J. Philip Craiger
R. Jason Weiss
University of Nebraska at Omaha
Welcome to the first installment of "Traveling in Cyberspace." As I
(Philip) indicated in the July issue of TIP, Mike Coovert asked me to
assist him in moving TIP into the 21st Century. My first step was to
establish the "TIP World-Wide Web Homepage" as our Internet
communications backbone. If you have access to the Internet and the
World-Wide Web, the TIP homepage can be accessed at the following URL (note
the capital letters!):
http://www.siop.org/TIP.html
(Now, of course it's a bit redundant to have the above information in this
document because you've already found it! However, we decided to keep as
much information from the original TIP article as possible.)
For the reader who is unfamiliar with the World-Wide Web, don't worry if it
looks like gibberish-everything is explained below!
My second step is the creation of this column and its accompanying on-line
tutorials. Traveling in Cyberspace will be a regular feature in TIP in
which my co-author and I will discuss various Internet services, how to
access them, and for the skeptical, why you would use these services.
Since TIP's Internet presence is on the World-Wide Web, this installment
will discuss the basics of the Web. We have also provided a table listing
many of the commonly used terms and acronyms found on the Internet along
with definitions.
My co-author and graduate assistant, Jason Weiss, has developed a
World-Wide Web primer which is available on the TIP homepage. The primer
explains step-by-step how to develop your own homepage, and includes
information on adding various special effects. You can jump directly to
the primer by setting your Web browser to:
http://www.siop.org/TIP/develop.aspx
The Internet
The World-Wide Web is the fastest growing and most ambitious Internet
service, albeit the most recent. We decided to discuss the World-Wide Web
first because it is the fastest growing service, while being the most
"user-friendly." But before we dive in to the specifics of the Web, a
brief description of the Internet is in order.
Unless you have been stranded on a desert island for the last few years
you have undoubtedly heard of the Internet (sometimes used, incorrectly,
as a synonym for the mythical information super-highway). For those
readers familiar with the term, but not sure as to what the Internet is,
it is a collection of computers in disparate locations that are connected
via a network. The Internet began when the U.S. Department of Defense
became interested in sharing information resources across computers in
disparate locations. By the late 1970's the military instituted a project
entitled Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA, later called DARPA:
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency ) which provided funding for
researchers in industry and academia for the development of software and
hardware that would enable the sharing of information across networked
computers.
The number of computers connected to the Internet has grown
exponentially. In 1983 there were 562 computers connected to the
Internet. In 1994, it was estimated that there were over 2 million
computers connected to the Internet (Comer, 1995). This growth is due for
the most part to new computer connections by businesses, schools, and
homes.
The World-Wide Web
As we indicated above, the fastest growing Internet service is the
World-Wide Web (hereafter, the
Web). The Web was developed around 1989
by researchers at CERN (the European Laboratory of Particle Physics) as a
means of sharing information across the Internet in a common format (Pike,
1995). The Web incorporates many of the services into a single,
easy-to-use package, including FTP (file transfer protocol, a system for
accessing files from remote computers), Gopher (a protocol for accessing
hierarchically-organized information from remote computers), Telnet (a
protocol used to access remote computers), e-mail (electronic messaging),
and UseNet newsgroups (a form of e-mail organized into groups categorized
by subject matter) (Pike, 1995).
The Web document that serves as the entry point to a collection of Web
documents is called a homepage which is roughly similar to a table of
contents of a book (but not exactly, as the reader will find out).
Web documents have two defining characteristics. First, Web documents are
in hypertext format. Hypertext is a form of text that contains
links
(also called hyperlinks) to other, related text. The related text may
be in the same document, a different document on the same computer, or a
document on a computer located half-way around the world. In Figure 1
links are indicated by the bold and underlined text. For example,
clicking on the text Latest issue of TIP... will display a Web document
(shown in Figure 2) which contains the table of contents for the July 1995
issue of TIP. Each of these topics are linked to documents that are the
actual articles published in that issue of TIP. For example, clicking on
the link IOTAs by Mike Coovert will display Mike's IOTA column from the
issue.
Hypertext is a very powerful means of representing information because
access to linked text (in computer science nomenclature) is
"transparent." That is, simply clicking (with your mouse) on a keyword or
a key sentence connects you automatically to the related text. Clicking
on a highlighted keyword sends a request for that particular document from
the client computer (the computer making the request) to a
server
computer (most often a remote computer that contains the documents being
requested). As an analogy, consider an encyclopedia. Often at the end of
a description of a subject one finds, "For further information, see ..."
referring the reader to a related subject. Rather than having to flip
through the pages in the encyclopedia, hypertext allows the reader to
simply click on highlighted text, whereupon the related text appears
automatically!
