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Online style guide

March 2008

Developed by the Style Working Party under the auspices of the Learning Material Design Sub committee (LMDS) of the Information and Learning Systems Committee (ILSC)

Note: the Principles of Online Style provide a theoretical background to this Online Style Guide.

 Feedback to Stephen Relf, DLTS.

This document is also reproduced as a PDF

Introduction
Page design
CSU Interact inbuilt text editors
Colour
Copyright
Accessibility
Images
Audio files
Video files
Download Estimates
Further Assistance

 

Introduction

This style guide is applicable to the publication of educational materials in subject sites within CSU Interact. That includes materials produced using the tools within CSU Interact or other approved publication tools such as word processors, web editors and PowerPoint. This guide provides guidelines for the publication of educational materials and is in compliance with the CSU Web Policy and the CSU Web Style Guide (http://www.csu.edu.au/webpublishing/styleguide/index.htm).

This style guide should be read in conjunction with:

• CSUInteract Help (http://www.csu.edu.au/division/landt/Interact/help/index.html) a technical guide for the use of the CSUInteract tools; and
• CSUInteract: Support for staff (http://www.csu.edu.au/division/landt/Interact/staffsupport/index.html) for technical and pedagogical support for staff.

The information provided here is basic information to assist academics in developing their own teaching and learning materials. Should further assistance be required, see the Educational Designer in your school.

 

Page design

• Write instructional texts in a personal and straightforward style.
  
• Be concise. Online writing should be broken into readable lengths. Use chapters, topics and sub-headings to break up text. Use embedded links to other pages or sections which users can view separately. If the text is long attach the text in a printable format.
  
• Use sanserif typeface such as Arial for online writing.
  
• Keep hierarchical structure of text simple. To achieve that three levels of headings are recommended.
  
• Use bold for emphasis rather than italic and coloured text. Italic is usually used in references and for foreign words.
  
• The use of columns is discouraged as text readers for accessibility read line by line across columns. That is: line 1, column 1; line 1 column 2; line 2 column 1; …
  
• Use white space to present the text in an open, uncluttered, format.

• When creating links to .PDF, .DOC files or external web sites etc there should always be information supplied beside the link. Let the user know:
  • what file type they will receive from the link,
  • whether the link will open a new web site, and
  • whether the link will open in a new browser window.

For example, ‘This link will open a Word .doc’, or ‘This link will open in a new browser’.

• Links to external websites should always open in a new browser.

• Keep in mind the CSU minimum recommended screen size of 800 x 600 pixels.

 

CSU Interact inbuilt text editors

There is an inbuilt editor in the Announcements, Calendar, Modules and Resources in CSU Interact. The style recommendations for these tools are:

• The following headings are recommended for the body of the text as they fit under the default topic heading within CSU Interact.
• Heading 1 – use Heading 3 in the Format box.
• Heading 2 – use Heading 4 in the Format box.
• Heading 3 – use Heading 4 in the Format box and italicise.
  
• For normal text use the default typeface (Arial) and type size.
  
• For quotations use the default typeface and type size, and indent the text.
  

 

Colour

• If using colour, it is good accessibility practice to use strong colours and other features. For example:
• If using coloured text, also use other textual features such as bold or italics.
• If using colour in diagrams such as pie charts, use other features such as shading or patterns.
• If using colour in tables and charts such as calendars to indicate different activities, also use other features such as text, shading or patterns.
  
• For assistance in the use of colours, see: Aries, A. 2008, 'Effective color contrasts: Designing for people with partial sight and color deficiencies', Lighthouse International, [Online, accessed 24 Jan. 2008]. URL: http://www.lighthouse.org/accessibility/effective-color-contrast/

 

Copyright

• Make a link to copyrighted material rather than including it in the Interact subject site.
  
• Be aware of secondary copyright. Secondary copyright is copyright material that is included in a resource to be published in Interact. Secondary copyright material for example could occur in lecture notes and PowerPoint presentation used in lectures.
  
• Refer to ' CSUInteract information for staff' Information sheet on the CSU Copyright site. http://www.csu.edu.au/copyright/information.html

 

Accessibility

• Provide a textual description of images which can be done by describing the images in the Alt Tag and in the body of the text.
  
• For good accessibility practices, it is recommended that a transcript of audio and audiovisual material be provided. A transcript may be required by some students with sight and hearing impairments. If this is the case, please contact the Disability Officer in Student Services.
  
• Coloured text: Use other emphasis such as bold so that the accessibility reader can read the emphasised text as it does not read colour.
  
• Coloured illustrations such as bar charts – use pattern as well as colour in the bar chart.
  
• Coloured illustrations such as line charts – use different shape to mark significant points along each line such as a triangle for one line and a square for another.
  
