June 2002

By Jeanne Muñoz

Turn homework into security-enhanced, interactive forms for your class Web site.

You undoubtedly have noticed your students' enthusiasm as they interact with the Internet—using hyperlinks, viewing video clips, contributing to bulletin board discussions—and you have observed that they are actively engaged in their learning. Designed to collect user input, forms provide further opportunities for students to interact with Web site content. However, until recently, creating forms for your Web site may have seemed to require a programming degree, and Internet security may have filled you with dread.

Forms: What are the educational possibilities?

How often do your students fill out paperwork? Student data, surveys, homework assignments—the list could go on and on. As an alternative, have you considered redesigning these activities as forms for your class Web site?

• An experiment with forms  Imagine assigning your students an experiment to be conducted outside class. On your Web site are the step-by-step procedures accompanied by scrolling text boxes for students to record their data and conclusions. Once the information is entered, students click the Submit button, and the data is sent to a database that displays the results on your site.
• Problem of the week   Perhaps you include a question or problem of the week on your Web site. Why not add a form so that students can submit their answer online? Student responses are collected in a designated e-mail box for your review.
• Testing, testing…  Do you assign reviews as preparation for quizzes and exams? Instead of a paper-and-pencil task, place a study guide and practice quiz online. Use a combination of text boxes for short answers, option buttons for true and false, and drop-down list boxes for multiple choice questions. Once students have submitted their answers, you are able to monitor the feedback and target your own in-class review to their strengths and weaknesses.
• What's your opinion?  Your students are assigned a news program to watch this evening. Rather than delay the discussion until your next class period, why not give students a chance to respond to the show through an online poll? In addition to providing an opportunity for immediate response, this encourages those who are hesitant to participate in front of others in class. Results from your poll can be entered automatically into a database, and the results are ready to display for a class discussion later on.

Of course, there are many other times when forms are a good solution:

• Collecting personal student data at the beginning of a semester.
• Allowing evaluative feedback about your Web site—either your content or student projects posted there.
• Providing a place for responses for online course content.
• Collecting data from around the world during telecollaborative projects.
• Providing an opportunity for parent feedback.

Using FrontPage to add that form

The Microsoft FrontPage Web site creation and management tool simplifies the mystique of designing forms. There are two ways to add forms to your Web page:

• Using Form Page Wizard
• Creating your own using the Insert menu on the toolbar

When you add a form, FrontPage inserts a region outlined by a dashed rectangular region. This area contains Submit and Reset buttons and allows you to add form fields such as text boxes, text areas, option buttons, check boxes, push buttons, and drop-down list boxes.

The Form Page Wizard guides you through each step to create the form and then generates it, including a method for handling submissions. After you have determined the questions you'll ask and the type of form fields you'll need, you are ready to begin.

Follow the steps below to construct a form in FrontPage 2002. (Earlier versions of FrontPage follow similar but not identical instructions.)

To create a form using the Form Page Wizard

1. In Page view, click New from the File menu and then click Page or Web.
2. From the task pane, click Page Templates under New from Template.
3. On the General tab, choose Form Page Wizard and click OK. An introductory dialog box will appear.

   

4. Click Next, and then click Add to select the type of input or to edit changes.
5. Follow the on-screen prompts to complete your form.

Note  Before testing the functionality of your forms, you must publish your Web site to a Web server equipped with either FrontPage Server Extensions or SharePoint™ Team Services from Microsoft. Server Extensions are a set of programs that can be downloaded and installed on a server to enable special features.

Choosing options for handling form results

Once your forms are created, you need to decide how you want the form results handled. Use the Form Properties dialog box that appears when you right-click a form field. There are several options for collecting the data to review, sort, analyze, and display:

• Submit the information to an e-mail address.
• Save the results to a text or Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) file.
• Submit the information to a new or already existing database.
• Use custom scripts to handle the results.

Note  Unless you choose to use your own custom scripts, FrontPage Server Extensions must be installed on your Web server to allow the other options.

Securing your Web site

Before installing the completed forms on your Web page, there are some relevant security questions to consider:

• How secure is your Web site from modification and malicious damage?
• Can access to the forms be restricted?
• How secure are the transmissions from the user to the Web server?
• Will the collected data be safe?

