Popularity of Web Pages Lead to Creation of Academic Minor

Alabama Live
6/7/99 - The Huntsville Times
By Ray Garner, UAH News Release

Design, development and management of the World Wide Web pages has become so popular in recent years, The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) has added an academic minor to address the education and training of workers in that industry.

The program is accepting students for the fall semester and features complex web page design techniques as well as the development and maintenance of Internet sites. The program will also feature courses in graphic design, hardware set up and programming.

"There are more than 400,00 businesses with web sites in this country, many of which are created and managed by the person who best knows HTML in an organization, but who may know little or nothing about graphic design, service hardware, programming, or what the communication possibilities are for the web,"said Dr. Clarke Rountree, associate professor and chairman of the Communication Arts Department at UAH.

"The balanced approach this program takes to educating students about communication, graphic design, and programming and server hardware will produce rare and valuable web designers who have the `big picture' in web site development and management - understanding what looks good, how to do the programming and what purposes it all can fulfill for profit, non-profit, and government agencies."

The web design program consists of 12 hours of required course work in communication arts, art studio, and management information systems (MIS), and a one-hour introductory course in computer-mediated communication. Rountree said although the number of total required courses - 40 semester hours is quite large - students may complete minor courses as part of their major and their general education requirements.

Students majoring in communication arts, art studio, and MIS are particularly well positioned to complete minor courses in their major degree programs, with only 21-24 hours of minor courses normally required outside the major.

More information is available about the new UAH web design program by contacting Dr. Rountree through electronic mail at rountrj@email.uah.edu, or by calling (256) 890-6645.