Opera Web Standards Curriculum Released

This morning Chris Mills annonced that he finally launched the Opera Web Standards Curriculum. Chris has gather a fine list of authors to bring you the basics of solid Web education.

It’s just a start. There are a little over 20 articles that make up the curriculum, but what a start it is.

I’ve given talks across the country and around the world. Companies and businesses are clamoring for potential employees that “get it” regarding Web development. This curriculum should be a welcome sight. 

In addition, the content is wrapped up nicely with a Non Commercial — Share Alike license. As long as you site the source and don’t make any money off the material, people like university professors or corporate standards evangelists can use these materials to help spread the good word.

My only concern is that I believe the table of contents or a portion of it should should have been squeezed onto the front page. This would allow visitors to quickly dive into other portions of the curriculum without having to go. It’s hard to gauge the depth of the articles or the content on the first page alone. One has to read the introductory article first and then read down to the bottom.

So, I took the list of articles that make the up the curriculum, found in the introduction, and put the list below:

The Web Standards Curriculum
Table of Contents

The beginning

1. Introductory material, by Chris Mills

Introduction to the world of web standards

2. The history of the Internet and the web, and the evolution of web standards, by Mark Norman Francis. 
3. How does the internet work?, by Jonathan Lane.
4. The Web standards model—HTML, CSS and JavaScript, by Jonathan Lane
5. Beautiful dream, but what’s the reality?, by Jonathan Lane.

Web Design Concepts

6. Information Architecture—planning out a web site, by Jonathan Lane.
7. What does a good web page need?, by Mark Norman Francis.
8. Colour Theory, by Linda Goin.
9. Building up a site wireframe, by Linda Goin.
10. Colour schemes and design mockups, by Linda Goin.
11. Typography on the web, by Paul Haine.

HTML basics

12. The basics of HTML, by Mark Norman Francis.
13. The HTML element, by Christian Heilmann.
14. Choosing the right doctype for your HTML documents, by Roger Johansson.

The HTML body

15. Marking up textual content in HTML, by Mark Norman Francis.
16. HTML Lists, by Ben Buchanan.
17. Images in HTML, by Christian Heilmann.
18. HTML links—let’s build a web! by Christian Heilmann. 
19. HTML Tables, by Jen Hanen.
20. HTML Forms—the basics, by Jen Hanen.
21. Lesser–known semantic elements, by Mark Norman Francis.
22. More HTML articles to follow…

Supplementary articles

• Getting your content online, by Craig Grannell.
• More about the document , by Chris Heilmann.