October 1996 € Volume 6 € Number 10
October 1996 € Volume 6 € Number 10
Most reference books start with a table of contents, divide into chapters with numbered pages, display footnotes using a certain style, put detailed citations in an appendix and end with an index. This is so familiar to us that we probably take most of it for granted.
The Web, however, is very different. Because it's such a new medium and because there's so much room for creativity there, web sites can be somewhat confusing. In fact, once you spend even a little time online, you will quickly realize that every site has a unique structure or - to use a word that's popular with the consulting set - its own paradigm.
With this in mind, its seems appropriate to spend a little time reviewing the APICS site.
Our home page is located under the domain name, http://www.apics.org.
When you pull up the APICS home page, you will see our masthead, followed by four jelly beans that link you to key pages within our site. If you're new to APICS or trying to decide whether or not to join us, you should probably start by double-clicking here:
This will bring you to a series of pages that tell you what APICS is and what it does. Moreover, like our membership, these pages are expanding every month.
Those of you who already know about APICS should probably start by double-clicking here:
At this point, it's appropriate to note that one of the vagaries of the Web is that it changes all the time. I am writing this column in August for publication in October, so the Quick Index should look quite a bit different by then. The concept, however, should remain the same.
The Quick Index was designed to perform three critical functions: The first and primary function of the index is to act as a table of contents for the APICS site. This gives you an instant picture of site contents and layout.
Second, thanks to the magic of hyperlinks, the Quick Index can actually take you to any one of the subjects listed in it. To jump to the subject you want, just click on the associated text. For example, to find an APICS chapter near you, click on Chapters Near You, and the Quick Index will jump straight to that page.
The third and final function of the index is to tell you when the site was last updated and where. The change date will be listed at the top of the page, and each new or changed item is followed by a star.
By using the Quick Index, then, you may quickly determine new and changed features and jump straight to them. By using the Back button on your browser, you may then jump between the index and new material, reading the latest news as efficiently as possible.
The next place you will probably visit most often is What's New. This page will describe the late-breaking events and developments issued in press releases and other media outlets from APICS.
Your third stop should probably be the Calendar of Events. We haven't figured out exactly how to do this yet, but we plan to expand the calendar and highlight upcoming events here. All of the updates will show up in the Quick Index.
Finally, you should always stop at our forums. APICS supports a forum for each certification program (Certified in Production and Inventory Management and Certified in Integrated Resource Management) and for each of its SIGs. We hope to simplify the layout a bit in the future, but you can jump directly to each one of these forums from the Quick Index. These forums change whenever members like you post to them but, in this case, the changes are not noted in the Quick Index. Sorry, but we can't keep up with 70,000 members ...
So what's in store for the future? As of the beginning of September, we have a new Online Editor. Her job is to develop and stimulate site content. One of her goals will be to attract more people and more news to our forums.