Course Syllabus • Course Cases • Course Schedule • Media Arts Center Times Web Publishing Class Projects The following web publishing design projects will be completed by students in English 301, Web Publishing. These active learning cases move from simple makeover projects to complex web sites for academic and community clients.The most challenging part of web publishing is research--gathering quality information. These web design cases move from "canned" makeover cases in which all information is provided to "open" cases in which the student must find and organize as much information as needed by the client. See the course schedule, open lab times, and student portfolios. Students in web publishing develop four types of knowledge:
Web Design Projects: This case requires application of four user skills:
This case requires technical skill in searching and organizing bookmarks, and it introduces basic information design principles such as providing textual introductions and navigational annotations to information.Required elements of this case include a html file name, title, introduction, annotation to organized links and a color background or graphic background. In this first web page design case, you will be provided text and graphic files for an organization and use these "canned" materials to create a web page. The technical objective of this case is to learn how to create an html file with graphics, text, and hypertext links within the page or pages.The information design challenge is to take given information and restructure it for a web page. How will you cluster information into more appropriate chunks for the web? How will you signal key concepts or emphasize the most important information? Who is the intended audience of the web site (as indicated through language cues)? How have you organized the information to fit their expectations or needs?The resulting pages will be evaluated on three main design goals:
Required elements of this case include an introduction, at least one graphic, labeled text chunking, anchors or page links, and acknowledgement of the web designer. Design your personal home page and use it to experiment with various web design techniques over the semester. You set the tone, the welcome, the overview of your own identity as a student at Millikin. This case provides you with a great deal of freedom as you create your personal space on the web, and distinguish (or integrate) your professional presence in the form of a web resume. Your personal web page is an appropriate space for experimenting with special effects such as animated gifs, frames, music wav. files, counters and other web fun. Gather and organize your favorite sites on the web, or create a more focused personal page on a topic dear to you. If you already have a personal web page somewhere, then redesign it according to the principles of this course (but keep your personality).The resulting pages will be evaluated on three main design goals:
This case allows you to develop a web page demonstrating web graphics preparation. This case allows you to develop a web site based on an interest or personal purpose. It should be a larger web site project, connecting multiple pages of related information. This is considered to be a short project featuring your own writing, artwork or area of research. The web resume page should be chunked for viewing on the computer screen, with clearly labeled sections and easy navigation cues. You may want to create links to some of your portfolio pages or other work for clients. However, I do not recommend linking to your personal web page unless you think potential employers might want to get to know you more personally. Consider how potential employers will search a web resume. They will need key words popping up immediately at the beginning of the resume.
This is the major case, completed in small teams, in which you develop a web site for a community client. For the Spring 2005semester, our community client is the Decatur Optimist Club. Each group works on the goals and needs of the client, develops and gathers content for the web site, prepares that content for the site and designs an integrated site. The final web site is user tested and presented to representatives of the organization for their approval and review. In this case, small seminar teams create a highlighting of 2-3 interesting points from one of the Bolter chapters. Give your own response to the ideas, provide examples and links to web sites, as you discuss the implications for the future of web publishing. Chapter Assignments: Schedule (Check here for due dates.)
The final case is a web portfolio. The web portfolio is graded by two considerations: (1) overall portfolio as an example of web design, and (2) annotations explaining the design emphasis and purpose of each project. The learning review includes an end of the semester review of what you have learned about (1) the technology of web publishing, (2) information design principles, and (3) managing a web site development process from conception to implementation. This learning review is organized as a discussion of the development process of web sites based on examples from your web portfolio. This is the final exam for the course.Extra credit: discuss tutoring knowledge you have acquired this semester. This site is maintained by Dr. Randy Brooks, Director of the Writing Major Last modified September 29, 2006 . Contact: rbrooks@mail.millikin.edu |
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