Working together for standards The Web Standards Project

A little over a year ago, WaSP member and Education Task Force Co-lead Holly Marie Koltz wrote “On Quality Education”. Holly wrote about the difficulty in finding quality programs in higher education that teach best practices. Students find that they have to learn best practices on their own. Unfortunately, this has not changed much in the past year. Institutions continue to teach outdated practices and students continue to learn bad practices. Other educators who propose classes in modern Web design and development often face opposition by colleagues in their program. While yet others are looking for guidance in the conversion of their program.

From time to time, the Task Force has been contacted by educational professionals who are teaching Web standards and best practices in their programs.

The WaSP Education Task Force and W3C Quality Assurance Interest Group propose the creation of a curriculum framework to help educators teach best practices in Web design and development more effectively. Upon completing modules in such a curriculum, a student should have sound knowledge of best practices and a solid foundation upon which to build.

If you are an educator or have influence over curriculum, we would like your input with regard to this subject. We have created a short survey as a first step to accomplish this task. The survey is brief and includes nine questions.

If you have additional comments or questions, please email us at [email protected]

Your Replies

#1 On June 13th, 2007 7:19 am Webducator.com » Blog Archive » The invention of the steam printing press came at about this time, and the replied:

[...] 06/13/2007 06:02 AM Education Task Force Curriculum Survey A little over a year ago, WaSP member and Education Task Force Co-lead Holly Marie Koltz wrote On Quality Education. Holly wrote about the difficulty in finding quality programs in higher education that teach best practices. … [...]

#2 On June 13th, 2007 8:47 am Patrick Lee replied:

I can definitely understand the difficulty you are having in this arena. You may discover more buy-in from community colleges than universities as far as adoption of your curriculum. Universities still seem to look down on Web development to some extent. Best of luck.

#3 On June 13th, 2007 11:38 am Chris Boudy replied:

To add on to what Patrick said, this is so true. Universities look at the field of web design/development as a subset of graphic design or computer science. (Take a look at You Are Not A Robot) it give goods examples.

New designers are turning to the web more and more to learn from tutorials. Designers that want to go to school will learn the wrong way to design. They will also be the people that will not learn about standards, accessibility, etc, right from the start and it will be harder to break them out of their shells in the long run.

Another thing I would like to see if colleges or Universities incorporation Master Degrees for our field.

#4 On June 14th, 2007 1:34 pm TK replied:

Patrick Lee replied:
“You may discover more buy-in from community colleges than universities as far as adoption of your curriculum.”

Chris Boudy replied:
“Another thing I would like to see if colleges or Universities incorporation Master Degrees for our field.”

I don’t really see why it should be the universities’ job to teach web development og -design, at least not as part of master’s programs. You go to universities to get in-depth, theoretical, knowledge about underlying methods and concepts, not to learn about HTML, how to use Adobe CS3, or the names of some PHP functions or frameworks. Engineering school? Perhaps. Part of university curriculum? No.

#5 On June 14th, 2007 2:43 pm Matt Robin replied:

Ah, if only there was a specific ‘web-design school of excellence’ founded to deal with this sort of thing (as a start!)…a sort of guiding example to other educational institutions around the world….

Imagine it: sponsored by Google (or someone)….school buildings designed by ‘Fosters + Partners’, Macs as well as PCs stocked up, and tutorials given by some of the best minds in the industry….bringing web standards to some of the best creative minds that will shape the future look and feel of the whole Internet. Is it just a pipe-dream? Or has someone got the dedication and passion to get this sort of thing off the ground?

Educational establishments probably don’t want to touch web design, or web development, because they know it will only highlight how little they know about it…that can’t be right can it? If not – then what is REALLY holding them back? Afraid of commitment? Afraid of admitting that it’s not some sort of fad and that it is fundamental to a whole industry that….

ahh, wait….that’s it isn’t it? The keyword is: Industry. The lack of a proper ‘industry’ status – owing to the abundant lack of professionalism in the web design world has probably de-valued Web Design/Web Development as a serious enough subject for consideration by those educators!

C’mon someone – have the balls to make that ‘school of excellence’ place…get the ball rolling…show these guys we’re serious and we mean it!
Still a pipe dream eh? How many more years will pass by?

Maybe I should just e-mail Google/Yahoo/Microsoft/Apple and see who wants to be a sponsor?

But I’m little known in the industry…if only we had big names in the industry putting their names up for stuff like this….. (another pipe-dream eh?!)

#6 On June 20th, 2007 9:35 am Charlotta replied:

The statements above are very helpful for reconsidering my own opinion about educating and life-long learning.
Thanks!

#7 On June 20th, 2007 7:35 pm Matt Robin replied:

Another, very good follow-up response in regards to these matters has just been written by Steven Clark – see:

http://nortypig.com/2007/06/21/should-wasp-provide-accreditation/

[My comments are added to his article]. We seem to end up with the same sort of questions at the end of our respective views though…

And it would be really great if WaSP could consider some answers to those questions (hint).

#8 On June 21st, 2007 7:11 am Richard Ishida replied:

Please ensure that internationalization advice is built into any such curriculum. I18n is about understanding the needs of users of your content that come from beyond your local culture. Treating i18n as an afterthought can lead to substantial problems for content rollout. Designers and developers need to take i18n techniques into account as part of their standard way of doing things. Thanks.

#9 On June 26th, 2007 12:25 pm Chris Boudy replied:

“I don’t really see why it should be the universities’ job to teach web development og -design, at least not as part of master’s programs.”

