before them. One need only look at the in-depth Internet histories which are available online to see how this remarkable achievement called the Internet has spawned a devoted group of historians who desire to keep its history alive.
With an eye toward Internet history, and a careful reading of proposals for the future of the Internet, this writer feels comfortable predicting that, on the surface, the Internet will maintain a similar look and feel in the near future. New technologies will drive an increase in bandwidth, and consequently, an increase in the use of digital media, including audio and video, on the Web. The lines between media will blur, and eventually converge, as high-bandwidth connections become more commonplace; "A richer, broader digital media era is emerging with profound and growing impact on the Internet and digital broadcasting" (Microsoft). It also seems clear that the World Wide Web will continue to drive the Internet much as it does now.
As of this writing, two major initiatives are currently being pursued in the United States vis-à-vis the Internet: the Next Generation Internet (NGI) and the Internet2.
The Next Generation Internet (NGI). The Next Generation Internet initiative was introduced to America by President Clinton in his January 1998 State of the Union address. In two paragraphs Clinton neatly encapsulated both the history and the future of the Internet:
We should enable all the world's people to explore the far reaches of cyberspace. Think of this-the first time I made a State of the Union speech to you, only a handful of physicists used the World Wide Web. Literally, just a handful of people. Now, in schools, in libraries, homes and businesses, millions and millions of Americans surf the Net every day [. . .] . But we also must make sure that we protect the exploding global commercial potential of the Internet [. . .] .
For one thing, I ask Congress to step up support for building the next generation Internet. It's getting kind of clogged, you know. And the next generation Internet will operate at speeds up to a thousand times faster than today.
Although Clinton only said a few sentences about it, the legislation that was introduced in the House of Representatives a little over a month later gave the development of the Internet of the future a swift influx of research dollars and a federal agency to oversee the research. The bill (H.R. 3332) quickly passed both the House and Senate, and was signed into law by President Clinton in October 1998 (Bill Summary). The NGI initiative provided $100 million in funding for Next Generation Internet-related research and development in the 1998 fiscal year, with more to follow (Next Generation 2). According to the text of the law as passed by Congress, the Next Generation Research Act's purpose was to:
(1) authorize research programs related to high-end computing and computation [. . .] and (2) provide for the development and coordination of a comprehensive and integrated US research program which will focus on a computer infrastructure that promotes interoperability among advanced Federal computer networks, high-speed data access that is economical and that does not impose a geographic penalty, and flexible and extensible networking technology. (Bill Summary)
In short, the government wanted a faster, more secure version of the Internet, and was willing to fund it. Such an Internet would serve the research community, defense community, and numerous other federal agencies. Although the government provided the seed money, it encouraged the private sector to work on the technology, saying that the funding was provided because "an initiative of this nature would not be undertaken by the private sector alone because the benefits can not be captured by any one firm" (NGI Overview).
The goals for the NGI initiative include substantially increased bandwidth, the ability to handle real-time multimedia and streaming media, and secure facilities for high-level research. The NGI initiative dictates that the Internet of the future will continue to be "built, owned, and operated by the private sector" (NGI Overview). The NGI initiative does not spell out how the Internet will evolve into the "next generation Internet," but does offer particular guidelines for what it should look like. It is fairly certain the influx of research funding will provide an increase in the rate of new Internet technology development.
Internet2. Internet2 (I2) is a program sponsored by the University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development (UCAID) and its associated universities. Its purpose is to "Facilitate and coordinate the development, deployment, operation and technology transfer of advanced, network-based application and network services to further US leadership in research and higher education and accelerate the availability of new services and applications on the Internet" (Internet2 Mission).
