Before we embark on learning how to "surf the net", we need to be sure that we are clear concerning the scope of our use of the Internet for this course. Some of you may already be very familiar with the Internet, and therefore, this little crash course may be old hat to you. On the other hand, some of you may feel terror at the thought of working in cyberspace and, for you, this mini Internet course is designed to alleviate some of that fear. All I hope to do is familiarize you with how to log onto the net and how to find material. That's it! It is beyond the scope of this class to teach you how to tap into other computer networks (telnet), transfer files (FTP) or become involved in news groups, discussion groups or the like. However, once you become more familiar with the Internet, you may want to learn expand your horizons and do some of the stuff I mentioned just now. If this is the case, your Internet Guide for Sociology has some information that you may find useful.

Getting onto the Internet:

1. Turn on the computer and monitor screen. Wait for it to "boot up" (load all the info -- this can take a minute or two!).
2. Once the computer is loaded, you should see a whole bunch of groups of pictures (icons) OR you may see icons which are already opened into windows. (Keep in mind that windows are simply a boxed group of icons that deal with the same function.)
3. Depending on your Internet hookup, some of you will
   
   • Double click on the icon for your Internet service provider (e.g. Epix) to establish a phone connection. After you double click the icon, it may still take a minute or two for the connection to complete -- when this is done, the messages charting the connection process will go off the screen and you are ready to continue.
   • Most of you will probably just have to double click directly on the Netscape Navigator icon. It is a picture of a ship's wheel on a blue background and says "Netscape Navigator" under it.
4. If you are using a computer lab at the university, you will most likely see the university home page appear on the computer. If you have a hookup that is independent of the university (e.g. from an Internet provider), you will most likely see the home page for your Internet provider on the screen. (A home page is an initial menu page which you can think of as a table of contents for that particular Internet location.)

Using the Internet: It's Components:

1. Much of the material on the Internet is located on the Wold Wide Wed (www) which is essentially an (Internet-based) information sharing tool that helps with the exchange of information in the form of text -- and now sound and pictures as well.
2. Information on the world wide web is accessed using a browser -- this is what Netscape Navigator is -- it allows you to find and access the information on the web.
   Note: Browsers are now generally obtained through a local Internet access provider which is (technically) a nearby host institution that offers Internet access via a local telephone call (usually for a fee). You've probably heard of some Internet providers, such as America Online, CompuServe and Prodigy, even if you aren't familiar with the Internet itself. The Internet provider that the university uses is Epix.
3. The last component we need to be aware of is going to be important once we actually start searching for information on our topics. This is the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) which is really only a document's address on the Internet. In Netscape Navigator, this appears near the top of the screen and is called "Location". The rules of URLs are very loose, but there is a basic structure to them which is

   Protocol://domain name system/.../.../.../
   Ex.: http://www.census.gov/pubinfo/www/news.html

   Protocol refers to the system of procedure to access the information. Most of our protocols will be http:// which stands for hypertext transfer protocol. You do not need to be familiar with the specifics of this protocol for our purposes, I just wanted you to understand it's place in the URL. Domain name system is the host computer name and it appears between the double slashes (//) and the first single slash (/). It makes reference to several domains or areas within an in-house computer network and each domain is separated by a period. Furthermore, most domain systems end with a 3 letter code such as .edu (meaning that the domain is an educational institution), .com (a commercial institution), or .gov (a government institution). There are other 3 letter codes, but these are probably the ones which you will encounter the most.

1. First, you need to type the address for a search engine on the URL line in Netscape Navigator

   For example: http://www.excite.com will lead you to the search engine "excite".

   The "http" means that it uses the hypertext transfer protocol, the "www" in the beginning of the domain means that it's accessing the world wide web, the "excite" is the specific means of accessing the Web and the ".com" means that it is a commercial application.

2. Next you will see a "home page" for excite appear. Remember, a home page is an initial menu page -- here it is a menu for excite functions.
3. At the box entitled "Search" enter the key word or words in which you are interested and press enter on your keyboard or click the "submit" box to the right of your text.
4. Excite will find Internet entries which contain the words you typed to search for. These entries are usually in a bluish color which means that you can click on those to go to the document it describes. We call this a "link". When in doubt concerning what are links and what are merely text descriptions that don't hook you up to the document, just try clicking it anyway. If it's a link, you will be led to the next screen (you can tell when the computer is trying to do this because there is a message on the bottom left hand corner of your screen); if it's not, nothing will happen.
5. Notice, once you find connect to the new screen, there's a URL address at the top (It appears). If you knew this address first, you could have gone directly to the link without typing in the search word. See below.

Hints:

1. Internet cites which you find of interest and think you may want to revisit can be saved by using the "bookmark" feature. Simply go to the top of the Netscape screen while you are in the document, click and hold the top button of the mouse over the word "Bookmark" and a menu (listed down) of options and existing bookmarks will appear. Simply drag (move) your mouse until you highlight "Add bookmark" then click your mouse once. The computer automatically saves that URL (address) listed in your "Location" window. You can re-access it at a later time by going (again) to the "Bookmark" word at the top of the screen with your mouse. Click and hold the top button of the mouse over the word "Bookmark" and when the menu appears, simply drag (move) your mouse until the bookmark of interest is highlighted and then (again) click once. You will be directly linked to the homepage of the Internet cite you just selected. NOTE: Bookmarking is most advisable if you are working on your own computer.
2. The Internet is a tricky device and it known to be "down" meaning that you cannot connect onto it for a variety of reasons (such as too many users at a given time, sites being updated, problems with the Scranton server). Because of this, I do not (!) suggest waiting until the last minute to do your assignments. You are allowed 2 misses, so I suggest you save them for problems you encounter hooking up to the net...don't use them because you simply don't feel like doing your assignment for that day! If you use up your excused misses, you will be penalized for additional misses even if they occur because the computer is down. It is VERY unlikely that a computer will be down for long (it's usually a few hours AT MOST!) so there are few excuses for not handing in homework because the system crashed (In other words, this is more likely to be a problem if you wait until the last minute to do your assignment where you don't have the time to wait for the system to be "up" again -- and I'm not sympathetic to this beyond your allowed misses.).
3. Be patient. Just because links come up as a result of a key word search, they are not necessarily relevant to your assignment. You need to browse the summary of each link to see if it's relevant and then look at the document itself (which upon further reading you may find is still not relevant). Therefore, even if you know or suspect even a bit of a URL (e.g. For the example of a URL on page 2, you will still be able to access the Census home page if you just type http:/www.census.gov), it behooves you to try typing that first before you use a search engine. If it works, you've saved a lot of time. If it doesn't, you haven't lost much time.

Click here to go back to Loreen Wolfer's home page

Click here to go to the syllabus for Introduction to Social Problems
Click here to go to the syllabus for Introduction to Sociology