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Web & Email Use

 

Web Board Conferences

 

WebBoard conferences are arranged, or threaded, in a logical hierarchy with three basic levels. You might liken this hierarchy to the structure of a book, with each conference being similar to the book's title. A topic is the equivalent to the chapter's title, while its messages contain the actual content. Each conference has at least one topic, and each topic contains at least one message, but can have dozens or hundreds more. Multiple conferences are similar to many books on a bookshelf.

 

WebBoard conferences are set up by the WebBoard manager. You can post and reply to topics and messages in the conferences, in essence helping to write the books. Keep in mind that topics should be relevant to the conference and messages should be specific to each topic. You can start a new topic in a conference any time you want to change the subject. As your conference develops with more topics, it begins to resemble a book on a particular subject. This is even more apparent when messages appear in the Full topic view, which allows you to read and scroll through several messages in a topic at a time. This feature is discussed in the section "Editing Your User Profile" later in this help page.

 

The WebBoard hierarchy provides a means for you to track information in a logical and simple fashion--you can zero in on a subject that interests you. For example, if you have a conference on Great Local Eateries, you could look under the topic Breakfast Spots to find a good place for your early morning java and scones. Or say you want to find a great restaurant for dinner. Simply scroll through the topics until you find one that sounds interesting. Because of WebBoard's message structure, it's simple to quickly locate the information you want. Consequently, you can avoid any unnecessary searches through the entire list of conferences and topics.

 

Attaching A Document to the Web Board

 

Steps:

 

  1. Go the web board

 

  1. In the black band cutting horizontally across the screen, you will see on the far left the word "post" in white letters. Click on this word.

 

  1. Once you click post, you will see a screen on the right with three boxes.  The first box is entitled Topic. Type the topic of the memo you are about to post. (For instance "Discussion Questions Session 1") At the bottom of the page you will see the largest field which is the "memo field." This is where you type your message and type your name.

 

  1. Between this bottom box and the top box you will see some words with small check off boxes beside each word. On the bottom right of this array you will see a box and the words to the left "Attach file or picture." When attaching a Word or RTF document, you must click on this box. Once you have clicked on this box and have completed the memo and topic fields, then you will click on the word "post" which is found to the far right of the topic field. The picture below shows you what this field you will be working in looks like.

 

  1. Once you click on post you will see the following field.

 

This field gives you a look at what a message might look like. When you see a word in red (such as Wimberley) you may click on the word to spell-check it. Once your are sure the message is OK, you may click on either of the "post buttons."

 

  1. When you press on the post button, you will get to the following field.

 

 

  1. What is most important to note is that you must first click on the circle above the "document" word and accompanying image. Then (you can't see the dialogue box in this illustration but it is there) you go to the dialogue box beside the "file to upload" title, and at the far right of that box is a "browse" button. You will click on the browse button and search through your C:/ drive directory or from a floppy (A:/) or other disks where you have saved your document in Word or RTF format. Once you have completed that, you will type in the name of the file in the "file description" dialogue box. BE SURE TO USE ONLY NUMBERS AND LETTERS FOR THE TITLES OF YOUR WORD AND RTF DOCUMENTS, LEAVING NO SPACES BETWEEN WORDS. ALSO NEVER USE THE "#" SIGN IN A TITLE SINCE THE WEB BOARD CAN'T OPEN A FILE WITH THIS SYMBOL IN IT.  If you are attaching more than one document then beside the title "upload another" clock on the circle to the left of the word "yes."

 

  1. Once you have done all of this, then click on the button entitled "upload now." Thereafter you should get a screen that looks a lot like the one to follow:

 

This is what the finished product looks like. Finally, to be sure that the instructor can successfully open your file, you should always attempt to open the document yourself by clicking on it. If you can open it then generally I can too.

Saving a Document as a Different File Type

When sending a document as an e-mail attachment or when attaching a document to the WebBoard, you must save your document using a format that is compatible with other word processing programs. Most word processing programs have a "Save As" command that allows you to save documents as a different file type. "Rich Text Format" (.rtf) is a file format that is compatible with virtually all word processing programs.

Below are the basic steps to follow when saving a document as a different file type. The graphics represent MS Word running on a PC with Windows '95. If you use MS Works or another word processing program, the basic steps will be the same, but your screen will appear differently.

Instructions

1. Create your document using your word processing program. When you are finished typing the final version of the document, save the document. For this example we will use the file name "attach." Do not close the document.

2. With the document still open, click "File" on the menu bar.

 

3. Click "Save As."

4. The "Save As" dialog box opens. Click on the "Save as type" pull-down menu.

5. Scroll down the pull-down menu and select Rich Text Format (.rtf). Notice the other file formats that are available.

6.Click "Save."

7. You now have two copies of the same document -- one is a  Microsoft Word document and the other is a rich text file.

 

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