IT Services
How to...
Publishing information online
This guide deals with “publishing” information online. There are two main methods available: using the World Wide Web and anonymous FTP (File Transfer Protocol). These methods are appropriate when you wish to make the information available for a reasonable length of time. Using the web has several advantages including:
- Most people are now very familiar with using the web
- You can restrict access if required
Anonymous FTP is useful if you have very large files that you wish to make accessible to others.
There are other approaches which might be more appropriate if you have some information that you want to “circulate”, for example if you want volunteers for an experiment or help with a problem.
Sending email to a mailing list
There are many mailing lists available. People who subscribe to a particular group will receive by email any messages sent to it. A large number of groups used by staff and students at UK universities are managed by JISCmail at:
Posting a message to Sussex Forums
The University of Sussex maintains “Sussex Forums”, online bulletin boards for the university community at:
You will need to register to use the forums, but it is a quick and easy process.
Posting a message to an Internet Newsgroup
Again there are thousands of different “Usenet newsgroups” available, part of an Internet discussion system started in 1980. Originally only accessible via either a specialised newsgroup reader or email program, they are now also accessible via web browser and cover almost any topic imaginable.
They can be searched using Google's Usenet archive at:
- Publishing on the web
- Publishing your own web pages
- Publishing USSU society pages
- Using anonymous FTP
- Use of copyright material
Publishing on the web
How and where you can publish on University webservers depends on for whom you're publishing.
All core academic unit websites (including departments, Schools, IDPs, Research Units and Graduate Centres) are managed via a website content management system (WCM). For further information please refer to the webteam pages.
Profile pages
Staff can amend individual profile pages via Sussex direct. Go to 'Personal' and then 'Web profile'.
Individual members of staff and graduate students
People who fall into one of these categories are entitled to a space on the central webserver to host a personal web site. Send a request to www-request@sussex.ac.uk. Documentation on the setting up of personal web pages on the central server will be issued on completion of a successful application. The root URL for personal web pages always takes the form http://sussex.ac.uk/Users/username. Personal web pages do not automatically get linked from university web sites and are not indexed in the search facility (university related content should wherever possible, be published via the WCM system).
Course material should be published via the WCM document manager or via Study Direct (please see the E-learning website for more information).
Publishing your own web pages
You first have to create your information in the form of an HTML document. You then have to publish it by putting it in your personal web directory on IT Services Unix. The following examples are for the person with the user identifier ano23; you must replace this identifier with your own user identifier.
PC file
Use FTP to publish the information by copying the file from the PC to the directory:
/home/csrv/ano23/public_html/
Unix file
The procedure, if the file is on IT Services Unix, is to login and copy the file from your directory on IT Services Unix into your personal web directory.
Conventionally, the first file a person will see is index.html. The command to copy this file is:
$ cp index.html /home/csrv/ano23/public_html/
Checking
In either case, after you have copied the file into your personal web directory you should check that the file can be read by others. If you find that the file is not accessible you will need to change the settings. For the above example, you do this by logging into IT Services Unix and issuing the command:
$ chmod a+r /home/csrv/ano23/public_html/index.html
Getting the files
You will have to provide the URL of your personal web pages to anyone you want to see the information. The URL for the above examples is:
sussex.ac.uk/Users/ano23/
Publishing USSU society pages
Using the ITS student desktop ftp programme Filezilla (see File transfer using FTP guide for details), logon to unix.sussex.ac.uk with your ITS email username and password. The web server is represented by the right-hand screen. You will find that your location is
/home/csrv/yourusername
In the Remote Site: address bar change the path to /home/WWW/Units/USSU/. You will be taken to the USSU directory and will find your society directory there - click on it to open.
The left-side of the screen is for your local file location - eg memory stick, local drive or whatever. To upload simply drag the files over to your society directory on the server.
To check your web pages, go to: http://www.ussu.net/***** where ***** is the name of your society directory.
Using anonymous FTP
Any files you want to make available via anonymous FTP must be copied into a special directory on IT Services Unix. Send your request for this directory to be created by email to:
The following examples are for the person with the username ano23 who wishes to make the file paper.doc available. You must substitute this user identifier with your own user identifier.
PC file
Use FTP to copy the file to the directory
/home/FTP/Users/ano23/
Unix file
Login and copy the file from your IT Services Unix directory to the directory
/home/FTP/Users/ano23/
For this example the command is:
$ cp paper.doc /home/FTP/Users/ano23/
Checking
In either case you will then have to make the file readable by others. In this example, you would login to IT Services Unix and issue the command:
$ chmod a+r /home/FTP/Users/ano23/paper.doc
Getting the files
The other person needs to:
- Use an FTP client to connect to ftp.sussex.ac.uk
- Specify Anonymous as the user identifier and their email address as the password
- Move to the appropriate directory, which in the above examples is /pub/Users/ano23
More information
Use of copyright material
You are reminded that the University has published Regulations on the Use of Computers and Computer Networks and that any use of computers at Sussex must conform to these Regulations. The Regulations are displayed in all the IT Services cluster rooms and are online at
sussex.ac.uk/governance/compregs/
The Regulations mention the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988. Great care should be taken to avoid infringing copyright. A great deal of copyright material is freely available in archives, such as cartoon characters — for example Homer Simpson, Cartman and Winnie the Pooh — and music. These are works of art, and are protected by copyright legislation.
Even if you can find such images already online they should not be copied. Even if the archive contains no warning information that the characters are protected by copyright, you must assume that copyright protection is current. Of course, scanning such copyright material yourself is also illegal! Do not use such material, for example, to enliven your own web pages.
created on 2010-01-01 by Chris Limb
last updated on 2013-07-23 by David Guest