IBDE Web Design Program Course Outline
This 8-course program is delivered online over approximately 720 hours. The 8 courses in the program are as follows:
- Introduction to the Internet
This course will provide participants with an understanding of how the internet began and how it became what it is today. Learners will also discover where it all started by examining the history of the computer and the technology involved. Additional topics include security and social networking. - Site Theory and Design
This is a pre-planning course structured to offer participants insight into the many thought processes involved in planning a website. Our goal here is to help learners realize what is viewed in today's online industry as professional and standards compliant and convey knowledge of accessibility in design. This course will provide participants with the steps required to begin thinking about the design, layout, and development of their online e-commerce presence. - Introductory Web Graphics
In this course participants will be introduced to the Adobe Photoshop Elements (PSE) software program. Students will learn PSE's basic components and configurations and receive an introduction to the basics of using PSE. Techniques taught will include acquiring and auto adjusting images, organizing images with the Photoshop Elements Organizer, colour correction, lighting corrections, correcting image alignments, styling, cropping, and much, much more. - Advanced Web Graphics
In this more advanced course participants will continue to explore and learn more of the powerful features within Photoshop Elements. Retouching tools, selection tools, filters and effects, managing and transforming layers, and creating type and shapes are among the topics studied in this course. - HTML/XHTML Programming
Participants will learn the basics of coding web pages by hand. This course will provide learners with the skills required to create web pages using HTML/XHTML programming and introduce cascading style sheets (CSS). Developing the basic "hand-coding" skills will enable learners to modify web pages developed with any web authoring tool, thus building a strong foundation for the development and fast editing of any website. This is a very beneficial ability regardless of the web authoring program used. There is a strong focus on teaching students to adhere to the W3C industry standards in XHTML and CSS as well as designing with accessibility in mind. - Expression Web ~ Site Development
Expression Web is a web authoring tool focused on the needs of professional web designers seeking to build high-quality, standards-compliant websites. With Expression Web, participants will have the ability to integrate the latest technologies such as XML, CSS 2.1, PHP, ASP.NET 2.0, XHTML, XSLT, and JavaScript into the websites they build. This is an introductory level course giving learners a solid foundation before pursuing further studies in other, more advanced areas. - Website Marketing and Maintenance
In this course participants will learn how to build effective keyword phrases to implement as part of their web marketing strategies. Search engine rankings play a key role in the success of any online business and, therefore, such strategies are given a heavy emphasis in this course. Topics include the basics of search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM), how search engines work, how to build keywords, how to implement keywords strategically, factors influencing ranking, SEO information and guidelines of Google, MSN, and Yahoo!, and analyzing the competition. - Instructor Directed Work Project (Final Project Website)
Students create their own fully customized website, search engine optimized and ready to accept payments from PayPal--the world's most used and securely encrypted shopping cart and payment gateway. Students may create a site for themselves or for anyone they know; for example, a client who wishes to have the student maintain their website for them upon completion of the IBDE program.