Launched in 1997, the I2 is separate and distinct from the Internet. Currently, "Connecting to Internet2 in the way a person connects with the Internet through an Internet Service Provider [. . .] isn't possible" (Frequently Asked Questions). It is a member-only network, linking select sites across the US with high-bandwidth lines. Its primary goal is to provide a cutting-edge network for the national research community (About Internet2). Like the NGI, the I2 "will be restricted to so-called 'research users' in university and government settings" (Berinato). Although managed and primarily funded by the educational community (with grants from the member schools as well as the NGI initiative), the I2 program is working closely with industry and government to develop new applications and a more sophisticated network (First Deployment). By involving industry in the I2 program, it is hoped that new technologies will also make their way into the Internet. "With industry involved from the start, the commercial world will benefit more quickly from government and academia's research and progress in advanced networking than it did with the original Internet" (Wexler).
The current plan is to move the bulk of educational traffic to the new I2, freeing up the overcrowded Internet. It is unclear whether the I2 will be opened to general traffic at some point in the future; at this point it appears that it may remain as a separate network, as to open the I2 to commercial traffic would most likely defeat its purpose. Dennis Lander, of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, quoted in Berinato, said "I see no problem with having a two-network environment with gateways between them, but no matter how you purvey this, it will be a difficult transition. Someone will be upset." Mark Luker, of the National Science Foundation, quoted in Lange, goes one step further: "This is an ongoing proposition. It won't stop with Internet2. I see an Internet3 and 4 in the near future."
I2 participants say the research dollars are well-spent, since the goal of the I2 is to provide a testbed for new Internet technologies-by having a high-performance network, they are able to devise and test technologies that would not be feasible on the Internet (Rendleman), resulting in better performance for all Internet networks.
Publishing on the World Wide Web
Introduction
The Internet, and especially the Web, thrives on content. It is what it was designed for. Without information, the Internet is just another computer network-it would hardly have become as popular as it is without the voluminous information currently available on it.
The beauty of the World Wide Web is that it allows "any individual, group, or organization anywhere in the world who has something they think is of interest to make this information widely available to an international audience" (Wilson 4). It is one thing to merely "surf" (navigate) the Web; it is quite another to contribute to its content. "People who have sites on the Internet are, in effect, Internet publishers by virtue of the fact that they make information available to a large audience. The Internet makes publishing cost-effective and accessible" (Kahn and Logan 23).
While publishing on the Web may be relatively simple and inexpensive, constructing a well-designed Web site requires at least a modicum of knowledge and planning. Although the Web is a new communication medium, the basic principles of communication should not be thrown out the window. Principles such as knowing your audience, following established design rules, and writing and editing for clarity and color still come to bear on the production of content. Although communication concepts may occasionally need to be adapted to a new medium, the tried-and-true underlying principles should not be ignored.
A potential Web publisher should carefully analyze his or her audience, information, and resources. It is not about just being on the Web; "It's about being there with a well-conceived site that communicates effectively and efficiently to a specific audience" (Zender and Albertson 1). In order to produce a well-conceived and implemented Web site basic principles of HTML coding, site planning and organization, design and graphics, and site hosting must be considered.
HTML Coding
As previously noted, to publish information on the Web requires the use of Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). HTML is a simple language that is understood by all Web browsers. It makes use of "tags"-phrases that allow a style attribute to be defined. An HTML tag is placed before and after an item for which formatting is desired. For example, the tag "<blockquote>" will indent a block of text, and the tag "</blockquote>" will turn that formatting off (the back-slash symbol, "/," is the operator which tells a browser that the formatting tag is cancelled) (Pirouz 7). An author may generate HTML code manually in a word processor, or may utilize one of several commercially available HTML coding programs which apply coding automatically.
HTML is continually evolving. As of the writing of this paper, the most current version is 4.0. As HMTL has matured support for more and more design elements has been added. Graphics, tables, specific typefaces ("fonts"), style sheets, and text formatting are all supported in HTML, allowing a Web page designer greater control over the look of his or her page. Of course, there are still design elements which are not supported, and many designers find ways to "trick" existing HTML tags into doing what they want (Siegel 9).
