Opera, one of the major alternative Web browsers to Windows’ Internet Explorer, has opened the door to a new user market with the publication of its Opera Web Standards Curriculum. This curriculum is a complete course that teaches standards-based Web development, including HTML, CSS, design principles and background theory, and JavaScript basics. It already has support from many organizations (including Yahoo! and the Web Standards Project) and universities. The first 23 articles are currently available, with about 30 more to be published between now and late September.

The Web Standards Curriculum is completely free to use, accessible, and assumes no previous knowledge. Some of the authors you’ll meet include Jonathan Lane (President of Industry Interactive, a Web development/application development company located on Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada), Mark Norman Francis (Currently a Front End Architect for Yahoo!, defining best practices, coding standards and quality in Web development internationally), Christian Heilmann (A trainer and lead developer for Yahoo! in the UK who oversees front end code quality for Europe and Asia) and your own Linda Goin. Yes, moi.

This incredibly complex project was pulled together and edited by Chris Mills, developer relations manager for Opera. Chris edits and publishes articles on dev.opera.com and labs.opera.com, liaises with the community to raise awareness of Opera and collect feedback, and evangelizes about Opera software wherever he can. It was a pure pleasure to work with Chris, who has nothing up his sleeve other than to spread the goodness of the Web wherever possible through usable and accessible Web sites. So what are you waiting for? Go visit!