Requirements:
Web Site Evaluation Project
10%
Class hypertext project (small groups)
20%
Quizzes (minus 3 lowest), class participation
30%
20%
Final exam (Dec. 15, 7:45-9:45AM)
20%
Plagiarism is a violation of the Tech Honor Code and, more to the point, a violation of intellectual integrity. Such violations will be subject to the severest academic penalties. DON'T DO IT! If you don't understand what plagiarism is, be sure to visit the link at the head of this paragraph. If you still have questions, or have questions at anytime during the semester, ASK BEFORE YOU TURN IN YOUR WORK.
The Web Site Evaluation project is intended to provide you with experience in evaluating the source(s), content(s), authority, and quality of a given web site, in this case one having to do with the Medieval period.
The end product should
consist of the name of the site you have chosen to evaluate, the site's URL,
a statement of the criteria you used for your evaluation, and the results
of the evaluation. Aim for a minimum of 250 words, a maximum of 500 (1-2 pages).
By midnight on Monday, September 6, send the finished product (as an
e-mail attachment) to me (
).
I will compile them and make them available on the class web site for our
use during the semester. Grammar, mechanics, organization,
and style will enter into of my grading of this project.
Newman Library has compiled a set of materials to help with this. Remember: anyone can put essentially anything on the web. If you know nothing about a given subject, what criteria can you use to determine if the site is useful, authoritative, and reputable? Consider the following two examples: http://www.whitehouse.net/ and http://www.whitehouse.gov/. Without accessing the sites, what obvious clue is there in their respective URLs to tell you which is the authentic White House web site? For academic subjects, is there a parallel URL extension that might provide a preliminary basis for evaluation?
For this project: explore the Web (using, e.g., www.google.com) to find a site that interests you. Your evaluation need not be a positive one, but it should be thorough and it should employ clearly-stated criteria. The basis of the criteria you develop should be the usefulness and reliability of the site for a class such as this.
Some sample criteria/questions:
- Is the site comprised
primarily of links to other web sites? If so, is there a sense that these
links have been thoughtfully assembled, evaluated, and organized? Do the
links work (i.e., are they current)?
- Does the site provide
content? If so, what is the nature and quality of that content (original,
synthesized, documented, or...)?
- Is the material authoritatively presented (is there evidence of the site author's credentials? has the material been proof-read for grammatical and mechanical problems?)
Here's an example of a very successful performance on this exercise.
For the hypertext/small-group project (due October 18), I would like you to work in small groups of 3-5 people. Select a work or passage of at least 500 words from one of our texts and do the following: find an electronic text or convert the passage into computer format. Using Dreamweaver or an HTML editor of your choice (at all costs, try to avoid Microsoft Word's Web Page editor), format the text appropriately. Once you have the text selected and "digitized," begin to locate information that will allow you to gloss these passages, including definitions, commentaries, supplemental information, pictures, maps, and so on. In effect, you are constructing a digital edition of the text.
You will have several class periods to work on this project in the CIC. The aims of this project are:
To encourage students to ask and answer questions about medieval texts (there should be many: these texts come from a different time, place, and culture) and to make these questions and answers available to others.To explore the medieval practice of "glossing": an act of interpretation, explanation, and codification (we'll try not to emulate those glossing practices that are intended to mislead and obfuscate)
To learn about the construction of "hypertext" and the kinds of hierarchical and associative thinking this encourages
To learn to work together, to share responsibility, and to deal with the politics of "small groups"
Previous classes have worked extensively on Mandeville's Travels. You might find some useful ideas by perusing previous efforts (ask for password information).
BE SURE TO RECORD ALL OF THE ESSENTIAL BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION FOR THESE ITEMS. Information on how to do this can be found on the Search Tools page; a version of the MLA Style Sheet can be found online here. A guide to documenting online resources is available here.
If possible, bring the original images (maps, etc.) to the CIC and we will scan them there. Otherwise, either make a photocopy, or see if someone in the New Media Center in the Torgersen can help you make a scan there. Save a copy of any material that you enter into computer format in my courses folder. We'll work through that process in class. A crucial caveat: make sure that all images you use in your pages are in your project folder before you insert them on your pages. A very common problem students encounter is leaving images on another hard drive and losing them. You won't be happy if you do this...
Please use lower case in naming all of your project files and use the extension ".html" or ".htm" for text file name extensions. In previous years we have had access to remote hard drives where we could store project materials. That is not the case this semester, so you will want to use the Filebox space provided to you by the University and/or Zip discs (Macs can read DOS/Windows-formatted disks). The Mac can translate most kinds of word-processing formats, but you can always save the file as "TEXT" if you are unsure. That should be enough to get you started.
Although you will be able to find much useful material on the World Wide Web, it is still no substitute for the Library.
If you are unsure of the way in which your project will be evaluated, you can find a useful discussion of the relationship between hypertext/multimedia projects and traditional critical/expository essay projects here. This will also give you an idea of the kinds of things I will be evaluating. Grammar, mechanics, organization, and style will enter into of my grading of this project.
Please do not use Microsoft Word to generate web pages except as a very, very, ultimate, last resort!
Please post the page numbers and topic of your passages to the class list so that we consolidate or avoid duplications.
For the individual research project (due November 29), as I have already noted, you may do more of the same, in either electronic or hardcopy format, or you may explore another topic, from another text. This project, also, should have a VERY NARROW, SPECIFIC FOCUS. If you were to opt to fulfill this requirement by writing a "traditional" essay, aim for 5-8 pages of well-written (proof-read), unpadded, thoughtful prose, using the MLA Style Sheet as a documentation guide. Other kinds of projects should be equivalent to this in quality and quantity, but we will probably have to negotiate just what that means on an individual basis (better to do this earlier rather than later). An example of a student project on Female Mystics from a previous class is online at http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/exper/mosser/classes/mystics/misty.html (this is password-protected; I will send you the secret code via e-mail).
Grammar, mechanics, organization, and style will enter into of my grading of this project.