In the past, new HTML tags were generally introduced with the release of a new Web browser version, and were proprietary in many instances. Netscape, in particular, "released new tags with every version of their browser, giving people new toys to play with [. . .] " (6). The recent HTML 4.0 standard, however, was developed by the W3C with input from major browser providers (primarily Microsoft and Netscape), and provides a written standard for HTML across vendor boundaries. Theoretically, Web pages will no longer be supported by only one specific browser, as was often the case in the past. This will undoubtedly make the production of Web pages much easier for future designers.
Site Planning and Design
Audience. The key to an effective Web site is advance planning and organization. And the key to good advance planning and organization is a clear picture of the audience for a particular Web site. A Web site designed for Pepsi-Cola, for example, will probably have a different audience than one designed for Rolls-Royce automobiles. "You should know precisely who you are trying to lure to your site. And if you don't know who your audience is, neither will anybody else" (Flanders and Willis 9). Knowing one's audience is one of the bedrock principles of communication. Once the audience is established, the content, structure, and design of a site are much easier to conceptualize.
Organization and Navigation. "Millions of people surf the Web. You don't need all of them in your site. You want to reach a select group [. . .] . You must welcome them and make them feel at home in your site" (Siegel 16). The best way to do this is through a well thought-out site design. Site design, however, is more than just the way a site looks. It is how the site flows, its content, and how it enables user interaction. "As an information designer, you need to consider structural questions as you plan a new Web site, including what information should be provided and excluded" (Wilson 3).
The information that is provided should be organized in a clear, logical manner. The user should not have to wade through excessive information to get the information he or she desires. The site interface should be clean, simple, and intuitive.
A Web site should have a well-defined entryway that quickly points a visitor in the correct direction. Such an entryway is commonly called a "home page." It is designed to be the first page a visitor sees, a gateway to all that lies beyond. "It's the road map, the index, the table of contents that tells visitors where to find the important information they need to make their stay at your site enjoyable and profitable" (Flanders and Willis 22). A home page should convey the major categories of the Web site and provide the visitor a quick route to where he or she is going. "An overwhelming main page is too broad; an excess of options makes it difficult for users to choose the right one, and each category may contain very little content" (Morville 106). An important part of being inviting is being quick to answer the door when someone knocks: a home page "should take no more than 15 seconds to load at prevailing modem speeds" (Siegel 16).
Once a visitor is inside a site a feeling of consistency should pervade. "If you have different pages and different sections, the navigational tools and graphics need to look the same throughout" (Black 53). It should look and feel like the same site, no matter where the visitor heads. An adjunct to the idea of consistency is that the visitor must always have a way out of a particular page. Perhaps something as simple as a "home" button, or as refined as a palate of navigational options. The general idea is that consistency builds comfort, and the more comfortable a viewer is, the longer he or she will remain at a site.
In order to achieve this sought-after consistency, a flowchart or "logic tree" of the site should be made before production begins. "A logic tree describes how an information space is organized and what types of pathways are used" (Albertson et al. 304). It is a graphical representation of the various pages of a site, with arrows or lines showing which pages will link with each other. "Mapping out your content helps you see where the flow of information is running smoothly throughout your site and where it is not" (Vasquez-Peterson and Chow 67). In short, if you know where the visitor is going in your site, he or she will probably have an easier time getting there. A good plan and "a successful format completes the communication link between content producers and intended audience" (Siegel 8).
Web Design and Graphics
Introduction. Good Web design allows a site visitor to get to the page he or she needs. But good design is more than that. It is a way to draw people into a site, to make them take notice of the information that is being displayed. Good Web design "shouldn't be mere decoration; it must convey information" (Black 29). But not only must design help get the message across, it must also "provide visual and conceptual consistency for a Web document" (Albertson et al. 309). Consistency and information availability is fostered by three main design tools: background, color, and margins; navigational tools; and graphics.
