Who is the School Webmaster?

The School Webmaster is the teacher, student, or other person affiliated with the school that is designated by the school principal as the person who will be responsible for the design, maintenance, and monitoring of the school's website. This person should have some level of knowledge about what it takes to build and update webpages.

This person will also be responsible for monitoring that the school's website meets the standards set out by the Catholic Education Profile Committee's Communication Handbook and the St. Clair Catholic District School Board's Policy 6.2, The Acceptable Use of Computers...

What do I need to know about building our website?

The St. Clair Catholic District School Board provides webspace (a place to put your web content) on a server within our Wide-Area Network (WAN). Your schools URL would then be http://www.st-clair.net/schoolname or http://schoolname.st-clair.net. According to our Communications Handbook, this is the only acceptable position for a school's website.

What is the process for getting my website built and made available to the public?

Depending on who is assigned in the school to be the webmaster, each school's process might be a little different. Here, however is the general steps:

1. The webmaster would build and save the site locally (on his/her computer).
2. If a student is building the site, a staff member should approve the site before it is made "live". The principal should take a look at the site locally as well. The more people to proof-read the site the better.
3. Use one of the three methods listed on this page to upload your content to the web server.

The Ministry has licensed a number of website building utilites through its software licensing process. The main SCCDSB website has been built using Macromedia's Dreamweaver MX. It is the recommendation of the Board's Webmaster that you would use this tool. It is available in both PC and MAC formats. Contact your School Technician for access to this software.

What should I include in my school's website?

The Communication Handbook if more detailed on this subject, but here are a few good ideas to get you started:

• School Picture, address and contact information
• Schedule of events (upcoming important dates)
• A message from the Principal
• Staff List and contact information
• Web copy of the school newsletter
• Student and Staff recognition photos and messages

Remember the Web is very visual, so include as many pictures as you can. However, be careful about how you display these pictures and remember that if they are too big (filesize, not display size) they could make your site slow to display.

Once you have been identified by the school principal as the web contact for your school, there are a few methods by which you can access the folder where you need to save your website files.

First you need to determine if your are an Internal or External user. Internal users are those employees, students, and associates of the St. Clair Catholic District School board who have been given a login priveledges to our Wide-Area Network (WAN). External Users would be anyone else including parents and volunteers. Internal users will already have a Username and Password that they use to log into a school computer. This will be the same Username and Password refered to here. Domain refers to the School's Local-Area Network (LAN) (i.e. St. Agnes School's Domain is AGNES).

External Users Please Note: Before you may access any of our resources, the principal of the school for which you are participating must notify the Webmaster in order to activate your account. You will be given a Username and Password at that time.

Here are the possible ways to connect:

Method 1: (Internal PC's Only) Recommended!

1. Log onto a Network Computer
   Use your regular username and password to log on any computer connected to the St. Clair WAN (Wide-Area Network).
   
2. Map to School Web Folder
   Go to START - RUN and type in "\\www\yourschoolcode$" and press OK.
   
3. Copy and Paste
   Copy your local (on your computer) web files into the folder that opens when you execute this command.

Method 2: (Requires IE 4.0+ or Netscape 5.0)

1. Point Browser to ftp://www.st-clair.net/yourschoolcode
   
   Open Internet Explorer or Netscape and in the Address Field (URL) enter the FTP address for your school.
   
   
2. Login with Username and Password
   As this login box does not ask for your domain you must indicate it in your username using the following syntax:  DOMAIN\user.name
   
3. Copy and Paste
   Copy your local (on your computer) web files into the folder that opens when you execute this command.

Method 3:

1. Launch your FTP program
   There are a number of applications available that will make it easy for you to transfer your files to your webspace (FTP). There are shareware, freeware, and consumer purchased versions available. Regardless of which one you choose, each will require similar set-up information.
   
   • Setup the Connection to your site
     Create a new site and use the following information:
     
     

     Website (Host):	www.st-clair.net
     Initial Remote Directory:	\schoolcode
     Username:	DOMAIN\user.name
     Password:	Your Network Password

     
     
   • Connect to the site
     Connect and go. Use the FTP program to upload your files. You may want to set your initial local directory to the folder on your computer where you store your web content.