Mark Cooper

Graduate Studies Coordinator,
Web Site Coordinator

Tel. (614) 292-7280
Fax: (614) 292-1537

Office: 477 Watts Hall

coo...@matsceng.ohio-state.edu

Mark was born and raised in Columbus and attended The Ohio State University. He has worked in the MSE department since 1996 as the Graduate Studies Coordinator and also serves as the department's Web Site Coordinator.

Mark's schedule

Below, please find Mark's scheduled appointments for the month.

Web design

General design

Link to OSU Web Design Resources. The purpose of this site is to house information about high quality, accessible Web design at Ohio State. The site contains official graphic logos, editorial standards and guidelines, tips for linking to and utilizing centrally located Web services, and contact information. The site was created by the New Media Unit within University Relations.

Link to A List Apart. A List Apart (ALA) is an on-going series of articles on web design that "explores the design, development, and meaning of web content, with a special focus on web standards and best practices." Many step-by-step articles on how to make use of CSS.

• Link to The ALA Primer: A Guide for New Readers. Great intro to the site and its features, including links to "foundational" articles that detail the theories, concepts, and practices on which much of the modern web is built.

Cascading Style Sheets

Link to Web Design Group info on Cascading Style Sheets. Basic intro to CSS; includes tutorial, properties, and other information.

Link to Index D O T CSS. A reference listing of many commonly used CSS properties and the values available within each, as well as syntax rules. The "Property Index" is probably of most use.

Link to HTMLGoodies CSS tutorial HTMLGoodies offers primers for a wide range of web design and coding languages.

Link to maxdesign.com tutorials. A great set of step-by-step tutorials explaining how to float items, make horozontal menus, multicolumn layouts, and other basic layout issues using css rather than javascript or tables.

Specific ALA articles:

• Link to ALA article on horizontal dropdown menus. The "Suckerfish Dropdowns" article details the HTML and CSS code needed to creat a standards-compliant, javascript (mostly) free, accessible horizontal navigation menu.
• Link to ALA article on three-column liquid layouts. The "holy grail" of current web design, this article goes through the steps involved in creating the classic three-column layout without the use of tables. [Note: while interesting as an explaination, OSU's web resources, both at the WAC and New Media Web Design Resources sites, provide solid, well tested code for both two and three column layouts.]

Accessibility

Link to OSU Web Accessibility Center (WAC)--resources section. The WAC was established to aid OSU web designers in developing web sites that meet Federal 508 ADA guidelines. This site is a wealth of good, solid design information, tutorials, and best practices. In particular, link to the OSU Resources section for accessible, well tested template pages that can be easily adapted to use for OSU-related sites.

Tutorials, self-teaching, reference

Link to W3 Schools. A wide array of very helpful tutorials and references. Includes certification courses, quizzes, examples, and much more.

Link to HTML Goodies. A wealth of information on everything from basic HTML to java, PHP, Perl and more. Includes many tutorials and helps.

Link to Webmonkey.com. Similar to HTMLGoodies, Webmonkey is a great source of guidance as one moves deeper and deeper into web site development.

Link to Index D O T HTML. A reference listing of many commonly used HTML tags and the values available for each, as well as syntax rules.

Misc.

Link to Lorem Ipsum generator. Need to fill space with dummy text while developing a site or a publication? This is an interesting site describing the use of Lorem Ipsum since the dawn of the printing industry in the 1500's.