Background, Color, and Margins. Web pages can have varied backgrounds. They may be colored or utilize a graphic that repeats across a page (called "tiling"). Unfortunately, often the background of a Web page competes with or even obscures the information on the page. For this reason, it is best to err on the side of caution when deciding on a background color or graphic scheme. Many experts suggest using basic white as a background; according to Flanders and Willis, "you can't go wrong by putting black text on a white background [. . .] . After all, that is what most magazines and newspapers use" (83). The important point is to have enough contrast between the background and the foreground (text, images, whatever) to make the information legible. Colored backgrounds may work in certain instances, such as on a photography portfolio site where there is no text, only photographs. In this scenario, the black background would nicely set off the images on display and mimic a traditional photographic mounting display board.
On occasion, a background image may lend itself to a particular site. If this is the case, care must be taken to make certain that the background image provides sufficient contrast to the type and other information that is on the page-"The best background images are those that blend quietly with the other design elements" (Vasquez-Peterson and Chow 21). Whatever the choice of background, it should remain constant throughout the site in order to promote graphical consistency. A change in background is a sure way to confuse a viewer.
Just as background color can befuddle a viewer, so can color used elsewhere on a page. Once again, the key is contrast. Text, links, graphics, and logos should all contrast well with the background of the page. Basic colors are often best (black, red, and yellow, for example) as they provide the best contrast with varied backgrounds and are easy for most computer screens to display. This brings up another potentially problematic point: one never knows what kind of computer monitor a site visitor will be using. The person's monitor may display only 256 colors (called "8-bit"), or it may display millions of colors ("24-bit"). The only safe way to handle this problem is to specify colors for the lowest common denominator, which in this case is 256 colors. Color can be quite limiting on the Web, unless a designer makes a conscious decision to design with a particular standard in mind regardless of who it might exclude. A site targeted to graphics professionals, for example, could most likely get away with 24-bit colors, as most graphic artists have computers that can support millions of colors (Weinmann 60). Use colors sparingly, suggest Vasquez-Peterson and Chow, cautioning that "The fewer the colors, the easier it is to maintain the continuity on your page" (22).
Margins are an often-overlooked design element. Margins can add "color" to a document without physically adding color. On a white background, a margin adds a nice dose of "white space" to a page. "Web pages without white space can suffocate the life out of your site" (337). Margins break up the page, allowing a viewer to focus on the information more readily.
But margins do not have to be white. They may be a complimentary color to the background and other images on the page. Margins can add a splash of color or style to a otherwise basic page. Like backgrounds and color, consistent margins can provide a sense of continuity to a Web site.
Navigational Tools. Site visitors need "clues" to help them navigate through the often labyrinthine world of a Web site. Navigational tools are kind of like signs on a highway-they help the viewer get where he or she is going. Navigational tools are generally hyperlinks; when activated, they transport the viewer to another location. Once again, consistency is the hallmark of good navigational tools. Navigational tools are commonly placed either at the top, bottom, or on the margin of a page. They should be decided upon at the outset of site production; once established, they should be used religiously throughout the site in order to guide the visitor.
Navigational tools commonly take one of three main approaches: buttons, imagemaps, and text. Buttons look much like an on/off button one might find on a computer. Push it, and something happens (the computer turns on or off). Similarly, buttons on Web pages activate something-usually a link to another page.
An imagemap is a graphic which acts as a hyperlink. An entire graphic may be a link, or individual areas within a graphic may be defined as links. It is important to "make sure that the clickable areas on your [image]map are obvious. Don't assume that everyone visiting your page is going to know the hot-spot regions of your image map" (Vasquez-Peterson and Chow 338). Active-link areas in imagemaps are commonly defined in some way; they may have a border around them, or type which makes where to click obvious. Imagemaps are a good way to combine an interesting graphic with a needed navigational tool.
Finally, the lowly text link should not be ignored. Text links are the original, most basic, and pervasive form of hypertext (hence the name). In this instance, a word or a phrase is given a link; when the user clicks on the word, he or she is transported to another location on the Web. Text links are useful because of their ubiquity-they are "still a universally accepted form of navigation on the Web to this day" (95).
