INASP Links & Resources
USING THE INTERNET: 
Training courses and tutorials/ Instructors' resources

A Beginner's Guide to HTML
From the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NICSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagin, this is a good primer for producing documents in hypertext markup language (HTML), the standard computer language used for creating and structuring a document or Web site to be accessed with a browser on the World Wide Web. It covers all relevant aspects, including markup tags, character formatting, linking, inline images, tables, fill out forms, and there are also sections on troubleshooting and style guides. http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/General/Internet/WWW/HTMLPrimerAll.html 

Bare Bones 101. A Very Basic Web Search Tutorial
Created by Ellen Chamberlain at the University of South Carolina Beaufort Library, this is a helpful and easy-to-understand tutorial to searching the Web. It is meant to be "bare bones" only, designed to get you started in the right direction with a minimum of time and effort-or if you are bewildered by the sometimes confusing 'Help' sections offered by the various search engines, some of which throw rather too much at you at once. There are a total of 20 lessons, including lessons and descriptions of the major search engines, the search options they offer and their special features. Each lesson concludes with an assignment, and there are also recommendations for other tutorials, including those for advanced searching. http://www.sc.edu/beaufort/library/bones.html 

Exploring the World Wide Web
An Internet tutorial, from the University of Georgia Centre for Continuing Education, intended to provide a concise, self-contained, distance learning course for Internet novices. http://www.gactr.uga.edu/exploring/index.html

Finding Information on the Internet. A Tutorial
From the Library at the University of California at Berkeley, this is an excellent and easy to use tutorial to the latest and best search tools, and the best search strategies – progressing from simple searches to advanced searching – together with a general introduction to the Internet and WWW. In addition to recommending search strategies that are adaptive to specific topics, it provides detailed search instructions for using five major search engines (Google, Altavista Advanced Search, Infoseek, Northern Light, and FAST Search). http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/FindInfo.html

Internet 101
A basic introduction to the Internet, offering good practical advice, and with a range of illustrations and charts. The guide is exactly what it says it is: "This guide will provide you with enough knowledge to have fun on the Internet, yet will not bore you with too many details." http://www.internet101.org  

Internet Detective
This is a very useful and entertaining inter-active tutorial for evaluating the quality of Internet resources. The tutorial is free but you need to register your own personal ID so that the system can remember your quiz scores and your place in the tutorial. It takes around two hours to complete, but it can be done in more than one sitting. There is an offline version that can be downloaded for free (but you will be asked to complete a form), and which means that you can use the resource without having to be connected to the Net. http://sosig.ac.uk/desire/internet-detective.html

ITtrain
A collection of Internet training materials downloadable/available via the Web and Email, and containing material both for instructors and students. The materials offer an interactive and participatory approach, engaging students in the learning process and supporting instructors in the planning of the courses. http://www.bellanet.org/itrain/

A Modular Approach to Teaching/Learning the World Wide Web
Compiled by librarians at the Wolfgram Memorial Library at Widener University, this modular or pyramid approach to Web learning consists of eight self-contained modules for Web instruction. The first three modules provide the basic tools for using the Web, and subsequent models build upon the foundation set forth in the first three models, dealing with topics such as comparing Web search directories and search engines, advanced Web search techniques, evaluating Web resources, and concluding with a module on web research strategies.
http://www2.widener.edu/Wolfgram-Memorial-Library/pyramid.htm 

Netskills Tonic
Excellent on-line interactive course for beginners to networking and the Web. http://www.netskills.ac.uk/TonicNG/cgi/sesame?tng

RDN Virtual Training Suite
Conceived and built by staff at the Institute for Learning and Research Technology at the University of Bristol and part of The Resource Discovery Network (RDN), Virtual Training Suite is an initiative designed to teach information skills to students, lecturers and researchers in higher and further education-and help them to become e-literate! Although primarily designed for higher education in the UK, it is also freely available for anyone else to use. It comprises a set of "teach yourself" tutorials delivered over the Web, each of which offers Internet skills training in a particular subject area grouped under six main headings: engineering and mathematics, health and life sciences, the physical sciences, reference, the humanities, and the social sciences, business and law. 39 subject areas are covered at this time, with each tutorial created by a subject specialist drawn from universities and professional organizations across the UK. The tutorials take around an hour to complete, and includes quizzes and interactive exercises to lighten the learning experience. Each tutorial is structured under four sections: (i) Tour key Internet sites, (ii) Discover tools and techniques to improve your Internet searching, (iii) Review the critical thinking required when using the Internet, (iv) and Reflect on how to use the Internet for studying, teaching or research. The Virtual Training Suite is also an excellent resource for librarians who need tools to support their user-education programmes. http://www.vts.rdn.ac.uk/ 

Of particular interest will be "The Internet for Development" at http://www.sosig.ac.uk/vts/development/index.htm 
written by Tracy Zussman-Kay of ELDIS at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex.

Safeguarding Australia's Web Resources: Guidelines for Creators and Publishers
Although primarily designed for Australian Web Resources, these concise guidelines are helpful for those elsewhere and provide practical advice on creating, describing, naming and managing Web resources to facilitate their on-going use. They will be particularly useful to assist Web site creators and publishers who do not already have well established digital data management procedures in place, including newly established Web publishers in developing countries.  http://www.nla.gov.au/guidelines/webresources.html 

The Virtual Activist 2.0
From NetAction - a US non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the use of the Internet for effective grassroots citizen action campaign - this is a training course for using email for outreach, organizing, and advocacy, as well as Web-based advocacy and outreach tools. Lots of good tips and practical advice can be found here, and there is also an extensive links section to many other sites. http://netaction.org/training/ 

Yenza!
”Yenza” (meaning “do it!” in isiXhosa and isiZulu) is South African guide, and tutorial, to using the Internet for research and teaching in the humanities and the social sciences. There is also a section containing suggestions for trainers, a section on building a Web site, together with a collection of discipline-specific links. http://www.nrf.ac.za/yenza

This page was last updated on: 07 July 2003 © International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP) 1998-2003.