Glossary


A

ActiveX

Microsoft's adaptation of its OLE technology (Object Linking and Embedding), which is a set of rules defining the ways in which applications can share information.

ActiveX Controls are data objects constructed using a variety of programming languages. The controls are activated by scripts (written in VBScript or JavaScript) to perform specific functions automatically or in response to user input.


ASCII
American Standard Code for I nformation Interchange. Pronounced ask-ee, ASCII is a code for representing English characters as numbers, with each letter assigned a number from 0 to 127. For example, the ASCII code for uppercase M is 77. Most computers use ASCII codes to represent text, which makes it possible to transfer data from one computer to another.
from the PC-Webopaedia, Copyright © 1996, Sandy Bay Software, Inc.


Asynchronous
In computer-mediated communication, asynchronous ususually means that different users accessing the same channel of communication (e-mail, newsgroups, etc.) can submit data independently of one another, so that other users do not have to wait until a submission is finished before submmitting data of their own, and users do not have to be connected to the network simultaneously.


B

Bandwidth
A measure of the amount of data that can be transmitted over a particular network connection in a given amount of time. Often expressed in bytes per second (bps).


Binary Files
Data files in which the information is stored in the binary code of 1's and 0's that make up the basic language of computing. Binary files generally require some application to represent the data in a form comprehensible to humans. In transferring files from one computer to another, binary files require a different protocol from that for ASCII files.


C

CGI
Common Gateway Interface. The format and syntax for passing information from browsers to servers via forms or document based queries in HTML. CGI programs (or scripts) are programs written especially to process data delivered from an HTML form, or to pass that data on to another application.


Color Depth
Also called bit depth; the number of colors used in displayed a graphic image. The greater the color depth, the larger the resulting graphic file will be.


Cookies

Cookies are bits of information passed from a web server to a web browser and stored on the local user's computer in a file called cookie.txt -- this information is gathered and sent to the browser by scripts associated with a web page, and the information may be requested later when the user returns to that page. Cookies are used for such purposes as storing usernames and passwords for sites with limited access.


Cyberspace
The imaginary "space" of interaction between networked computers (the term is especially, though not exclusively, used in reference to the Internet). Cyberspace is represented to users through a variety of interfaces, some sort of GUI in the present state of computer technology, though some reserve the term cyberspace for virtual reality representations that provide a complete virtual user "environment."


Cropping
Removing parts of a graphic image to reduce the file size or remove unwanted parts.


D

Data

Anything that gets transmitted through the network. Requires decoding to become information.


Decoding

The process by which data is turned into information. Decoding is performed partly by software, which turns binary information into readable documents, and partly by the user, who uses knowledge of the discourse and context to determine the significance of the data.


Destination

The ultimate result of communication, which is usually some form of action, including additional communication or feedback.


Discourse

A subset of a general language (like English) used by a particular community (e.g. the discourse of information technology).


Dithering
A process by which computers approximate the display of colors in an image that are not available given the particular system configuration. Dithering is achieved by varying the patterns of dots that make up the image. Dithering slows down the display of graphics, so using colors that are available on as many systems as possible improves the performance of web pages that include graphics.


E

Encoding

The process by which some source information is transformed into data that can be transmitted through the network and decoded by other users. Encoding is partly a matter of translating the discourse of the source information into discourse more familiar to the target audience (summarizing a technical article into simpler terms, for instance), and partly a matter of putting the information into a form that can be transmitted and then decoded by available software (e.g. scanning a paper document and putting it into HTML form to viewed by Web browsers).


F

Feedback

A message sent in response to another message. In face-to-face conversation we take this capability for granted, but in network communication it's essential to provide (preferably multiple) rich paths for easy feedback. "Rich" means that the feedback path is capable of returning all the information in the original message along with the reply. For more information, see the Feedback page.


Fluency

Competence in encoding or decoding, including knowledge of the discourse, context, and any skills and software tools needed to send or receive the message through the network.


Format
the properties of a data object, usually encoded as a set of instructions to an application on how to present the data through various output devices, such as the computer display or printer.


