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Assignments
Grading Profile
All assignments are due in class on the dates specified
unless otherwise noted. Marks will be deducted at the rate of 5 % per
day for up to 7 days following the due date, unless prior arrangements
have been made with the instructor.
| A = 90+ |
B = 75-80 |
C = 60-65 |
| A- = 85-90 |
B- = 70-75 |
C- = 55-60 |
| B+ = 80-85 |
C+ = 65-70 |
D = 50-55 |
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Your first extended assignment for the course is to write a profile of an online community. Online communities are too numerous to categorize effectively, but you might think of them being organized by a particular interest--gaming, sports, buying and selling (eBay), science, law, writing, art, hacking et al; or by a medium: MSN, ICQ, chat, file sharing, P2P (peer-to-peer), newsgroups, email, linked websites (webrings), blogs, alternate news sources, magazines etc. Most online communities are similar to cultures in that they demonstrate a style, particular uses of language, a repertoire of activities and rituals, jargon and insider references and jokes, a history, famous individuals and leaders, and sometimes an archive of secrets, or at least FAQs (frequently asked questions). Your assignment is to post a 300 to 400 word report on an online community to our own online community at EZBoard under the topic Online Communities. How does one find this community? Who participates? What are its typical activities and interests? What behaviors do participants exhibit? How do members communicate? What's distinctive about language use or the style of the community? Your writing should be engaging, personal (in a style suitable to you), persuasive, and error-free. The due date is January 22nd by 2:30 p.m.
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Design the first page of an online newspaper using tables to establish layout. All writing and images on the page should be your own. Be prepared to demo this page in class on Feb. 19th. Your grade for this assignment will be based on the following:
- Appropriate use of basic hand-coded html
- Use of meta tags
- Use of tables for layout
- Image preparation and encoding
- Use of style sheets (CSS)
- Original writing and content
- Overall concept, creativity, and execution.
Your newspaper page should be fully operational on the web and accessible by URL. Links from the main page don't necessarily have to lead anywhere, though you might consider using external links to internet resources relevant to your subject. While you don't need to have complete stories on your newspaper page, include enough writing for each story to provide a satisfying experience for your readers. Try to give your newspaper a coherent sense style in relation to the content: conservative content, conservative style; environmental issues, green design.
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- Posting #1 (due Jan. 8): To introduce yourself to the other course participants, go to the Computer-Mediated Communication community I have created on EZBoard. You'll have to create an account and log in the first time. Once you are logged in, select Computer-Mediated Communication, then select Welcome. Select Add Reply to continue the topic thread and continue with your own welcome message. Tell us something about your interests and plans!! Remember: this is a writing course (among other things) so let us hear you.
- Post #2 (Jan. 15): Post a proposal for your online community project to EZBoard (Proposals)
- Posting #3 (Jan. 29 to Feb. 12): Remember those storytelling
games people used to play by passing the narrative (ball) from person to
person around the room? A newsgroup narrative is a group collaborative
composition that works just like this. You add your posting to the
narrative thread begun and advanced by others. You can add to the "end"
of the story by threading from the last posting, or you can interject a
story element by replying to any previous threads. The medium allows the
story to branch off at any point: some threads may proliferate, and
others atrophy.
To begin, a participant describes an incident to initiate the story,
purposely leaving the ending of the segment open to allow the next
posting to continue and develop the narrative and characters. Subsequent
postings can advance the story, establish a parallel narrative thread
("Meanwhile..."), or interject a flashback ("Looking back on what
started all this off..."). Some postings might be descriptive interludes
or character development that fill in details rather than advancing the
plot. Characters, of course, can always travel to new places.
It’s possible that this collective narrative could turn into a kind
of free-for-all, so I want to recommend a few general guidelines
(similar to protocols of improvisation).
- All participants should take some responsibility for the
coherence, and the tone and style of the narrative.
- To effect a change of style, ease into it, or project the
narrative through the consciousness of another character.
- Try to provide the characters with some options or choices.
- Please don’t kill off the main character!
- Avoid blocking the initiatives or leads of other participants; if
you don’t want to go in that direction, develop a parallel thread.
- To maintain the challenge of developing a story, let's avoid dream
sequences as being too easy.
- If you are offended by someone’s writing or content, don’t judge
it. Move off in another direction, or devise a way for the offended
character to experience some justice. There’s no need to be
politically correct--we’re not writing social policy. This is a story
and people do wonderful and frightening things to one another every
day.
- If you are so inclined, use humour, irony, and sarcasm to keep the
mood of the story playful.