The second defining characteristic is that Web documents often contain
hypermedia where text, graphics, sound, and animation are incorporated
in a single document. Minimal documents contain only text. While these
documents may lack striking visual appeal, they are fairly quick to
transfer. Powerful documents can be created by including media that
enhance the substance and accessibility of the document. For example,
some documents contain clickable visual "maps" which allow you to jump
directly to information of interest.
HTML: Hypertext Markup Language
Hypertext markup language (HTML) is a fairly simple set of commands that
are used to format Web documents. Using HTML, a document is formatted and
structured in a manner similar to the older DOS-based versions of
WordPerfect and Wordstar word-processing packages. HTML allows you a
number of advanced text-formatting features, such as hierarchical headings
and bulleted lists, as well as the ability to include graphic images,
sounds and animation. If the reader would like to familiarize him/herself
with HTML, the Web primer contained on the TIP homepage contains all of
the basic information necessary to get the reader started.
Uniform Resource Locator: URL
Yes, another acronym! In order to access information on a particular
document, you must know, and be able to tell the computer, where the
document is located. The standard means of describing the location and
type of document of interest is the Uniform Resource Locator (or more
commonly, URL). A URL is a description of the location and type of
document. For example, the URL for the TIP homepage is:
http://www.siop.org/TIP.html
Let's break the URL down into its components. First, note that the URL
begins with "http." This stands for hypertext transfer protocol. HTTP is
the protocol used by the Web to access documents (Comer, 1995). The first
part of a URL always begins with a protocol command: other common
protocols are
ftp and
gopher (depending on the type of Internet
service being requested).
The next part of the URL is a description of the location of the
document. In this example we are designating a computer at the University
of Nebraska at Omaha called "cmit.unomaha.edu." One sometimes runs across
addresses in numeric format, such as "137.48.23.182" (which happens to be
the IP [Internet Protocol] address of my own Power Macintosh.) After the
physical address of the document comes "TIP/TIP.html." The first part,
"/TIP," is a directory where the document TIP.html is located. The .html
extension indicates that we are accessing a document in hypertext markup
language format.
To review, each URL begins with a description of the protocol (i.e., http,
ftp, or gopher, depending upon the Internet service requested), the
address of the computer containing the document, and finally, the
directory and name of the document being requested. Fairly simple;
definitely not rocket science!
How to View Web Documents
Accessing the Web requires three things: a computer (a given), Internet
access (more on this subject later), and a computer program called a Web
"Browser." A browser is a program that interprets the HTML commands and
formats the documents accordingly. Most browsers are graphically-based
(although there is a text-mode Unix browser called
lynx). Browsers are
available for most computer platforms, including PC/Windows, OS/2,
Macintosh, Power Macintosh, and X-Windows (Unix).
Access to the Internet is available from a number of sources. A number of
commercial on-line providers including America Online and Compuserve allow
members access to the Web through their services. Other providers, such
as Delphi and Netcom, allow somewhat more direct access to the Internet
and the Web. Most universities have facilities whereby computers
connected to the campus network may access the Web using the appropriate
software. There are also commercially available Internet providers;
however, most of these providers only provide access to the Internet,
whereas the on-line providers such as America Online and CompuServe
provide both Internet access and their own unique services.
One of the first and widely available Web browser is Mosaic, developed and
distributed by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)
at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. New Web browsers seem
to appear at an exponential rate. Most of the more popular browsers,
including the Netscape Navigator (my personal favorite, from the Netscape
Corporation), are free of charge to academic institutions, with a nominal
charge (less than $100) for non-academic users. Mosaic is available by
contacting:
http://Web.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Software/
The Netscape Navigator is available from Netscape:
http://home.netscape.com/
Both browsers are available for a variety of computer platforms, including
PC/Windows, Apple Macintosh and Power Macintosh, and X-Windows (Unix).
Ask someone knowledgeable about the Internet and the Web, such as the
computer support personnel at your university, or a computer salesperson,
to assist you in obtaining these browsers.
Site Seeing on the Information Super Highway
Now, the big question we're sure some of you have been asking: What can
the Internet and the Web provide me that I can't get elsewhere? We'll say
right up front that by the time you read this, any listing of benefits
would be obsolete! But that's good, because information contained on the
Internet can be updated and changed hourly. You are assured of the most
recent information on events and happenings over the Internet. For
example, consider this article. It was made available on the TIP homepage
on August 15, 1995 (the deadline for articles submitted to the TIP
editor). If you are reading this in the printed version of TIP, you've
had to wait nearly 2 months for this information!