Graphics. Graphics give the Web its visual identity. Since the release of the Mosaic browser in 1993, graphics have been commonplace on the Web. Like any design element, they can be overused and misused. Graphics may be photographs, logos, drawings, or virtually any type of artwork. For that matter, type could be a graphic. A graphic on the Web is generally considered to be any image that must be downloaded to a browser; HTML code contains text within its file, but links to and draws graphics into a particular page.
When considering the use of graphics, it is important to "Use images or graphics that add focus to your site rather than take away from it" (Vasquez-Peterson and Chow 23). Graphics are commonly what slow down the loading of a Web page, as they tend to be large files. The more graphics a Web page has, the longer it takes to load. For this reason they should be used judiciously and only where they will have some relevance to the content or design.
Several graphics compression schemes are utilized on the Web in order to speed up the downloading of graphics. A graphics file is compressed by a software application and stored on a Web server. When it is called by a particular page file, it is downloaded to the user's Web browser and automatically uncompressed. The two most common formats are JPEG, which stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group, and GIF, or Graphics Interchange Format.
Originally developed by CompuServe for their online network, GIF compression is the format of choice for illustrations and artwork with a limited color range (it supports a maximum of 256 colors). With the GIF format compression is either on or off; there is no choice as to how much compression is applied (McClelland 829).
JPEG compression is commonly used for continuous tone images such as photographs. JPEG files tend to be larger than GIF files due to the fact that the format supports millions of colors. An advantage of JPEG compression is that the user is able to choose the level of quality of the final compressed image, from low quality to high quality. For higher quality settings less compression is applied to the file, hence a larger file size (Oyer, Cavanaugh, and Padova 95).
A multimedia portfolio is likely to have some photographs or high-quality graphics. In this case, JPEG compression would most likely be the compression scheme to use, as it provides higher-quality reproduction than the GIF scheme. If a large number of images are to be used on one page (in a photo portfolio, for instance), smaller "thumbnail" images should be used to provide previews of the available larger images; "This speeds up the time it takes for your reader to download your page, and it also gives him the option of viewing only the graphics he really wants to download" (Vasquez-Peterson and Chow 214).
Legal Considerations of Web Publishing
Copyright
The dawn of the computer age has raised some serious questions concerning copyright law. "The spread of digital communications and the growing popularity of the Internet as a means of communication (and perfect copying) pose problems that the principles underlying US copyright law are ill equipped to deal with" (Gilmour, Barron, and Simon 576).
When information is in the digital realm it is quite easy to copy and distribute "thousands of copies with the click of a mouse" (Samuelson 1). The problem is exacerbated by the Internet, and especially the Web. When a user reads a Web page using a browser, the browser automatically downloads a copy of the information on the site into the user's computer. This copying is only temporary, as the browser occasionally empties its "cache" (location where temporary files are kept). The browser does this in order to speed up the viewing of the page and subsequent pages which may use similar files, such as a logo (O'Mahoney 2). But the user also has the capability to easily download anything located on a Web site by simply clicking on an image with his or her mouse and selecting the option to save to hard drive. Some browsers, such as Netscape, even allow a user to save the underlying HTML code to a hard drive. Such commands make it incredibly simple to "steal" not only images but the entire HTML code of a given site. Simply put, there is virtually no way to fully protect your work from copyright infringement, especially if it is in HTML format (Fleishman 19).
Copyright law protects the author of any creative work, whether it is published or not (Gilmour, Barron, and Simon 578). The author of a creative work enjoys copyright protection for the term of his or her life plus 50 years (Perwin 4). The most recent US copyright act, passed in 1978, does not require registration of a copyright with the appropriate governmental agency for copyright to be claimed. It does, however, require the placement of a copyright notice containing either the word "copyright" or the symbol "©," the year of publication or creation, and the name of the copyright holder, on "any publicly distributed copies of a work" (Gilmour, Barron, and Simon 577). For example, this paper is "© 1999 Brian Wasson."
