Glendale Community College Technology Research & Implementation Homepage

Student Web Space

Anyone with a eGCC Account can create and publish a web site as easily as they can create word processor documents for printing.

You will need the following before you get started:

  1. eGCC Username
  2. Some knowledge of the HyperText Markup Language (HTML) programming language, which is the format for web- based documents. Tutorials can be found on the Internet by doing a quick search for "HTML 4.01 Tutorial".
  3. An HTML editor program. Our GCC Webmaster suggests using Microsoft FrontPage or Macromedia Dreamweaver for your web site development needs. Or, you can use Notepad available in Windows

Before you continue, please read the following:

Note: The Technology Resource Standards of the Maricopa Community Colleges specify that web sites published by the college, including those of students, be limited to "educational, research, service, operational, and management purposes of the Maricopa County Community College District." Please see the GCC Web Guidelines for additional information.

Also, there is the requirement that the home page of every site must include a specific legal disclaimer, or a link to a page with the exact language displayed in a conspicuous manner. For consistency, GCC encourages web authors to include a link to the official college disclaimer page with the words "Legal Disclaimer."

This means you are responsible for everything on your website, and by creating your web page, you agree to the guidelines outlined in the Technology Resource Standards and in the GCC Web Guidelines. Also, every web page you write to be used on your website under your eGCC Username must have a link to the GCC Legal Disclaimer, just like this site does at the bottom of this page.

How do I start creating my website?

Every website has at least two items: a specific file, and a folder on the server that contains all your website's documents. That specific file is typically called "index.html" and the folder in our case is called "public.www", which should be placed on the H: Drive, NOT the S: Drive.

You are welcome to start creating your Website either while using any of GCC's computers on campus or at home. If you decide to work on your website at home at any point, be sure to take a look at our Working From Off Campus page, which talks about accessing your H: Drive from home so you can upload necessary files to your H: Drive.

Here are the four simple steps to take to get your web page going (we're assuming you're starting this while on campus):

  1. On your H:\ drive, the personal space created for you on eGCC, there should already be a folder called "public.www", without the quotation marks. If not, please create one.
  2. Create a new HTML document in your HTML editor or in the Notepad application available with Windows.
  3. Save your file periodically as you work on it! To save your file, select "Save As..." from the File Menu and do the following:
    • Select the "public.www" folder in the "Save in:" list to save your changes AND publish your site. Or, create a new folder that will store your HTML files as you work on them before you publish.
    • Name your file "index.html", without the quotation marks
    • Select HTML Document from the options in the "Save as Type" list. In Notepad, select "All Files" in the "Save as Type" list - if you don't do this, Notepad will save your document as a Text file (index.html.txt), which will result in your page to NOT be readable by web browsers.
    • Click "Save".
  4. To publish your web page, make sure the file is in the public.www folder you created earlier. If you saved your file to another folder, copy and paste the file into the public.www folder. Remember, anything in the public.www folder is viewable by anyone visiting your website's hyperlink.
  5. Also, if you were looking at public.www under H:, it'd be located at H:\public.www
«Back to Top

How do I view my web space?

The URL, or web address, for your website will be:

Remember to replace "eGCC_username" with your eGCC Username. Note that the address for your specific web site contains a tilde (~) located just before the eGCC_username.

In case you can't see your webpage, please continue to
our Troubleshooting section just below on this page.

«Back to Top

Why do I need "index.html"?

The one required file always has the name "index", typically with the document extension ".html" because most web pages are written in HTML.

By default, Internet browsers will look for this file once you type in a web address, even though the web address might not make mention of the "index" file. Go ahead and try this with the Glendale Community College Homepage by clicking this link: http://www.gc.maricopa.edu. You'll notice that even after the page has completely loaded, the web address remains as http://www.gc.maricopa.edu .

Now, try it with this link: http://www.gc.maricopa.edu/index.html. This link only has "index.html" added to it, and it still took you to the same place as http://www.gc.maricopa.edu. Had the Glendale Community College website Webmaster not had created the "index.html" file, you wouldn't have been able to access the website simply by typing http://www.gc.maricopa.edu. Pretty cool, isn't it?

«Back to Top

Troubleshooting -- I followed the instructions, and my page won't load when I go to my website address at http://web.gccaz.edu/~eGCC_username. What did I do wrong?

There are a few things to look for, and here are the most common errors students encounter:

The index.html file was placed in a folder other than "public.www".

Simply move the file from the folder it's in right now and put it in "public.www". If you're uncertain on how to do this, feel free to talk to any of the friendly Instructional Associates walking around the High Tech Centers (HT1 or HT2).

The "public.www" folder was created/placed in another folder.

If you were to look at your H: drive using "My Computer" on a Windows eGCC machine on campus (that's the location called the same as your eGCC Username using Mac's program "Finder"), the location is something other than "H:/public.www". Correct this problem by moving the folder so that it sits in the H: drive so that you can see public.www along with the "profile" and "My Documents" folders.

The page displays, but I see some of the HTML code, such as "<p>".

You're most likely missing an end-tag, which looks like the end-tag for the paragraph tag: </p>. Go through your document and look to make sure your code is correct. Search Google for a "HTML validator" to help you check your code, and also search for "HTML tutorial" to help you better understand HTML.

Or, you were probably using a program with a built-in HTML editor like MS Word, which normally only asks for the content you want to put on your page and no code. If this is the case, take out the HTML code and leave the content. Save the document and try again.

«Back to Top