Examples on How to Use the WWW in Your Study and Research

Examples on How to Use the WWW in
Your Study and Research

http://www.hku.hk/cupem/wwwdemo.html

by Anthony Yeh
Centre of Urban Planning and Environmental Management
University of Hong Kong

1) Entering the URL Directly

You need to know the URL (Universal Resource Locator) of the home page that you would like to see and type it in the Netsite dialogue box near the top of the browser. You will be able to go to the homepage directly by hitting <return>. For example, if you want to see the home page of the Centre, you enter http://www.hku.hk/cupem (the URL of the Centre).

The following are examples of some WWW sites that you may like to try out by entering their URL directly :

http://www.info.gov.hk/planning
Planning Department, Hong Kong

http://www.hku.hk/cupem
CUPEM, Centre of Urban Planning and Environmental Management
University of Hong Kong

2) WWW Links

Most homepages, like the homepage of the Centre, have hot links to other related sites. You can go into these sites directly by double clicking the underline words that have a hand icon when your mouse is over them.

You may like to try out the many useful hot links in the Centre's homepage :

http://www.hku.hk/cupem/urblink.html
WWW Links in CUPEM Home Page

3) Searching

The WWW has a number of search engines, for example, like Infoseek, Yahoo, Alta Vista that can help you to find what you want by entering the keywords. For example, if you are interested in the topic on wetlands, you can enter wetlands in the dialogue box in the search engine. Normally, more than one sites on the searched topic will be found. You can pick the most useful ones and browse through them. You can mark the sites that you want for future reference by selecting bookmarks, add bookmark in the selection menu. You can look at the homepage again in the future by selecting bookmarks, view bookmark, and the URL in the bookmarks list in the selection menu.

You can try out the search engine of Infoseek :

http://guide.infoseek.com
Infoseek search for information on : wetlands

4) Communication (send email)

You can also send email to the person that you would like to contact by double clicking the email address in the homepage.

You may like to try out sending an email to Anthony Yeh :

send email to Anthony Yeh in
http://hkusuc.hku.hk/cupem/staffs_1.html

5) Database Search

Some homepages enable you to get information by searching through their database. To do database search, you need to type in the information that you would like to search.

You may like to try to search the database of the University of Hong Kong :

http://www.hku.hk/home/search
HKU database search

6) Download Files

Some homepages enable you to download software and files.

You may like to try downloading the Netscape browser program from the Netscape homepage:

http://home.netscape.com
Netscape file

Dowload files from the download file library
http://www.download.com

7) Self Learning

You can learn through the web.

GIS Tutorial
http://www.hku.hk/cupem/hkugis/gistutor.html

Web-Based Learning and Assessment
http://www.hku.hk/local/cc/webct/

8) Mapping

You may even be able to do interactive mapping on the WWW. You may like to try out the mapping facilities in the US Census Bureau Tiger Map Service :

http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/gazetteer
US Census Bureau Tiger Map Service

You may be able to find out many new information and learn new skills and knowledge from the WWW.

For information on the teaching of planning related topics with computers, you may like to visit the Built Environment CTI home page :

http://ctiweb.cf.ac.uk
Built Environment CTI (CTICBE) and the CTI Initiative, University of Wales, Cardiff
About the Built Environment Computers in Teaching Initiative (CTICBE) and the CTI Initiative. Links to other CTI Web Servers.