A day in the life of Peter Taylor's Virtual Office, updated 4/18/05

Notes on a minimal set of tools I use to handle my office-on-the-computer and enhance teaching/learning interactions in a sustainable way. I am working towards an OHIO office -- Only Handle It Once. Although there is more sophisticated software available to undertake the tasks below, you need to consider whether you have $$, computer memory, teachers or learning time to equip yourself to use it. Besides Microsoft Office, the cost of the software listed was around $200.

You are invited to work through these notes step by step, visit each website mentioned, search for a Windows equivalent if you're a Windows user, and record questions and make notes in the right hand column.

Synchronize files After turning on computer and zip drive (or plugging in my flashdrive/”memory stick”), I update files that have been changed while working on other computers. On my MACs I use Synchronize! available from http://www.qdea.com/. (Free trial versions available.) Synchronization requires the different computers you use to have the same arrangement of folders or directories and folders within folders, etc. This also means that all files must be saved within some folder, not left loose on the desktop.

Synchronization onto a zip disk is also a form of backup. At any time, I have three copies of my files -- at home, at work, and on the zip disk or flash drive.

Website update I upload webfiles I have changed onto my website (using Fetch on a MAC, available for free for users affiliated with educational institutions). (Although I have webfiles divided into separate folders on my computer, I upload them into one folder on my website, http://www.faculty.umb.edu/pjt/. This means all references among my webfiles need only refer to the file's name, e.g., 610-01F.html, without the path to that file, e.g., http://www.faculty.umb.edu/pjt/610-01Fp.html.) [See also creation and testing of webfiles below.]

Email I check email, reply, and file into folders using Eudora (http://www.eudora.com/). (As long as you can establish the POP or IMAP server address for your email service, you can use Eudora with any kind of email service.) With Eudora I download all my mail and get off line so I can read and reply to messages without the pressure of being on-line. For the same reason, I store my email on my own computer rather than leave mail on the server. (When I am away from my home computer, I use http://email.umb.edu/to access my new email. I cannot access old email unless I carry it on a zip disk with Eudora software on it.) Except for messages that I can reply to immediately, I dispatch incoming messages into 5 or 6 separate In folders (e.g., InTeaching) and respond when I have made time to respond with the kind of attention appropriate to each specific kind of email. After replying to a message I trash or file it into an appropriate folder.

Lists of many users can be combined under one alias or nickname. [See also Email group maintenance below.]

Messages can be sent to many people using the Bcc (blind carbon copy) field, thus avoiding long headers before the message starts.

Email messages and attachments can take up a lot of space so every new year I transfer the contents of my folders to a similarly named folder with the year as a prefix. (I backup these on a zip disk only for email.) Eudora allows me to search quickly for anything I have stored (back to 1992).

Creation and Testing of Webfiles I create my own non-flashy, informational webfiles by saving the file in rtf format and use old software RTFtoHTML to convert rtf files to html code. Then I make any further changes by hand inside Word5 or using the “view html” option in Word 2001 or later. (This option isn’t available on Word98, which takes over and inserts its own unreadable and buggy html code if you edit.) (A simple, but slightly less reliable way to create webfiles is described in webpage.doc linked to my website.) I check my coding before I upload the file onto the website by viewing it in a browser.

I do not convert handouts to html format, but save them with a name that ends in .doc. Most browsers know that this is a word file and download it into Word from which it can be printed out. (Similarly, for .xls or .ppt files.)

In large files I have incorporated a search box (free from google via license to UMass) to help viewers (and myself) locate information.

I have begun to create style sheets that make my c.v. and syllabus webpages look very close to the corresponding Word file. Following OHIO, I hope to use the webpage as the sole version in the near future. (For an example of the style sheets, see http://www.faculty.umb.edu/pjt/stylesyl.css. A line in the header of the webpage is needed to activate this style sheet, <LINK REL=stylesheet TYPE="text/css" HREF="stylesyl.css">)

Compilations of webfiles into a PDF file. For related material in the form of webpages and word (.doc) or PDF (.pdf) files linked to webpages, I periodically compile them into one PDF document, which I upload onto the server to give viewers a chance to download the document as a whole, rather than browsing the individual pages on-line (e.g., http://www.cct.umb.edu/handbook.pdf).

Steps: 1. I use the Adobe Acrobat plug-in to Word to save a .pdf version of any .doc files. (Sometimes I create an html file using Word, but Word doesn't not preserve formatting well.)

2. I create a webpage that is a table of contents for the compilation (e.g., http://www.cct.umb.edu/handbook.html).

3. I use "open web page" in Adobe acrobat, specifying "2 levels" (i.e., the level of the table of contents page and the level of any sites linked to it, but not any sites linked within those pages). (Options allow me to set margins and include/exclude headers and footer.) This generates a PDF file that combines all the webpages and pdf files that were linked to the table of contents page from step 2. (An error file lists all the links that Acrobat could not find.)

4. I use the command under "Locate web addresses" to make the links in the document active. (If the link is to a page incorporated in the document, the resulting active link moves you there; if it is to a page outside the document, it moves you there if you are on-line, just as a browser would.)

Email group maintenance To set up and manage my own email groups or listserves I use a yahoogroups site to preserve an archive of the messages sent (visit http://yahoogroups.com/and follow directions). (I used to simply use yahoogroups for the listserv, but there is a long header to each message and an ad at the bottom.)

In many courses I also set up a site for students to post clippings from the web. This list has only one member (myself using an email address I never check) and messages on the website are readable by anyone. Yahoogroups supplies a search box so the clippings can be searched according to the viewer's interests.

Assessment At the start of the semester I input student names and contact info into a spreadsheet. However, I use an on-paper check-list for each student to keep track of assignments submitted and completed. (Students also keep their own copy of this check-list so they don't have to ask me what they have completed.) At the end of the semester I input the totals into a spreadsheet I created that does any calculations I need and converts % grades to letter grades.

I also use an old-fashioned technology, namely, carbon paper, so I can write comments on student work by hand and keep a copy. I keep these comments in a binder with a separate sleeve for each student. (My handwriting is legible and I can write away from a computer, e.g., on the subway to work.)

Bibliographies I use Endnote to input the full citation for any new article or section of a book I am reading (including newspaper articles, which I no longer clip because know I can access them via the web). Endnote creates bibliographies in any format I specify, with minor editing needed to brush up the result. I input my own two letter keyword codes to help retrieve relevant references. Endnote can be downloaded for a 30 day trial from http://www.endnote.com/.

Filemaker databases I use filemaker (again an old version that takes up very little memory) to keep records of people associated with my program or workshops I have organized. I can print information from the database a) according to different layouts I create or b) by generating customized outputs using the output command followed by some formatting, either in Excel or Word, to make the information easy to read.