There are two or three principal strategies to make files placed on Web
sites readily available for reading by others.
- make a series of obvious links from an agreed central location
(e.g., main course page to individual student site to particular file)
- construct an efficient site-limited search engine
- create a central location, a page on which links to each
student's individual file will be displayed under the student's name
This is important if students are to engage with each other's writing
meaningfully. Any CMS should allow for this, but:
- The first is difficult to create and enforce, especially at the
beginning of the process (students don't regularly realize that the
reason they're writing is so that others in the class can read it; they
think that posting the file should be enough, rather like handing it in
for credit).
- The second is impractical, as far as I know.
- The third can only work if it's possible for the students to name
their files the same thing and put them on a site whose location is
predictable (e.g. http://server/course/student/filename.)
However it's accomplished, a student needs, at any time, to be able
to post something to her Web site with a specified filename, thus
allowing a link to be created in advance, and in an efficient way, from
a central course Web page to a particular file in each student's site.
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