The World Wide Web is changing. Even though well-designed websites are still easy to navigate, they are more complex behind the scenes. The alphabet soup of XHTML, XML, AJAX, CSS, PHP and MySQL is making website development less like word processing and more like computer programming. Individuals who mastered all there was to know about HTML in 1999 have to add to their foundation knowledge. Newly designed for 2006, the FDU Web Developer Certification course is your introduction to the Web of today. It is equally appropriate for those learning web development for the first time AND for those with past web training and experience who need to add new skills.

FDU has offered continuing education in web technologies since 1998, and hundreds of individuals hold FDU certification, some sponsored by their employers, some committing their own resources to career change or skills enhancement. The Web Skills curriculum is focused on the multiple skills that are needed by any member of the workforce that uses a computer and the internet. As internet technology has begun to re-define numerous job descriptions, success increasingly depends on a thorough working knowledge of how the web functions, and how web sites are created and maintained.

Web Developer Certification

90 hours / 12 weeks / 9 CEU credits

Our flagship course is the latest refinement of the FDU Web Skills Certification offered at FDU's campuses since 1998. Web Skills Certification focuses on the authoring of effective web pages in XHTML and Cascading Style Sheets. There are no prerequisites other than a comfort level with a Windows-like graphical user interface, but the course progresses quickly from the elementary elements and attributes of XHTML and CSS, to server-side programming features like SSI, CGI, PHP and the MySQL database. Those with some exposure to HTML, or to page-authoring tools like FrontPage, find the pace and level of detail useful. The course has always focused on open source software and freeware software.

Freeware, open source, and low cost software tools are used for authoring XHTML and CSS; writing code in JavaScript, PERL and PHP; creating and modifying graphics; and FTP.

The course meets 7-1/2 hours per week -- either divided into two 3-hour-and-45-minute evenings, or a full 7-1/2 hour day on Saturdays. The course is completed in twelve weeks, either way. Students earn 9 C.E.U. credits.

LAMP-based Database-driven Web Site Development

60 hours / 8 weeks / 6 CEU credits

This is a continuation of the Web Skills Certification (see immediately above) in the sense that server-side programming are touched on briefly in the latter weeks of Web Skills Certification, but here PHP and MySQL and are treated in more detail.

LAMP is the acronym for a powerful and commonly used suite of open source tools:

• Linux operating system,
• Apache web server,
• MySQL database management, and
• Perl or PHP programming language.

The course is based on the textbook Build Your Own Database Driven Website Using PHP & MySQL. Students will use professional off-campus web hosting services that support LAMP-based web site development for the duration of the course.

The course meets 7-1/2 hours per week divided into two 3-hour-and-45-minute evenings. The course is completed in eight weeks. Students earn 6 C.E.U. credits.