Getting Started with Departmental Pages
As a UH Department, your staff can have access to the Information Technology Services (ITS) Web servers for putting departmental information online.
Getting Space
The recommended method for doing this is to have someone in the department who is already familiar with creating Web pages to be authorized to log into the ITS Web server and upload your department's pages into a specific directory. In brief, here are the steps to take:
- You can request your department website at https://www.hawaii.edu/its/webservice/front.php
- Have the name and UH Username of the person who will be responsible for uploading/maintaining your department's data
- Think of a name for your department's directory that will be created. It should be short and concise; the URL will be of the form <campus>.hawaii.edu/directoryname/ so the shorter the better. Examples of these might be manoa.hawaii.edu/ar/ for Admissions and Records and manoa.hawaii.edu/its/ for Information Technology Services.
- This request must come from UH faculty or staff; students may not request space for a department.
- Note: If you require more than one person to maintain the department's pages, you may provide up to three Usernames.
Please Note: Due to security reasons, we are only allocating space on our Web server to University departments. Exceptions may be made to Registered Independent Organizations (RIOs) if they have special programming needs. Otherwise, we encourage RIOs to use the free Web space allocated with their ITS Usernames for their webpage. RIOs may request an Organizational UH Username. Space will not be allocated to any organizations outside of the University.
Creating Your Pages
There are tons of ways to create your pages. You can learn HTML by taking a beginner's class (check with the Outreach College), getting a book, or by purchasing software (go to the UH Bookstore). We recommend obtaining an HTML Editor software program for your computer such as Macromedia Dreamweaver by Adobe. HTML Editors work like basic word processing programs that can save your work as an HTML page suitable for the Web.
Uploading Your Pages to the ITS Web Server
The last thing to do is to upload your files to the ITS Web server so they will be available on the Internet for all to see.
You can use any free "SFTP" software to upload your website files. You can obtain free SSH software. You can also download these off the Internet or from other sources. Check with the ITS Help Desk for more information.
You will need to know the correct login ID and password, which directory you will put your information into, and the hostname of the computer you'll connect to. The webmaster will provide this information to you upon approval of your request for Web space.
TIPS
A few tips that might be useful:
- A more useful website is not a "who we are" kind of site, but rather one that contains information that is really useful to the audience, like the kinds of programs or courses offered; descriptions of events that are being sponsored; tips on studying; instructions for getting into a program; and so forth.
- If you feel uncomfortable with the technology, it might make sense to hire a good student assistant who can be responsible for your department's website (under your supervision, of course). Most students nowadays are very computer literate and have seen a lot of webpages to have some idea of what can be done. With the proper tools and some guidance, the student can often do a fantastic job.