Although copyright law plainly suggests that "What you create belongs to you, unless you specifically say that you're allowing others to use it" (McCanna 151), application of copyright to Internet cases has been confusing at best. "Digital technology is detaching information from the physical plane, where property law of all sorts has always found definition [. . .] . With the advent of digitization, it is now possible to replace all previous information storage forms with one metabottle: complex and highly liquid patterns of ones and zeros" (Barlow 1-2).
In fact, "the agitation over digital distribution has led some observers to question the existence of copyright" (Gilmour, Barron, and Simon 576). Internet devotees maintain that the Internet was founded upon the principles of free access to ideas and information and the collaboration inherent in such access. The idea is that once an author decides to place information on the Internet, he or she has offered it to the collective online consciousness. While this approach may have been prevalent in the early years of the Internet, the increasing use of the Internet by commercial concerns has all but obviated the notion.
Protecting Work Published on the Web
So, until a court case makes a cohesive Internet copyright law, the Web content producer must take as many precautions as possible to protect his or her work. The most obvious precaution is to place appropriate copyright notices on all creative work for which he or she owns the copyright. As noted, such a notice should contain a copyright symbol or wording, the date of the copyright claim, and the author's name. The notice should be prominently displayed to avoid any misunderstandings. In particular, photographs and the like should have a copyright notice imbedded into the artwork in some way. Text, too, should be copyrighted in a similar fashion.
Even though an item may have been copyrighted, that does not mean someone will not still misappropriate it from one's Web page. In such a case, it can be quite difficult to know that something has been stolen. Images, in particular, are nearly impossible to find on the Net. Text is another matter. "While the Web may make it easier to plagiarize others' work, it also provides tools that make it easier to track down the cases of plagiarism" (Fleishman). The Web relies heavily on "search engines," software which allows a user to type in a few words and then search most pages on the Web for a match. Glenn Fleishman suggests that an author periodically do a search using some readily identifiable words or phrases peculiar to one's writing. For example, if this author were to search for misappropriated copies of this document, the phrase "Glenn Fleishman suggests" might be entered into a search engine.
Images are quite difficult to find if they have been used without permission. "The keys to enforcing your image copyrights on the Web are communicating your ownership and being able to track your images and how they're used" (Digimarc & Copyright). There are a few fledgling software companies attempting to address this problem, but their methods have not yet reached the mainstream of Web users. One such software company imbeds a copyright into the digital file itself-"because the embedded message is intricately woven into the fabric of the image, it stays with the image wherever it travels" (Digimarc: The Big Picture). The software company has an automated software program which scans the Web for marked images and reports their use to the appropriate owners.
Using Other's Work
Looking at copyright from a different angle, a Web publisher must also be careful to respect the copyrights of others. This is fairly simple. If one does not own the copyright to a particular work or does not have permission from the copyright holder, then the work should not be used. There are some exceptions to this rule, however. The "fair use" doctrine allows the use of copyrighted material without permission when certain well-defined conditions are met. The use of copyrighted material is allowed for purposes of "criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research" (Gilmour, Barron, and Simon 581). The preceding use of a quote from Gilmour, Barron, and Simon's copyrighted work is an example of "fair use" for scholarship-no copyrights are being broken by using the direct quote from their communication law text.
Using Previously Published Work
A potential problem exists when considering the use of previously published work in one's portfolio. If the work in question was made while in the employ of another (called "work for hire"), and the employer owns the copyright, then the creator may not use the work without permission unless his or her contract releases ownership rights to him or her. For example, a photograph taken while in the employ of a newspaper, absent any other agreement, would not be the property of the photographer, but of the newspaper; the photographer would not have the right to use the image without the permission of the newspaper. It is unclear, however, whether the use of such an image would be acceptable in the photographer's portfolio, as it is simply being displayed for the purpose of finding employment and not for personal gain resulting from the sale of the image. Generally, copyright law takes into account the "effect of the use on the market for the work" (Gilmour, Barron, and Simon 581). In most instances, one would imagine that there would be no problem with a writer, photographer, or artist displaying his or her work in a personal portfolio; however, it is always wise to err on the side of conservancy and to attempt to obtain permission from the copyright holder.
