Reducing File Sizes in WebCT

Not too many years ago we were careful about the size of our files. We had to be or they would not fit on a 1.44mb diskette. Now our digital cameras create pictures over 1mb each. But with computer hard drives reaching into the terabytes, it is easy not to pay attention to the size of the files we save.

However, bloated files take longer to open and when located on a network drive they tie up bandwidth on the network as well as being slow to open. In our anxiousness, we often double-click two or more times on the same seemingly non-responsive icon only to wait and have multiple windows open, one for each of our frustrated clicks.

WebCT is a great tool for faculty. It helps us organizers our courses in such a way that we have easy access to class materials and offer the same convenience to our students. Although it was designed to use HTML pages, WebCT accepts and displays all type of files and becomes a repository for all we decide to dump into it.

There is no way for faculty to know the size of their course until they backed it up. Even then we do not know the size of the working files in the course, just the compressed size. My Files does display file sizes, but this is but one of many sets of files stored within our courses.

Why should we be concerned? The more bloat on the WebCT server's hard drive, the slower it runs and the more frustrated our students and we become. We can control the size of our courses and here are some examples of what we can do.

The following describes four ways we can minimize file sizes in WebCT

http://www.ric.edu/revans/webct_files/Reducing%20File%20Sizes%20in%20WebCT.mht