Will
I be able to do this stuff? I haven't done any web page editing before
Is
there a way to design this stuff while you are off-line?
Will I get paid for editing a
section? What happens to all the money received from the site sponsors?
I
need to focus on projects that will help get me tenured. Will PELINKS4U work
be helpful?
Where do you find information to include on PELINKS4U?
Are
there particular themes for the sections at different times of the year?
Can I take stuff from other sections
or
previous sections if I think it also fits in the
section I am editing?
Am I responsible for the entire section
on a given date or will I be working with others?
Do I have to follow the page template
exactly (same paragraph headers, etc.)?
How much information do you expect
me to put in my section? Is
there such a thing as too much?
What should I name my page?
Do
I simply submit my completed page on the due date to PELINKS4U for review,
editing and posting?
How do the different section editors
work together?
What are the short-term and long-term
goals of PELINKS4U?
Are you in competition with PE Central
or other PE oriented sites?
How many people read PELINKS4U and
where are they from?
How important is it to meet the production
due dates?
What if I can't?
Will
I be able to do this stuff? I haven't done any web page editing before
Several of our editors are complete novices. It does take longer of course
the first time to work through the process but then folk realize that it was
actually quite an easy task! We help as best we can and the other editors
can also offer guidance. The break between sections means that all editors
have quite a long time to get prepared.
Is
there a way to design this stuff while you are off-line?
Once you download a copy of the page you plan to edit, you don't need to
be online. You will of course need to be online if you want to search for
items
to include in your section. I find that it is often helpful to be online
so I can paste links directly into the section I am editing. That way I avoid
making any linking errors. We occasionally receive sections that have link
problems and this means we either guess the correct link or have to get back
to the
editor. Sometimes it becomes an even bigger problem because the editor no
longer remembers where he or she found the link. Now, it can be quite a time
consuming task!
Will I get paid for editing a section? What happens to all the money received from the site sponsors?
Right now, the money contributed by site sponsors is being used to support the development of the site and none of the PE professionals contributing to the site - including me - gets any sort of payment for what we do. I have a few people who check the site, facilitate the PE-News emailing, and do some web design who I pay a miserly sum for their efforts! My future hope would be that we could generate sufficient income to actually pay editors something for their efforts but right now it would be so small that you would feel insulted and probably quit editing! Each year if there are sufficient funds we have been able to purchase some kind of clothing item for our editors. It is a public service and scholarly contribution that you can put on your resume and feel good about your contribution to the profession.
I need to focus on projects that will help get me tenured. Will PELINKS4U work be helpful?
Most higher educational institutions would consider editing a PELINKS4U section as public service. If you were to contribute articles of your own then these would be publications but probably not considered "refereed." In the future, we would like to create some kind of review process for submitted articles so that contributors - especially those concerned about tenure - would be able to show that their PELINKS4U publications were indeed refereed. We are not there yet but working in that direction.
Where do you find information to include on PELINKS4U?
We began as simply a resource page that linked to other web sites with information we found interesting - hence the name PELINKS4U. Since then we have become much more than a place for links. We encourage our editors to include ORIGINAL articles written by themselves or invited colleagues. Your experience and that of your colleagues is the first place to consider for information. All teachers have valuable information to share even if they are not great writers. We encourage editors to seek practical ideas that help to promote quality physical education. Submissions do not have to be long. A second approach might be to look at both print and online publications for articles you can either summarize or get permission to reproduce. If you summarize an article you should also include a complete reference so readers can locate the full article if interested. A third approach is to use our links pages. The pull down menu at the top of the PELINKS4U home page has pages of links to hundreds of web sites of potential professional interest. You can browse these and choose items of interest. Using these resources it is pretty easy to create a new section with about six items.
Are
there particular themes for the sections at different times of the year?
Yes. We have a suggested lisk of themes included
on the schedule page. If possible you should try to relate your section
to the monthly theme. Of course, this may be difficult and you are welcome
to focus on other topics that you feel relevant for this particuluar
month when your section will be published.
Can
I take stuff from other sections or previous sections if I think it also
fits in the section I
am editing?
Absolutely. If you find information in another section
you want to include go ahead and copy it across. Of course you should be
sure to give credit is you are using information written by another editor.
