Participants earn three University of Washington credits upon successful completion of a course. Nine credits are required to earn the certificate.
Interested in taking a single class? Some courses (designated by a 
below) may be open on a space-available basis to professionals who are not seeking the certificate. See Single-Course Enrollment for details.
Preparatory Course
Introduction to Web Publishing
Schedule: Instructor-led, Web-based course with online discussion; start anytime, three-month completion; $725; 3 credits.
Instructor: Zoe Holbrooks.
For information on how to register, please see this course listed under individual classes.
Gain a solid grasp of the fundamentals to create, design and publish information on the Web.
The course provides an understanding of markup languages in the technological landscape of the Internet and Web, and their role in making content available on the Web. Students learn HTML coding, including HTML hyperlinks, tables, forms and image techniques. Other topics include UNIX basics, universal design and accessibility (including Section 508 and the W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative), Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), the Document Object Model (DOM), XHTML, and the eXtensible Markup Language (XML). No background in markup languages is assumed.
After completing this course, participants are able to:
- Explain the evolution of markup languages, including SGML, HTML, DHTML, XHTML, and XML
- Prepare content for the Web with appropriate markup
- Assess pros and cons of markup technologies
- Keep current with SGML/HTML/XML Web standards as they develop
- Recognize the limitations of markup, and identify appropriate complimentary technologies to accomplish design and delivery goals
Prerequisites: Experience with a computer operating system (such as Windows, Macintosh, or UNIX/Linux), standard office software file management on a PC and any Web browser.
View the course introduction
Winter Course
Client-Side Scripting and Design
Schedule: (10 weeks) January 4-March 19, 2010. This is an asynchronously scheduled online course; students start and end the course as a group, but do not adhere to specific class meeting times; $750; 3 credits.
Instructor: Jeff Witzel
JavaScript, a computer language developed by Netscape Communications in collaboration with Sun Microsystems, allows you to create powerful forms and form-based applications, event-based activities such as menus that magically appear as you move your mouse over a specific link (flyout menus), and a whole emerging type of client applications described as "AJAX" (examples being GMail, Google Maps, or a host of other feature-rich interactive applications that predominantly run within the browser itself.) In this course you will learn fundamental skills in enhancing Web pages using JavaScript, as well as begin to understand the way the DOM (Document Object Model) works and how it relates to content that is presented on a web page.
This course is intended for those with little or no previous programming experience; it is designed to provide basic skills in general programming techniques, using the JavaScript language as a basis. Participants will learn to:
- Identify and explain the differences between client-side and server-side processing, as well as the concepts of the DOM and AJAX.
- Embed pre-written Javascripts from other sources into existing Web pages.
- Use basic programming concepts such as variables, arrays, basic input and output, computations, and the concatenation of string data.
- Program simple Javascripts from scratch, using basic programming concepts as well as logical constructions such as if-then-else statements, for-loops, while-loops, functions, and performing data comparisons with Boolean conditionals.
- Use object-oriented language components to manipulate the browser window and document object from within Javascripts.
- Understand the hierarchy behind the DOM and how to manipulate it programmatically.
- Conceptualize the principles at work behind AJAX and work with sample applications.
Prerequisites: (1) Introduction to Web Publishing (see Related Course), completion of similar course(s) or understanding of web development using HTML, and (2) experience with a computer operating system (such as Windows, Macintosh, or UNIX/Linux), Internet access, and a web browser. No previous programming experience is assumed.
View the course introduction
How to sign up for individual enrollment in this course
Spring Course
Server-Side Programming Using PHP
Schedule: 10 weeks) March 29-June 11, 2010; This is an asynchronously scheduled online course; students start and end the course as a group, but do not adhere to specific class meeting times; $750; 3 credits.
Instructor: Lincoln Mongillo
This is the first of two courses intended to build expertise in server-side programming for the development of data-driven Web applications using PHP and MySQL. It offers a broad coverage of PHP fundamentals, including operators, strings, conditionals, loops, arrays, functions and key Web development techniques, from file handling to validating user input with regular expressions. This course concludes with a general orientation to server-side programming with SQL databases, emphasizing PHP's interaction with the MySQL database system. The overview of MySQL's features and database connectivity basics—how to access MySQL databases through PHP scripting—serves as an important bridge to the following course in the series: SQL, Data Storage Technologies and Web-Data Integration.
After completing this course, participants are able to:
- Understand the server environment and architecture of data-driven Web applications
- Define the key activities required for the planning phase of a Web-based application
- Apply the basics of server-side programming using PHP
- Access MySQL databases through PHP scripting
Prerequisites: Completion of Client-side Scripting and Design (see course description above), or familiarity with similar content as a result of coursework or experience. To succeed in this course, you should have familiarity with a computer operating system (such as Windows, Macintosh, or UNIX/Linux), ability to hand-code standards-compliant XHTML, basic familiarity with UNIX (including ftp, lynx, file permissions, and file/directory management) and basic familiarity with a programming or scripting language, such as JavaScript. Extensive programming experience or expertise is not required.
View the course introduction
How to sign up for individual enrollment in this course
Summer Course
SQL, Data Storage Technologies, and Web-Data Integration
Schedule: (10 weeks) June 21-August 20, 2010; This is an asynchronously scheduled online course; students start and end the course as a group, but do not adhere to specific class meeting times; $750; 3 credits.
Instructor: Mark Alway
In this course you will learn the skills necessary to design and create your own database and then access it online using PHP. Initially, attention is given to finding reliable, systematic and organized ways to store information so that it can be searched, browsed and used to make informed decisions. From there, the course moves on to SQL basics for creating queries, retrieving data and writing data with MySQL. Coverage extends to session management and cookies, and MySQL's storage engines, datatypes, administration utilities, security features and data import/export facilities. The course concludes with a capstone project in which students integrate server-side programming concepts and techniques, database technologies, security and client-side scripting to design an implement a dynamic, database-driven web application using PHP and MySQL.
- Develop requirements to define the scope of a database design
- Use SQL to retrieve and modify data in a relational database structure
- Store, access and query a Web database using MySQL and PHP
- Define XML and how to leverage it as a data-storage technology for building and accessing unique data sets
- Address issues of Web security that relate to PHP
- Use PHP with MySQL technologies to create data-driven web applications
Prerequisites: Completion of Server-side Programming Using PHP (see course description above), or familiarity with similar content as a result of coursework or experience. To succeed in this course, you should have the ability to hand-code standards-compliant XHTML, basic familiarity with UNIX (including ftp, lynx, file permissions, and file/directory management), basic familiarity with XML and ability to use the PHP scripting language.
View the course introduction
How to sign up for individual enrollment in this course
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