Job-hunting Online
Multimedia portfolios are a fairly recent phenomenon. Even as few as five years ago most potential employers may not have had the computer equipment and Internet connections with which to view an online portfolio. But much has changed. A recent survey by TrendWatch, quoted in Desktop Publishers Journal, noted that nearly 85% of book and magazine publishers have their own Web site. Likewise, newspapers around the country have established their own sites on the Internet in an effort to stake their claim in the world of new media. It is no wonder, then, that employment industry professionals are recommending that job seekers utilize the Internet for their job search. As Peter D. Weddle noted, "The new job market is a whole new ball game, and it operates with a totally new set of rules. The techniques for conducting a job search campaign today are completely different from those that worked and worked well just five years ago" (3).
With such a high percentage of print media organizations investing in homes on the Web, it stands to reason that the "online medium is a happy hunting ground for people whose creative skills can be used in many ways" (Kennedy 143).
Much of the rationale for a Web-based portfolio has already been set forth in Chapter One of this paper. To recap, there are several advantages to an online portfolio.
First, an online resume or portfolio defies time and space. As Joyce Lain Kennedy and Thomas J. Morrow put it, "Digitization will unchain us from geographical confinement" (193). A Web page is accessible anywhere and anytime, as long as a person has an Internet connection.
Second, it shows an employer that an applicant is technologically savvy. "An e-mail address, a personal home page or a resume posted on-line are viewed as indicators that an applicant is willing to move into the future, use resources creatively and stay competitive in the marketplace" (Straub 17).
Third, an online portfolio or resume shows off the very skills that writers, designers, and photographers possesses. Often it is difficult to show creativity in a printed resume, but an online resume and portfolio open a myriad of possibilities for those who practice the creative arts. As Alfred and Emily Glossbrenner noted, "It makes good sense to submit a multimedia resume as a sample of what you can do" (200).
Finally, "One last important benefit to this new world of job seeking is that you and the employer are meeting on a common ground. You are essentially both members of the same club or community" (Jandt and Nemnich 138). Since the Internet is a highly interactive medium, the viewer of an online portfolio feels as though he or she is personally involved in the information being presented.
This paper has concerned itself primarily with the production of a personal Web site with resume and portfolio information-a "home on the range" of the World Wide Web, so to speak. Throughout the discussion of personal Web pages it has been assumed that the job seeker has made contact with an employer who is interested in seeing more information about the applicant's skills.
But there is another side of job hunting on the Internet. One must first get the attention of an employer and find an open position for which to vie. Typically, job hunting has been done by networking, reading classified ads in newspapers or magazines, or contacting companies directly. Recently, however, the Internet has become a powerful job hunting tool in its own right. Companies are placing their personnel needs online in increasing numbers. With Internet-based recruiting, employers are finding that "The entire [hiring] process-without paper, mail and filing-is faster and more efficient [. . .] . Companies that use the Web are finding top-notch applicants more quickly and efficiently than ever before" (ACC).
Job seekers now have the ability to sit at a computer in their office and search for jobs across town or across the country. It has, quite literally, opened a whole new world for many. Applicants are able to post their resumes to many employers' Web sites where the information may reside for several months to a year, working for the applicant long after the resume has been posted.
A quote from Kennedy and Morrow nicely frames the concept of using the Internet and World Wide Web as an integral part of a successful job hunt: "The easier, faster, and cheaper the technology becomes, the more personal [Web] documents will be used-particularly for those whose graphic skills are critical, such as architects, journalists, advertising specialists, artists, and designers" (193).