Frame
In hypertext , Frame is often used as a term identical to Lexia


G

Graphical User Interface (GUI)
Many computer programs (especially those written for windowing shells for operating systems, such as the Desktops for Macintosh or Windows or OS/2, or the X-Windows interface for UNIX) provide users with a GUI, a complex but relatively stable images that graphically not only represent files that the user accesses through the program (e.g. the text file called up in a word processing program), but also provides command menus, icon bars, status bars, and other features that represent the commands that the user may issue to the program and the status of various parts of the program and/or file.


H

Hypermedia
The term Hypermedia is used in several ways:

  1. to refer to multimedia documents created using the Macintosh Hypercard program
  2. to refer to hypertext documents including data other than text, such a video clips, sound clips, and graphic images
  3. as a synonym for hypertext , since many hypertext documents do include materials other than text

Hypertext
A web composed of a number of linked electronic documents. A general set of conventions called Hypertext Markup Language, or HTML is used to construct documents like this one, which may be viewed with any World Wide Web browser, such as Netscape, Lynx, or Mosaic. There are a number of other hypertext formats specific to particular hypertext reading software; for example, most on-line help files are written in hypertext format specific to various operating systems, and there are other popular hypertext reading/composing programs like Intermedia, StorySpace, and DynaText.


Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)
The most widely used set of conventions for creating hypertext documents. The evolving HTML standards are used for creation of World Wide Web documents and others.


HTTP
Hypertext Transfer Protocol: the underlying protocol for the World Wide Web, which defines the rules for sharing web documents through a network.


I

Information

Data must undergo a certain amount of decoding intelligible to the user. Data becomes information when it is decoded to the point of being intelligible in a general way (though the significance in the particular context may not be clear--see knowledge).


Intranet
A network of documents that is identical in appearance and function to the World Wide Web, but is closed off from the general Internet by a firewall, so that the documents are accessible only within a defined local network.


J

Java

Java is an object-oriented programming language developed by Sun Microsystems. Java has become a popular language for writing applets embedded in HTML pages because the language contains no machine specific code and therefore runs on any computer that has a Java compiler (now built-in to most popular web browsers).


K

Knowledge

Information that has been fully decoded in relation to the user's context and thus assimilated to the knowledge already possessed (transforming that existing knowledge in a modest or radical way in the process). In general, knowledge is a mass of information that has been arranged into a system (depending on available discourses and contexts) and thus made available for further communication.


L

Lexia
A "chunk" of hypertext, connected to other chunks by links . The lexia will appear on the computer screen as material--text, graphic images, video images, etc.--framed in some way by the graphical user interface (or GUI ) provided by the hypertext reader software.


Link
The electronic connections between lexias . Technically, these links are hidden commands in the document that tell the hypertext reader software to display another portion of the file or some other file on the same computer or another one. Links are sometimes indicated in the document by special fonts, colors, or other formatting and/or a change in the display of the mouse pointer when it moves over the text or image that marks the link. In some cases links may be hidden from users altogether.


M

Medium
Used in many, often contradictory ways. The most important uses of the term for computer-mediated communication are:


Multimedia
See Hypermedia and Hypertext.


N

Network
Network is used in a variety of ways. In general computer-industry terms, it refers of a collection of different computers that are electronically connected so as to be able to communicate and share data. In hypertext, network is sometimes used to refer to the collection of linked lexias that make up a hypertext document; in this usage, network means the same thing as web.


Node
In hypertext, Node is often used as a term identical to Lexia


Noise

Anything that becomes part of the message apart from the intentions of the person who encoded it. Various kinds of mechanical noise may be introduced by encoding, transmitting, and decoding processes of the network. Other forms of noise may be introduced by users who understand the message differently than the sender because of psychological or cultural differences, or a different level in fluency. Early theorists of communication saw noise simply as a problem to be addressed, but more recently noise has come to be seen as a potential source of new knowledge.