You might also want to look back in the Archives at past issues to see if
there
is
something
you
think
is worth including again. Remember, we get new readers all the time so information
from previous issues will be new to them.
Am I responsible for the entire section on a given date or will I be working with others?
Each section editor is solely responsible for the content of his or her page. We suggest that you begin early contacting colleagues and invite them to submit ideas. Also you can invite readers on your first issue so that eventually you do have information coming in. We have also suggested that editors consider asking authors of other published papers if they would be interested in submitting a shorter version for our audience. We could then link the location of the complete article and provide some publicity to this publication.
Do I have to follow the page template exactly (same paragraph headers, etc.)?
We do make small changes each issue so it helps if you are using a current page. We suggest that your first download a copy of the current page then use this as your template. Use the "Save As" command while in your web browser. You have complete freedom over the headers on the page. You are welcome to change them however you want. We recommend that you also consider communicating with the other section editors if you have ideas for a new header. Please do not try to make changes to the look of the page.
How much information do you expect me to put in my section? Is there such a thing as too much?
The reason that we introduced the separate sections was because the homepage was getting too long. We have heard comments from current PELINKS4U readers that they don't visit other sites because there's "too much information" or "I don't have time to read that much stuff." While we might bemoan their attitude the reality is that many teaching professionals no longer read professional journals because they don't feel they have time. One of the reasons we started PELINKS4U was to address this changing attitude and find an effective way to deliver information. We don't want to compete with paper journals with long, detailed articles. Our readers (like you and me!) want brief and succinct information, delivered in an interesting and attractive format. Our suggestion is to keep any written article to a maximum limit of 600 words, with perhaps guidelines on where to find more information.
The same principle applies to the number of informational links we include in our sections. If you think about it we now have 7 separate sections. If we had just 5 pieces of information in each section that would represent 35 new items to read per issue! We must avoid turning people off because there's too much stuff! Ten new items per issue would be an absolute maximum and we think that six is probably better. We have found that new editors tend to want to include too much information. We encourage you to be selective and spread out information between issues. We also encourage editors to communicate with each other and perhaps address some common themes between issues.
One of the principles we follow when doing any kind of web page construction is to be consistent when naming and saving files. We request that you name your new section - using all lower case letters and no spaces - according to the date that it will be published (not when it is due!). Add an htm extension to indicate that it is a text file. So for example, if you are making a page that will be published on June 1st, 2004 you would name it 060104.htm
It gets mightly confusing and time consuming if each section editor follows a different naming protocol and sometime even changes this between issues. We have also experienced problems with files named with capital letters and spaces. Please just stick with lower case letters and no spaces. If you have additional pages to add, for example an article, choose a short name and add the htm extension (with no capitals and no spaces!). Thanks
Do I simply submit my completed page on the due date to PELINKS4U for review, editing and posting?
When ready, you simply attach your section to an email and send it to us. You should also attach any images you would like included and any articles we can post on separate pages. We then take your page and do some fine tuning. If we receive your page early, we will inform you when your page is ready and ask you to check it for any corrections or changes prior to publication. We then load it onto the main site for publication. The closer you can get it into shape the better for us! Just leave the site sponsor ads where they are and we will adjust. If you insert any graphics please try to save them to a small size so the loading time of the page is not slowed. If you have not worked with graphics before you should be aware that to reduce the size of the graphic you need to use a graphics editor. If you just drag on a corner of the graphic to shrink it, all you are really doing is compressing the graphic. Sure it looks smaller but it still takes up the same amount of disk space! For our site to load fast we try to keep our graphics small.
How do the different section editors work together?
This varies between the individuals participating in the different sections. We encourage section editors to communicate with each other but it is really up to you. Good communication does of course have the advantage of allowing you to avoid repetition and perhaps explore some themes you believe are interesting. At this stage of PELINKS4U development, things continue to slowly evolve and for now we are happy to have you use your own initiative as to how you would like to see your section develop.
What are the short-term and long-term goals of PELINKS4U?
Our main goal is to improve the quality of physical education teaching. You know our current status and the many threats we are facing to our future. We must do more to improve what we do in schools or we face extinction. In many states physical education has already been eliminated as a required class while simultaneously obesity has doubled in the last 20 years. We have to do a better job. PELINKS4U is one of many efforts to raise a national consciousness about the need for, and value of effective public school physical education.
