Instructional Materials

The Webliography: Creating and Maintaining a Website Resource

Presented by Patrice Hess
Instructional Technology Specialist and Adjunct Instructor
Instructional Innovation and Faculty Development and Social Sciences, Illinois Central College
phess@icc.edu; 309-694-5295

This presentation was made by Patrice Hess. I have added update information as indicated below. My statements appear after the heading “Dr. Person states:”

This session will introduce the concept of a "Webliography" or a way to document and annotate Web-based resources. The session content will cover the basic design of a Webliography, Web search strategies and suggestions for the technical design of a Webliography. Session attendees will view sample Webliographies and discuss effective design strategies. Dr. Person states: even though this web resource was designed for secondary schools, I have found it to be very useful for listing web resources in my undergraduate and graduate online courses.

What is a “Webliography”?

“A webliography is a critical guide to electronic resources on the World Wide Web and CD-ROM, including electronic texts, HTML-encoded texts, hypertexts, secondary works, commentaries, and indexes.” “The purpose of the webliography is to collect, organize, and disseminate pointers to information and examples of user-driven and customizable interfaces to sets of Internet resources -- portals. Pointers to Internet directories or search engines that are not user-driven and/or customizable are not included here.” “Webliography is a word which cannot be found in a standard Webster's or Oxford dictionary…The definition of webliography which I am speaking of loosely fluctuates somewhere between a bibliography of primary sources…and a multimedia site of tribute...In its broader and more well known definition, webliography denotes an enumerative list of hypertext links surrounding a common subject or theme. Dr. Person states: As of 6/1/2008, the term webliography is defined as a listing of websites; a bibliography of websites mounted on the web with hyperlinks at http://netfronts.com/guides/glossary2.htm.

Where can I view examples of “Webliographies”

• A Sophisticated Webliography on Edgar Alan Poe: http://newark.rutgers.edu/~ehrlich/poesites.html

  • Features: General Starting Sites, Plain Electronic Texts, HTML Projects, Edited E-texts and Special Collections, Hypertext Editions and Class Projects, Secondary Materials (Newsletters, Databases, Lecture Notes, WebQuests), CD-ROM and Commercial Texts, Literary Indexes and Books, Web Indexes, Search Engines and Bookstores.

• A Simpler Webliography on Oceanography: http://www.josts.net/tec3012/projects/pfowler/

  • Key Features: Numbered, links and annotations.

How do I search the Internet to bring in links for my “Webliography”?

• Use sites with which you are already familiar or use your favorite search engine to locate them.

• Evaluate sites for authority, purpose, accuracy, timeliness, integrity and objectivity.

How do I begin designing a “Webliography”?

This process will require you to “multi-task”, having a word processing document open in one window and the Internet open in another window. Be familiar with how to switch from one window to the other.

  1. Open your word processing program to a new document. Type the title of your Webliography and save your new document.
  2. To begin a simple numbered Webliography start by typing 1. at the top of your document.
  3. Open your Internet browser (Internet Explorer or Netscape).
  4. Search for a site or go to a site you would like to include in your Webliography.
  5. Copy the URL (address) of the site by clicking once on the address and selecting Copy from the Edit Menu.
  6. Return to the word processing document.
  7. Paste the URL as number one.
  8. Directly below the URL, type an annotation for the site.
  9. Repeat this process as necessary until the list of resources is finalized. Note that not all Webliography resources have to be Web-based.

How do I make a Web page from my Webliography document?

• You can convert the word processed document into a Web page by saving it as an HTML page. Most word processors will allow you to do a “File=>Save As…” or even “File=>Save As Web Page” to convert the document to HTML.

o A few things to consider:

  1. Save your Web page with a file name that contains no spaces or special characters.
  2. if you are creating a Webliography with pictures from a .doc format to an .htm format the pictures will be saved in a separate folder. For example, if your Webliography is called webliography.doc to start and then you save as Web page the result will be a page called webliography.htm and a folder called webliography_files. Note this for the next step!
  • Dr. Person states: The above mentioned procedure still works as of 6/1/2008; however, if you submit your webliography sources to me, I will format an interactive webpage to embed in your online course.

How do I make the Web page available to my students?

Teachers could publish Webliography pages to their personal Websites or develop free sites on the Web. If you are not able to publish the page on the Web, however, you can still provide the page and links for students to use on a computer in your face-to-face learning environment.

  1. To make this Web page available on one or few computers in a classroom setting:

a. Save the Web page to a location on the computer or disk accessible by the computer>

b. Start the Internet browser

c. File Menu

d. Open

e. Browse

f. Browse to the location on the computer or disk where the file is saved

g. To use this file in the future, add it to the Favorites of the Internet browser by selecting Favorites=>Add to Favorites. (Remember that this is directly linked to the actual file on the computer/disk and not to the Web!)

  1. If you can save the file on a network that is accessible to all. The easiest way to do this is place the page in a network space where your students can access using an Internet browser.

a. Start the Internet Browser

b. File Menu

c. Open

d. Browse to the location on the network where the document is saved

e. Use the Favorites feature if the file will be used in the future.

f. If the page is available on the Web give students the URL.

g. Dr Person states: The above procedures will work; however, I will publish your webliography as part of your online course.

Are there any alternatives to making my own Webliographies “from scratch”?

TrackStar from the High Plains Regional Technology in Education Consortium is a free online resource for building a webliography. http://trackstar.4teachers.org/trackstar/;jsessionid=1DBF2C9D5C628612229106445643E9FA.

changed July 19, 2008