Nonlinear Text
"A nonlinear text is an object of verbal communication that is not simply one fixed sequence of letters, words, and sentences but one in which the words or sequence of words may differ from reading to reading because of the shape, conventions, or mechanisms of the text."
( Aarseth, "Nonlinearity and Literary Theory " 51)


O


P

Palette
In computer graphics, the set of colors available for a graphic file. Most image editors allow you to specify or vary palettes; using a palette of non-dithering colors will improve decrease the time it takes to load the graphics used in web pages.


Pixel
Short for Picture Element. Computer graphics and the computer display are conventionally divided into rows and columns of pixels of identical size. Displays can generally be set to different resolutions, which designates the number of rows and columns that the display is divided into (e.g. 640 (pixels in width) x 480 (pixels in height), 800x600, etc.). Graphic image sizes and margins and spacing for HTML documents are generally given in pixels.


Protocol
A set of rules governing the format of data, which allow different computers on a network to share the data.


Q


R

Redundancy

Redundancy is a measure of the amount of information in a moment of communication that is already familiar to the user. Not only familiar "content" but familiar aspects of the medium and form are included. For instance, you now recognize that what you are reading is a web page, writing, prose, expository, and so forth (note that it makes no difference whether you know terms like "expository," so long as you understand the difference it signifies). You probably are not aware of processing much of this information--precisely because the information is redundant, and processing therefore easy and automatic. The kinds of writing handbooks and instruction that many of us encounter in school often call redundancy a fault to be avoided. It's important to understand that this "rule" is directed toward excessive redundancy in content, to which some inexperienced writers are prone. In more general terms, however, redundancy is not only a virtue, but a necessary condition for effective communication.


Resolution
For computer graphics: refers to the number of dots per inch (dpi) used to display the image. The greater the dpi, the finer the shades of coloring will be, but also the size of the graphics file.

For computer displays: refers to the number of pixels the display screen is divided into (e.g. 640x480 or 800x600); higher resolution results in crisper images and more apparent screen space, but also decreases the apparent size of images and text, and degrades the performance of the system.


Root
In a web site, the root directory is the root for the site, NOT the root directory for the disk (usually C:\). The server root is the highest level directory that is read by the server, and therefore the highest level directory that can be accessed by remote browsers. The root is set by the server software, and all directories for the site must be subdirectories of the root.


S

Scripts

Scripts are computer programming code. Scripts generally differ from stand-alone computer programs in two ways:

The three most commonly used scripting languages for the World Wide Web are:

Sociomedia
"[S]ociomedia" signifies that when we design computer media we are hardwiring a mechanism for the social construction of knowledge."

(Barrett, "Sociomedia" 1)


Source

The original information that a new message is derived from through encoding.


T

TCP/IP
Transport Control Protocol/Internet Protocol: the underlying protocol that defines the rules for information sharing across the Internet or an Intranet.


Transcoding

All information, even "sources" are always already encoded. Therefore all encoding an decoding are actually transcodings from the code of the existing message into a code the user finds more useful.


U

URL (Uniform Resource Locatory
A standard form for internet addresses that define the location of Internet sites and documents (e.g. http://www.bentley.edu/ or http://web.bentley.edu/empl/c/rcrooks/comm-web/index.html). There are several different types of addresses including http (for HTML documents), gopher (for goopher sites), and ftp (for ftp sites). You need URL's to define links between HTML documents.


V


W

Web
In hypertext , Web is sometimes used to signify the overall array or network of the linked lexias, or to a graphical representation (on the computer screen) of that array provided by the hypertext reader software. The lexias may all be contained in a single file, or in many separate files on the same computer, or on various computers connected through a local or wide area network, as in the case of the World Wide Web.


Web Browser
A program displays World Wide Web documents. More precisely, a program that translates HTML formatting so as to create a nice display of HTML documents. There are many commercial and free browsers available, but they can be roughly divided into two kinds: text based browsers like Lynx; and GUI-based browsers like Netscape, Mosaic, and Microsoft's Internet Explorer.


World Wide Web
a loose, variously linked web of hypertext documents accessible through the Internet.

X


Y


Z