We began as a simple links page, then evolved into a one page weekly magazine. We learned that changing the page once a week was too often so moved to our current bimonthly schedule. The page began to get longer as we added more information on different topics so we decided to create separate sections targeted at the different interests of our readers. Currently we have 7 separate sections in addition to the main page. Throughout this development we have focused on expanding site readership and soliciting financial support from sponsors. We include logos and banners as a way of funding the site. There are approximately 250,000 physical education teachers (and probably the same numbers of health education teachers) in the USA we would like to reach. As much as we would like to have an immediate impact on the entire profession we have to recognize that it will take time and patience. Our plan is to continue expanding as fast as our resources permit. We have many ideas for site improvements and features and will continue to introduce them as support for the site grows. We face a situation in which we need funds to be able to promote and develop the site to increase readership, while simultaneously potential site sponsors want to see a large readership before committing funds to support the site! Dilemma, huh! Fortunately, the readership continues to grow each month and so does our visibility.
In the long term - when all physical education and health education teachers are aware of our site - we would like to provide these folk with the best quality instructional assistance we can. We envision PELINKS4U becoming a quality e-zine that is fun to read while still providing developmentally appropriate ideas that reflect a profession we can all be proud of. Simply stated, if PELINKS4U fulfills its destiny it will become a resource that all teachers regularly turn to for news and information.
Are you in competition with PE Central or other PE oriented sites?
PELINKS4U and PE Central have established an excellent working relationship. We communicate regularly and as you may have noticed share each other's logos on our sites. We see ourselves as complementing each other. PE Central has established itself as a great resource for professional information. PELINKS4U strives to become an online magazine - an e-zine! We want to update professionals on the latest news and events. We see ourselves as the "Sports Illustrated" of the PE teaching profession! One important characteristic of PELINKS4U is that we are currently focused on providing practical information for teachers. We want our information to be useful but also fun to read and readable in the diminishing amount of time we all seem to have. We plan to keep articles short and avoid a too-lengthy publication that readers will find overwhelming. We don't see ourselves in competition with anyone because anything anyone does to promote physical education gets our support! As we have discovered it takes a lot of effort and commitment to create a worthwhile online resource, so kudos to anyone who wants to give it a try! We are happy to promote any site that offers quality information for teaching professionals.
How many people read PELINKS4U and where are they from?
According to the statistical program that tracks visits to our site, we can safely say that the readership of PELINKS4U has increased significantly over the past few years. There are different ways that people track data on their web sites but the figure that mostly interests us is "Site Visits." This figure is a fairly accurate report of the number of separate visitors to our site. In other words if a person visits our site then views several pages the site visit is only recorded at 1. In contrast "Page Visits" is a record of the number of pages that people visit on the site. Naturally this figure tends to be higher than site visits. Anyway, if we accept our statistical package to be fairly accurate, throughout the year we seem to get about an average of 600 visits a day. Occasionally, these go as high as 1500 daily visits. We see visitors from about 50 countries.
How important is it to meet the production due dates? What if I can't?
It
is very important for section editors to meet the production due dates for
several reasons.
1. The PELINKS4U production team need time to format your section prior to
publication. If we get sections late it disrupts the schedules of the folks
who are doing the formatting. Our families don't like it when we have to spend
weekends making last minute fixes!
2. We want you to have the opportunity to check your section before it is
published. It is easy to have link errors or note small changes to improve
the page. If we get the page from you on time we can post it early enough
so that you have time to check for any errors.
3. As one of our section editors pointed out it is hard to create a new section
and avoid repetition if you aren't able to see what will appear in the previous
section. It is our intent to publish pages for you to view within a week of
the submission date. That would give the individual responsible for the next
section a whole week to see what the previous editor has included.
If for some reason you are not able to meet the due date we do ask that you
inform us as early as possible so that we can plan alternatives. Even better
- maybe you can ask to switch with one of the other section editors? Please
remember we are all volunteers. We want this to continue to be a fun project
and not get anyone stressed! Everything will run smoothly if we all do our
best to meet due dates or arrange alternative. Thanks.
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Please contact us if you can think of additional questions that need clarifying. Thanks