COLLOQUY

Today, I explored a Web site at Idaho State University's Business School that offers free course materials to instructors wishing to teach Internet site development. The URL is:

http://mithrin.isu.edu/psb/index.asp

Ironically, the home page displays "junk" characters at the bottom of the left-hand frame -- not a good example for a site that purports to offer materials on proper design.

What's more disturbing about the site, however, is the statement on the main page that the course material has a "focus on Microsoft technology" and is "sponsored" by Microsoft. The main page also contains Microsoft's advertising "buttons" for Internet Explorer and BackOffice. (Since when do academic sites at public institutions carry advertising?)

The list of tools for the course, at http://mithrin.isu.edu/psb/tools.htm , features no non-Microsoft products. In fact, the description states that, "since the course is Microsoft-centric, each module is focused on a particular Microsoft tool or technology."

The course materials visible from the main page include "Suggested readings." There are only two: Fred Brooks' classic book "The Mythical Man Month" and a book from Microsoft Press on OLE and ActiveX. (ActiveX is considered by many to be dangerous to use in Web design due to its potential for security problems.) No books on HTML, TCP/IP, Perl, Java, or other essential elements of modern Web design are included in this suggested reading list.

Does this sound like a well-rounded -- or even adequate -- course in Web site design that an ethical and conscientious instructor would want to teach?

In order to register to use the materials, one must fill out a "nomination" form. But if one tries to access the form with Netscape Navigator, it proves inaccessible.

More interesting still, the "Disclaimer and Copyright" page at the Idaho State University site says that the materials are copyrighted by the University of Texas at Austin. Interested in what this might mean, I punched a few keywords from the site into the AltaVista search engine. And -- guess what? -- one of the hits returned was:

http://praetor.bus.utexas.edu/microsoft/

This proved to be a virtually identical site at the UT Austin business school -- complete with the same Microsoft advertising banners. (The home page even had the same bugs that produced the junk characters.)

Very interesting. Perhaps the presidents of the respective universities, or the Governors of Texas and Idaho, or the Texas Attorney General (who is investigating Microsoft for anti-competitive practices) should look into this.

-- Brett Glass, Author (posted 4/22, 10:54 a.m., E.D.T.)

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