Frequently considered the job of the Web server administrator, security is an important piece of the Web site puzzle. With millions of users connected to the Internet, routing information through a maze of unfamiliar computers, security risks are inherent.

Contingent upon the security mechanisms of your Web server and its operating system, FrontPage offers a number of additional options to help safeguard your Web site. These include the ability to help control access and use encrypted transmissions.

Helping to control access

FrontPage provides tools that let you establish user (and user group) lists and assign a type of access in order to perform certain actions. These permissions can be applied by pointing to Server, and then clicking Permissions on the Tools menu. For more information about roles and permissions, see Users, Groups and Roles in FrontPage or SharePoint Team Services.

To avoid being overwhelmed by unsolicited form submissions, consider limiting form access to your current students. By restricting access to those who have been preregistered by the Web administrator, only those with authenticated user IDs and passwords gain access to your materials.

Helping to protect file transfers and form submissions

When you're ready to publish your Web site, FrontPage supports both the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and File Transfer Protocol (FTP) for uploading over the Internet. Click Publish Web from the File menu, and then type the location of the Web server or FTP server in the Publish Destination dialog box. If your server has FrontPage Server Extensions, you are able to use HTTP to help protect the transfer of your site to the Web server. FrontPage Server Extensions transmit the forms using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), which helps protect your security when SSL is supported on your Web server.

Note  To use SSL connections on your Web server, the server must be configured with a security certificate from a recognized certificate authority. Merely selecting the option to use SSL in FrontPage will not guarantee a secure connection.

During a transfer of information over the Internet, the potential exists for interception and viewing, copying, or modification of your files by unauthorized parties. Imagine the creative input you might receive on your forms! SSL helps protect the files by encrypting and decrypting data transferred between the client browser and the Web server. It authenticates the sender and the recipient before establishing an encrypted connection, and helps verify the integrity of the data during transfer. Security measures also help protect remote authoring.

When creating a new Web site on a remote server, you can specify an option in the Web Site Template dialog box indicating that an encrypted connection is required. To do this, on the File menu, point to New and then click Page or Web. In the New Web or Page task pane, click Web Site Templates under New from template. In the Options list, check Secure Connection Required (SSL). This requests SSL protection from the server on all transmissions to and from your Web site. In this way, you can further help protect your form submissions, but only when SSL is supported on your Web server. Learn more about encrypted connections in the article FP2002: How to Use Secure Sockets Layer to Encrypted Pages in Your Web.

Helping to safeguard form input

Web servers have several layers of security protection. Make sure that your collected data is stored on an area of the server employing security measures. While collected information in the HTTP format may be easier for you to view, it is also easier for others to access. It is best to store sensitive data as a text file. You also can designate a private hidden folder as the destination for form input.

Accepting the challenge

Are you ready to experiment? There are many valid and creative educational uses for online forms. FrontPage provides the tools to simplify the process of creating and handling them, and offers options for additional layers of Web site security to put your mind at ease. Typically, your school's Web server administrator is the one designated to manage site access and security. Consult with this administrator as you develop your activities and motivate your students with new interactive opportunities for learning.

More information

• Beyond Permissions: Help Protect you MS FrontPage 2000-based Web Content, Microsoft TechNet
• FP 2002: How to Use Secure Sockets Layer to Help Protect Pages in Your Web, Microsoft Product Support Services
• FP2000: Security Best Practices for FrontPage 2000, Microsoft Product Support Services
• "About Security," Microsoft FrontPage 2002 Help
• Quick Course in Microsoft FrontPage 2000 (Online Press, 2000)
• Special Edition: Using Microsoft FrontPage 2002 by Dennis Jones and Neil Randall (Que Publishing, 2001)
• Microsoft FrontPage 2002 Unleashed by William Stanek (Sams Publishing, 2001)

Jeanne Muñoz is an educational consultant, specializing in curriculum and technology. She is a writer, speaker, and technology trainer with over 20 years of K-8 teaching experience. Jeanne resides in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she is currently working on a variety of content development projects.