What are Forms and how do they work?

A common method of adding interactivity to web sites is through the use of forms. Users fill in the information on a form and 'submit' it. The information is sent from the client computer to the server computer in a format known as the Common Gateway Interface (CGI). The server CGI program (often written in a scripting language called perl) processes the results and sends them back to the user and/or stores them on the server.

Examples

There are two main ways to create a web-based questionnaire. One is to use a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) HTML editor, such as Macromedia Dreamweaver. A trial version can be downloaded for 30 days. The second way is to use WebCT's automated Survey Tool (Login as User G_Exampleguest, Password guest).

If you create a form yourself, you can edit the HTML source to amend it. Any form needs to be associated with a CGI program to process the results. A common format is that form results are emailed to you. Another option for processing survey responses is to have them automatically added to a file, which can be analysed by Excel. To process your form in another way, you need a CGI programmer.

Some programs, like the Changing Outcomes program created by the Educational Design Group in the Teaching and Learning Centre make extensive use of sophisticated CGI scripts.

Resources

Site dedicated to CGI
http://www.cgi-resources.com/

CGI tutorial:
http://www.webthing.com/tutorials/cgifaq.html

WebCT Quiz:
http://online.murdoch.edu.au/SCRIPT/Example/scripts/student/serve_new_quiz?START_QUIZ+970042796+main
(Login as User G_Exampleguest, Password guest)