We’ll run the story long enough to give it some
time to develop. During that time, to receive a maximum of 10 %, you need
to post a minimum of 300 words (total) in at least
two postings not on the same day. You will be evaluated on the quality
of your writing, and your ability to advance the narrative in engaging,
interesting ways.
Keep in mind that this is a collaborative creative endeavor, similar
to a group musical improvisation: everyone in the ensemble must know how
to make music with the other members--that’s a give--and everyone has an
equal opportunity to solo by adding to the composition with a
distinctive instrumental voice. Timing is important. Listen to the other
players.
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Write a feature and illustrate it. The content of this assignment should be news, something original that can't be found elsewhere. It should be topical if possible and of interest to our audience--the Malaspina U-C community, or those who might like to visit us here. Local culture, trends, personalities, events, or things to do make appropriate subjects. Another approach would be to research a contemporary issue and write a commentary piece based on that research. When thinking about ideas, apply the journalist's test by asking, "So what?" Why would this story be of interest to a wider audience?
These pieces will be published in a journal called Image & Text. The articles should attempt to strike a balance between strong visuals and powerful, crisp writing (as you'd expect in a magazine or newspaper format). The images you use should be properly prepared for web delivery and must have copyright assigned to you--you've created them--or be free of other copyright restrictions. If the images are not your own, you must provide an acknowledgement of your sources. Carefully consider the relationship of images to text and their interplay on the screen.
The html code for the articles does not have to be overly complicated: use meta tags and embedded style sheets, tables for layout, appropriate image tagging (alt, width, height, hspace, vspace etc). The emphasis here, unlike the last assignment, is on writing, and the combination of image and text. Your feature can have multiple pages. You should be proud to include this piece in your portfolio as an example of both writing and graphic skill.
Your article should be +/- 1000 words, written in html, and functioning on the web. (Send the URL to the
instructor.)
Layout, page design, use of html, image performance and quality, writing quality and expressiveness, newsworthiness, and the relationship between image and text all should be considered equally and will be factors in your grade for this assignment.
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Please complete the following quiz from 2:30 to 5:30 on Wednesday, March 26th by answering ten (10) of the following questions with short paragraphs in your best prose (not point form). You're free to access the course readings or other internet sources as long as the writing you submit is your own. Each question will be assigned a grade out of 5, so you should try to include 5 distinct points or arguments in each of your answers. If you are concise, that means you can answer each question with a minimum of 5 sentences.
To receive credit for this assignment, you must include a statement at the end to the effect that you alone have written the material you are submitting (unless otherwise identified by references).
When you've finished, please email your responses to the instructor (soules@mala.bc.ca) by 5:30 pm. Note: Many commercial webmail services (Hotmail, Yahoo) clip the end of long paragraphs when sent in the body of an email message so (1) make a copy of your answers in case you need to resend in another way; or (2) send your answers as an attachment I can read in MSWord (Rich Text Format (RTF) works well). When I receive your quiz, I'll email you a confirmation so you'll know it arrived in good form.
Answer 10 of the following: 10 x 5 = 50
- How might the "performance" of a webpage be optimized?
- Why is distributed networking central to the CMC revolution?
- Discuss the rhetorics of computer-mediated communication.
- Discuss the use of icons on the net.
- What are the essential characteristics of hypertext?
- How is the memex related to hypertext?
- How should writing be adjusted for the web to increase its usability?
- Discuss the question of the internet's orality.
- Citing the relevant theorists as necessary, discuss how online communication alters our sense of self and identity.
- What elements are required to make the semantic web possible?
- What is "fair dealing" according to the revelant legislation affecting its use?
- What are main principles of the "copyleft" movement?
- Garrett's model of the elements of user experience identifies a "basic duality" of the hypertext environment. What is the nature of this duality, and how does it affect web design?
- What are the most pressing issues that need to be addressed by legislators regarding communication on the internet?
readings for the course
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Your final project is
to design and construct a web-site for an organization or service (without a website). Try to avoid a commercial business unless you specifically want to give yourself that challenge. This web-site should be fully functioning on a
server and available to the course participants (and the world!) for your demonstration during the April 2nd class. If you have a Malaspina web account, you can
install your web-site there until your account expires. Most ISPs
provide a web-site service for their clients, or you can use a free
web-hosting service on the net. Your site must be online and
working--not submitted on disk.
Your web-site does not have to be huge. It will be evaluated with the
following criteria in mind:
- Clarity of Purpose and Integration of Elements
- Navigation
- Interactivity
- Design Aesthetics and Coherence
- Performance (page size, graphics)
- HTML Code (from simple to complex)
- Graphics and Multimedia Features
- Quality of Content and Writing
- Creativity.
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