• When using colour coded information, such as coloured schedule to indicate activities for different tutorial groups, use the words such as 'Tutorial 1', 'Tutorial 2' … within the coloured section of the schedule.
  
• Refer to CSU Web Disability Access Action Plan incorporating the CSU Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. http://www.csu.edu.au/webpublishing/disability.htm

 

Images

• When using images be aware of the need to balance the use of graphics with load time constraints. The graphic file formats most browsers support are .GIF and .JPG.

• A full-size image that measures 600 x 300 pixels should be no bigger than 30 kilobytes. To save pictures at a medium compression rate use .JPG file formats and to save files in a very low number of colours use .GIF file format.

• If you do not have software that allows you to optimise images for online such as Photoshop for example, please ask your Educational Designer for advice. Note: Copyrighted images should be avoided, unless the bearers of their rights have given their express permission. See 'Copying images' on the CSU Copyright site: http://www.csu.edu.au/copyright/information.html

• If you are creating image files in Illustrator, Photoshop or other image editing software, make sure when saving the file you use the ‘saved for the web’ option. This will optimise the image for web use and also allow you to get the right balance between file size and picture quality. The ‘save for web' option is found under File > Save for web, in Photoshop. Other image editors will have a similar process under File > Export.
  
• Describe images in Alt Tag and in the body of the text.

 

Audio files

• To record audio files, use MP3 or iPod recorders with an inbuilt microphone. The use of a USB headset microphone and choosing a location and time when the background noise is minimal is suggested to maximise sound quality. The recorded file will be saved in a compressed format (e.g. .MP3) which can then be downloaded to your computer and uploaded to your CSU Interact subject site.

• If recording audio files using an external microphone on your computer the file created in this way will likely be in an uncompressed format such as a .WAV file. A 10-minute uncompressed .WAV audio file can be as large as 100MB, so you will need to compress your file as that file size will be unsuitable for Interact. Most conversion software contains preset configurations to help you do this. There are many software tools, many of which are free, that can be used to edit and compress your files, for example GarageBand for Mac computers and Audacity for windows PCs. Audio files should be less than 20mb before uploading into Interact

• Please ask your Educational Designer for advice for the most suitable medium for audio file delivery if you cannot compress your audio file. The most suitable form of delivery for large audio files is CDROM or DVD.

 

Video files

• To create a video file you will need a digital camcorder. You will then need to compress your video to a Windows Media Video (.WMV) or QuickTime (.MOV) format of less than 20mb before uploading it into CSUInteract.  
• There are many software tools, many of which are free, that can compress your files. It is recommended that your video files be compressed to QuickTime (.MOV), .WMV or .MPEG format. For example:
  • .MP1- This format is often used in digital cameras and camcorders to capture small, easily transferable video clips. It's also the compression format used to create Video CDs, and commonly used for posting clips on the Internet.  
• .MP4 – This is a flexible .MPEG container format used for both streaming and downloadable Web content. Please ask your educational designer for advice for the most suitable medium for video file delivery if you cannot compress your video file.

• The most suitable form of delivery for large video files is CDROM and DVD.

 

Download Estimates

One of the key issues for placing audio and video files online is the time taken to download. Australia has a huge variety of connection types and speeds which affect download times. Slow dial-up connections are still very common in Australia because of the cost and distance associated with telecommunications in this country. So it is important that you consider the equity issues for those on the most basic dial-up connection.

The table below will help you estimate the time taken to download different file sizes on different connections. These are estimates only and times can vary considerably depending on the connection and amount of traffic.

File Size	Connection Type - 56k Dial-up	Connection Type -512k ADSL	Connection Type -1.5 ADSL
100 kb	14.63 sec	1.6 sec	0.53 sec
500 kb	1 min 3.14 sec	8 sec	2.65 sec
1 mb	2 min 29.8 sec	16.38 sec	5.43 sec
5 mb	12 min 28.98 sec	1 min 21.92 sec	27.17 sec
15 mb	37 min 26.95 sec	4 min 5.76 sec	1 min 21.5 sec
20 mb	50 min 4.07 sec	5 min 27.68 sec	2 min 11.34 sec
50 mb	2 hours 4 min 49.83 sec	14 min 20.8 sec	5 min 28.35 sec
500 mb	20 hours 48 min 18.29 sec	2 hours 16 min 32 sec	45 min 16.52 sec

 

Further Assistance

Please refer to DIT for CSU-supported software for the creation and publication of educational material in CSU Interact.

For any technical difficulties associated with the upload or download of multimedia files to CSU Interact please log an inquiry to the DIT Service desk. http://www.csu.edu.au/division/dit/f_sdesk.html