Sizing Images for the Web

For the Further Benefit of JOE Readers (& Authors & Reviewers)

In my April "Editor's Page," I said the following:

For the benefit of readers from around the world, who have varying connection speeds and system capabilities, we are working on additions to the JOE Submission Guidelines that will help authors whip their graphics into reasonable, Web-friendly shape and size. Look for those additions soon.

Wait no longer to look. Thanks to Ohio State's Brian Weaver, JOE Web developer, the JOE Submission Guidelines <http://www.joe.org/sub1.html> have been updated to offer the help I promised last issue. If you scroll down to the "Graphics" section of "Table & Graphic Formats," you'll find information to help you "whip" your graphics into "reasonable, Web-friendly shape and size," including instructions on how to resize your images so that they don't clog up your systems, ours, JOE reviewers', and JOE readers'.

As the guidelines point out, the average size for an article file, including graphics, should be no larger than around 500KB, and image resolution should be 72 pixels per inch (ppi) or dots per inch (dpi). JOE is a Web-only journal, and the higher resolution images required for print on paper are unnecessary and (very) undesirable.

JOE authors now have the information they need to make their graphics and files a reasonable size and/or the parameters they need to seek the help of their more tech-savvy colleagues. And I thank my (much) more tech-savvy colleague Brian.

June JOE

I'm running out of novel ways to extol a new issue, so I'll repeat myself. We have yet another excellent and thought-provoking issue.

We have Features on the results of a national needs assessment on Extension's capacity to conduct public issues education, on parent education, on disaster communication, and more. We have Research in Brief articles on volunteer management, financial management, risk management, and--yes--more.

And then there are the Ideas at Work and Tools of the Trade articles. The first five Ideas at Work articles deal with homeschool audiences, a new international audience, urban audiences, those in need of workforce preparation, and the homeless. The last two are about using information technology to make a difference for livestock producers and soybean producers. It's just an awfully nice and varied array.

Three of the first four Tools of the Trade articles deal in one way or another with evaluation and assessment, as do a number of other articles in this issue. The second article is about the effectiveness of narrative-story simulation as a teaching tool. The last (but not least) articles discuss volunteer management (another one), partnership, and technology-based outreach.

Laura Hoelscher, Editor
joe-ed@joe.org