SENS Web Style Guide

SEAS/NSM Web Space - Courses, Research Centers, Labs, and Student Organizations

Course web space

Requesting course space

If you want web space for your course, e-mail a request to nodehelp:

For Engineering faculty and staff: nodehelp@eng.buffalo.edu

For NSM faculty and staff: nodehelp@nsm.buffalo.edu

Please include:

  • The course number (e.g., ce212)
  • Your UBIT name
  • The UBIT names of any TAs or other instructors who you want to be able to access and edit your site

Even if TAs will be doing the bulk of the editing on the course web site, the instructor of the course needs to request web space and permission for TAs to work on it.

If your course has previously been taught by another instructor who has a web site for the course, SENS will contact that instructor to make sure that all necessary files have been saved before making you the owner of the directory for that course. That can add additional time to your request.

NOTE: If you have not applied for a SEAS account, you will need to do so in order to use the SEAS web servers. Go to http://www.sens.buffalo.edu/accounts/ and fill out the form to get your SEAS account. Your username will be the same as your UBIT name, but your password will be different. The password you will need to use the SEAS web servers is your SEAS account password.

Requesting permission for your TAs to edit your courses

In order to ensure accountability for the course web sites, we request that faculty submit requests for TAs to edit and maintain existing course web sites. To do this, please send an e-mail to Nodehelp (nodehelp@eng.buffalo.edu for Engineering; nodehelp@nsm.buffalo.edu for NSM) with the following information:

  • The course name (i.e., mae576)
  • The TAs UBIT name

Please note that if a TA requests permission to edit a course web site, we will instruct the TA that a faculty member needs to submit the request.

Research centers and labs

For research centers and labs, please follow the procedure for requesting course web sites.

Student organizations

Requesting Space or Webmaster Changes for an Organization's Web Site

Space for an organization web site or changes in personnel must be requested by the organization's faculty adviser. To request space, please e-mail a request to nodehelp (nodehelp@eng.buffalo.edu for SEAS; nodehelp@nsm.buffalo.edu for NSM). Include the name of the group and the UBIT names of anyone who will need to edit the files.

To request a change in webmasters, please send a request to nodehelp. Include the old webmaster's UBIT name (if you have it) and the new webmaster's UBIT name.

To log in to the server and upload files, see the section below on logging in. Organization web sites follow the path

/usr/local/info/eng/Students/Organizations/[your directory]

General information about sites on the main SEAS web server

Logging in to the web server and uploading files

All course web sites are located on the primary SEAS web servers, confucius.eng.buffalo.edu (Engineering) or willrogers.nsm.buffalo.edu (NSM). While it is possible to edit files directly on the server, most people prefer to edit files on their computers and upload them, using a process called ftp (file transfer protocol). Several ftp clients (tools for transferring files) are available at no charge from UB: PuTTY and FileZilla for Windows, and Fugu for Macintosh. PuTTY is also used for secure Telnet. You can download the programs here: http://wings.buffalo.edu/computing/software/.

  1. Set up your FTP client with the following connections:
    • Host Name/Address: confucius.eng.buffalo.edu (Engineering) or willrogers.nsm.buffalo.edu (NSM)
    • Host Type: UNIX/Standard
    • User ID: Your UBIT name
    • Password: Your SEAS password
  2. Navigate to your directory. For course directories on the Engineering server, the path is:
    /usr/local/info/eng/Courses/[your course]

    For course directories on the NSM server, the path is:
    /usr/local/info/nsm/Courses/[your course]

    For other directories, you will use the path that is provided in the e-mail you receive from SENS when your web space is set up. It will typically start with /usr/local/info/eng/ (Engineering) or /usr/local/info/nsm/ (NSM).
  3. Upload your files to your course folder.

Other useful information

For more information about setting directory and file permissions, password-protecting your course web site, and using your personal web space, see the SENS Web Hosting Services page.

Directing students to your site

On the Engineering server, your course site's URL will be: http://www.eng.buffalo.edu/Courses/[directory name, e.g., ee307]

On the NSM server, it will be: http://www.nsm.buffalo.edu/Courses/[directory name]

The URL is case-sensitive, so be sure you're using an upper-case C in Courses. The current convention for naming course web sites is to use all lower-case letters, but some older course web sites have upper-case letters. If you have inherited a course web site, it might use upper-case letters.

If you have a file called index.html or index.htm it will be the home page for your web site. If you don't have an index page, you'll need to provide the page name. For example, if your class is ee109 and you want your students to start at a page called intro.html, the URL to give them would be http://www.eng.buffalo.edu/Courses/ee109/intro.html.

 

This page, prof_web.php, last modified: July 09, 2008