Skip to the content
Skip to the footer

Web Terminology

These are Web terms used throughout this site. They have been defined here for your convenience.

  1. Accessible - Web pages are accessible if they can be used as effectively by people with disabilities as by those without.
  2. Banner - A rectangular area with text and graphic images used to advertise or in this case identify a particular site, area, and/or product.
  3. Cascading Style Sheet - A set of formatting (style) commands that control the appearance of a Web page. Style sheets allow greater flexibility and can be applied across several Web pages resulting in a consistent look throughout a site.
  4. HEAD or Header (of HTML document) - The top portion of the HTML source code behind Web pages, beginning with <HEAD> and ending with </HEAD>. It contains the Title, Description, Keywords fields and others that web page authors may use to describe the page.
  5. First Level Page - The first or home page of a college, department, or division Web site.
  6. Hot Spot - An area of a graphic, object, or a section of text, that activates a function or action when selected. Hot spots are common in multimedia applications, where selecting a hot spot can make the application display a picture, run a video, load text, link to a Web page, or open a new window of information.
  7. HTML - Short for HyperText Markup Language, the authoring language used to create documents on the World Wide Web. HTML defines the structure and layout of a Web document by using a variety of tags and attributes.
  8. HTML Tag - A command inserted in an HTML document that specifies how the document, or a portion of the document, should be formatted.
  9. Hyperlink - A hyperlink or link for short, is a reference to another document (i.e. Web page, PDF, image, Word document, etc.). Such links are sometimes called hot links because they take you to other documents when you click on them.
  10. Image Map - A single graphic image containing more than one hot spot. Each hot spot will link you to a different Web page, document, or provide you with some additional information.
  11. JavaScript - A scripting language developed by Netscape to enable Web authors to design interactive sites. JavaScript can interact with HTML source code to create dynamic content.
  12. List of Common Links - A list of hyperlinks established by the University Web Committee to reside on all First Level pages as a set of universal University links.
  13. MouseOver - A JavaScript element that triggers a change on an item (typically a graphic change, such as making an image or hyperlink appear or change color) in a Web page when the mouse pointer passes over it. The change usually signifies that the item is a link to additional information and therefore clickable.
  14. Owner - When a Page Author uploads a file to the Web server, the author becomes the owner of that file (editing an existing file will not make you the owner). Ownership is assigned to an NIS username.
  15. Page Author - A person who edits and publishes a Web page onto the University Web server.  Authors are responsible for keeping their content accurate and up-to-date.
  16. RSS or RSS feeds - Short for "Really Simple Synication" , refers to a group of XML based web-content distribution and republication (Web syndication) formats. By subscribing to an RSS feed, you are alerted to new additions to the feed since you last read it.
  17. Screen Tip - A box or "tip" that appears when a user mouseOvers a link, image, or button, which provides additional text information relating to or describing the object being pointed to.
  18. Script - A list of commands that can be executed without user interaction. A script language is a simple programming language that allows you to write scripts.
  19. Second Level Page - A page subsequent to a First Level page.  All non-first level pages are Second Level pages even if a page resides several layers below a First Level page.
  20. Tag Attribute - A characteristic or property of a particular command.
  21. Title (of a document) - The official title of a document from the "meta" field called title <TITLE>. It is what appears in the top bar of the window when you display the document and it is the title that appears in search engine results.
  22. Web Browser - A Web browser or browser for short, is a software application used to locate and display Web pages. The two most popular browsers are Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Internet Explorer. Both of these are graphical browsers, which means that they can display graphics as well as text.
  23. XML - Extensible Markup Language, a dilution for Web page use of SGML (Standard General Markup Language). XML is very useful for pages emerging from databases and other applications where parts of the page are standardized and must reappear many times.