@TK, I was talking more along the lines of seeing the bigger picture of web development, not learning how to code or using Adobe.

For example, learning about web development on a corporate (larger) level or incorporating some business aspects in your learning.

Advanced courses could be taught in framework design and in underlying methods and concepts. Adobe and PHP functions could be taught in undergrad levels.

Engineering school? No. We are not Engineers. Part of university curriculum? Why Not? It would help our field.

#10 On June 28th, 2007 10:07 am WaSP Member hmkoltz replied:

Some thoughts:

• Leading companies and corporations are beginning to look for and hire those with knowledge of and experience with standards and or web accessibility. Are students able to apply for those jobs? Are those getting the jobs coming from educational backgrounds where they have received the information and training? If not, programs need to be updated.
• Often, students are asked or required to communicate or produce their projects or works in digital format. As more and more educational institutions use the computer and digital medium for instruction, communication, and student work this becomes true across a variety of fields of study, not just engineering, programming, design, or web technology studies. Have all students been given best practice basics? When students are asked for a term paper, report, or project they are often given instruction, style guides, rules, or standards to follow. I imagine that the criteria to meet is not at the same level for digital work, and I do not believe that they are given proper information about web standards basics when creating such work.

We learn how to write a sentence, a report, or paper in our education — we need to be teaching standards basics for those who will be communicating or working digitally.

Former WaSP lead Molly Holzschlag has begun to put together a program of her own, Train The Trainer Program (also see the recent update ) I think this is a great idea. I think some of us may be able to go to local libraries, visit a few schools and offer some time to help train or acquaint educators and others about standards. Schools in the United States often have faculty institute days or workshops where teachers learn new skills, information, or techniques, and getting web standards and best practices into these venues might be a good way to help.

How can we teach advanced web technology topics to students who do not know the basics or standards? How can we teach basics and standards without knowledge of the same?

#11 On July 1st, 2007 7:18 am steve replied:

I think that education is bad for every artist/designer etc.
because it gives template thinking.
First of all, designer must have a his own point of view, not somebody’s else.
Education gives some point of view, and then we have works that looks each other.
Maybe it’s bad example, but Artemy Lebedev (#1 designer in russia) doesnt have art education at all. But he is at top.

#12 On July 4th, 2007 10:17 am personel taşımacılığı replied:

steve says art education gives template thinking which is untrue. You get the basics with education and develop it with participation. I have been to Academy of Art College in SF and i am glad about the education and the vision they offered. Before that I didn’t even know i was missing those but i must admit that some people are really gifted.

Life is a long way, and some guidelines are very helpful. But the thing we are discussing is not the education itself, but the quality of it.

#13 On July 8th, 2007 1:32 am Assistive Technology replied:

Good initiative. I had good examples on best pratices but not studied in English… So I guess I was lucy.

I will keep track of the developments and post on them on Axistive.

#14 On July 9th, 2007 6:32 pm Ann replied:

I can’t agree with Steve’s comment that “education is bad for every artist/designer etc. because it gives template thinking First of all, designer must have a his own point of view, not somebody’s else. Education gives some point of view, and then we have works that looks each other”.
I’m going to study computer graphics but at the moment i can’t say anything about the quality of education in that direction in my country. As I was saying in my opinion some artists/designers need eductaion some other don’t. eductaion isn’t bad for every artist/designer. Some born with unique style and they create breathtaking art easily. Other develop their talents in different ways. Eductation makes the point of view wider. As someone above said “Life is a long way, and some guidelines are very helpful” you won’t lose your individuality by listening to others and by getting to know other concepts.

#15 On July 24th, 2007 1:31 pm Ireneusz Wojdylo replied:

It is a role of a teacher to show a student the right ways and practices but then it is up to the student to do something about it, to develop and to eventually attain the desired goals. It can’t be denied that it is sometimes difficult to find good quality “instructors’ and that educational system is going down, although not everything can be blamed on the system imperfections. It is mostly a matter of individual engagement and talent that can actually overcome all the obstacles. But on the other hand there are very few people who are able to manage their careers on their own, they need a sort of constant assisstanse from PROPERLY EDUCATED EXPERTS WHO CAN SHOW THEM HOW THINGS SHOULD BE DONE. Therefore it is great that The WaSP Education Task Force and W3C Quality Assurance Interest Group proposed the creation of such a curriculum framework . A very good initiative in my opinion and great that something is done in this respect.

#16 On July 25th, 2007 10:32 am Mig replied:

I´m convinced that the most teachers only make their program. Things they heard and learned years ago is only coming every year back to the people. Only the people change but not the word. So where has to be a quality instance.

#17 On July 31st, 2007 10:30 am LapDawg replied:

There’s a multitude of factors that need to be addressed, everyone learns the basic web standards a different way…the nature of the internet is often the case of who’s source do you trust more…..Unfortunately learning through the classroom is usually the MOST trusted source even thou the materials used is OFTEN outdated. Those who make a career out of it, learn quickly that following ” best practices” where an industry demands it can often effect the bottom line.

#18 On July 31st, 2007 1:08 pm Rik replied:

I am working at an English school (I Live in Holland). The funny thing there is that alot of teachers know how to work with a computer. The main reason for this is that the school is 100% operating with Computers (they have an award from Microsoft because of this). What I wanna say is: everyone can PRACTICE, if you practice enough you will learn it, trust me!

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