Up-to-date information is one advantage. Another advantage is the ease of
access to information. We commonly access information from computers all
over the world. The connections are instantaneous. For example, one Web
document at Carnegie-Mellon may contain a hyperlink to a document on a
computer at the University of Cambridge, which contains a hyperlink to a
document on a computer at Johnson Space Center in Houston, and so on. We
can travel from Carnegie-Mellon's to Johnson Space Center's computers with
two clicks of a mouse. It's a great time-saver!
Another advantage is the breadth of information available over the Web.
For example, the TIP homepage contains links to dozens of I/O program
homepages at universities, hundreds of psychology programs, psychology
journals, UseNet groups, psychological societies, conferences, positions
available, and so on. Although the printed version of TIP is contained
on the TIP homepage, the homepage contains much more information because
of the links to related Web documents. And though the Web is only a few
years old, the number and variety of documents on the Web is growing
exponentially. Soon, if information exists, you will find it on the Web.
Vicky Vanderveer had an article in the July 1994 issue of TIP called
"JOIN THE WORLD--IT'S E--A--S--Y."
(Clicking on the article name will bring up Vicky's article! That's what
hypertext is all about.) Although not specifically geared to
the Web, she provides more detail about the services available over the
Internet, as well as how to go on-line with a commercial provider of
Internet access.
Let's Go Surfing Now, Everybody's Learning How...
We hope that the reader will come away with at least enough interest to
try out the Web. Unfortunately, to do justice to the depth and breadth of
the services and information available on the Internet and the Web would
require thousands of pages. To get the reader started we have developed a
Web primer that is available through the TIP homepage. We've also
included a number of references below which we have found to be helpful.
If you are interested in 'surfing the net,' we strongly suggest that you
get one of these references, many of which are hundreds of pages long,
containing detailed instructions on how to use all of the Internet
services. We suggest, however, that the best way to learn about the Web
is to surf it!
Common Acronyms/Terminology and Their Descriptions
(Based on Comer, 1995).
| Address | A description of the location of a computer. Can be in numeric or
text format.
|
| Browser | A computer program that allows the user to view Web documents.
|
| Client-server | The interaction between two programs across a network. The
computer requesting information is called the "client" and the computer
sending the information is called the "server."
|
| FTP | Acronym for File Transfer Protocol. An Internet service that provides
a user with the ability of copying files to and/or from a remote computer.
Gopher An Internet browsing service in which information is organized via
menus.
|
| Homepage | The basic Web document that serves as the entry point to a
collection of Web documents.
|
| Hostname | The name assigned to a particular computer.
|
| HTML | Abbreviation for Hypertext Markup Language. The language used to
format documents for the Web.
|
| HTTP | Abbreviation for Hypertext Transfer Protocol. The protocol employed
to access documents over the Web.
|
| Hypermedia | Incorporation of multiple types of media (audio, animation,
text, graphics) in a document.
|
| Hypertext | A method of storing text so that embedded references to other
text are included.
|
| Information Super Highway | Term used to denote the emerging national
information infrastructure. Often used incorrectly as a synonym for the
Internet.
|
| Internet | A collection of networks that use a single protocol to act as a
single large network. Connects computers all over the world via a network.
|
| Mosaic | A Web browser developed an distributed by NCSA.
|
| Netscape | A Web browser developed an distributed by the Netscape
corporation.
|
| Network | A hardware mechanism that allows computers to communicate with
each other.
|
| Protocol | Rules that two computers must follow in order to communicate.
|
| Surfing the net | Slang for using Internet services to browse for
information.
|
| Telnet | The Internet remote login service. A protocol that allows users to
connect to computers at a remote site.
|
| World -Wide Web | The most popular and fastest growing Internet service.
Provides a user-friendly means of accessing information through hypermedia.
|
| Web | Abbreviation for the World-Wide Web.
|
References
Comer, D.E. (1995).
The Internet book. New York: Prentice Hall.
Ellsworth, J.H., & Ellsworth, M.V. (1994). The Internet business book.
New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Engst, A.C. (1995). Internet starter kit. Indianapolis, IN: Hayden.
Hahn, H., & Stout, R. (1994). The Internet Complete Reference. New York:
Osborne McGraw-Hill.
Heslop, B., & Budnick, L. (1995). HTML publishing on the Internet.
Chapel-Hill, NC: Ventana Press.
Pike, M.A. (1995). Special edition: Using the Internet. New York: Que.
Resnick, R., & Taylor, D. (1994). The Internet business guide.
Indianapolis, IN: Sams Publishing.
Savola, T. (1995). Using HTML. New York: Que.
Vanderveer, V. (July, 1993). JOIN THE WORLD--IT'S E--A--S--Y. The
Industrial and Organizational Psychologist, July, 1994.
Back
to TIP homepage