Plain HTML is preferable, if you don't need anything fancier. The real reason may be that universities hire students (who may or may not know anything about we

Plain HTML is preferable, if you don't need anything fancier. The real reason may be that universities hire students (who may or may not know anything about web design) to work on their main pages, and course pages are usually maintained by professors. However, ultimately, if you want your page to be accessible to people with crappy computers it makes sense to avoid the kind of bloated nonsense that passes for "good web design" these days.