INFOSYS 190: THE WORLD WIDE WEB AS A RESEARCH TOOL
School of Info Mgmt & Systems
Univ of California, Berkeley - Fall 1997

ASSIGNMENT 3: FINAL PROJECT:
DEVELOPING AN INFORMATION RESOURCE

Purpose: This project is the culminating work for the course and should represent an effort to bring together the goals on which we have focused during the semester: finding and evaluating information; organizing and presenting information.

Project: Your job is to develop a web-based informational site that provides information, instruction and/or a service to a chosen audience. Choose a topic different from that used for Assignments 1 and 2 and with which you are sufficiently familiar to create a Web-based informational site containing information on or discussion of the topic as well as references to other useful information sources. The information you present should amount to a minimum of 10 separate Web documents.

Choosing a Project Type: After determining the topic and the audience or user group, decide on the TYPE of project for meet user/audience needs. Listed below are some possibilities:

Issue oriented: Choose a topic that consists of an issue or series of interrelated issues. Focus the site around discussion of various viewpoints on the issue. Include essays or papers you or your classmates have written. Provide links to relevant sites as well as bibliographic references to print resources.

Major research topic: Use a topic you have researched for a major paper or thesis. Include discussion and information on the various aspects of the topic along with links to relevant sites and bibliographic references to various types of additional resources.

Site for a particular course: Use an academic course as the focus for the site. Describe course content; use student papers/assignments as an illustration of course activities.

Research guide to a topic: Create a site that provides guidelines on how to research a particular topic. How to find print, electronic resources on the topic; evaluations and ratings of major print and electronic resources on the topic; evaluation of and links to major Web resources on the topic.

Instructional tool: Develop a site that teaches a user group how to learn something or accomplish a set of goals. Include additional resources for further reference.

For whichever project type you choose you must include:

• Content based documents: research papers, editorials, position statements. Do not include the works of others without their permission
• Related print or electronic resources in addition to Web-based resources, described and evaluated for relevancy
• Web resources, described and evaluated for degree of relevancy to your topic and purpose

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Steps:: The project will consist of the following major components:

1. A written PLAN (to be submitted in class on Thurs. 13 Nov.) (will count as 25 % of the grade). The written plan should be a minimum of 4 pages in length.

The plan should include:

• A description of the proposed project: a definition of the topic, its scope and boundaries.
• An explanation of the intended audience for whom the project is primarily intended.
• The overall purpose and goals of the site.
• An organizational plan describing the major documents and the relationships.
• A preliminary mapping diagram for the proposed structure of the Web site that visually depicts the organizational relationships among documents.

2. THE WEB IMPLEMENTATION (to be presented on: Tues. 2 Dec. or Th. 4 Dec. ) (50% of the project grade)

The implementation consists of:

• A complete set of Web pages (at least 10 separate documents/files)that fulfill the goals of the project as defined in your plan.
• A paper copy of your final mapping diagram that includes: a diagram of the pages and their interrelationships and the filenames assigned to each separate document on the site.

PLEASE NOTE: Files should be in an Assign 3 directory named: assign3
The initial page for the project should be named: index.html

3. EVALUATIONS (to be submitted no later than: Wed. 10 Dec, 5 pm )
(25% of the project grade)

a self evaluation: (4 pages in length) that discusses:

• your own assessment of your implementation using class developed criteria
• strengths and weaknesses of your project
• your assessment of the value of web resources compared to non-web resources discovered for this project

classmate evaluation: (2-3 pages in length) The instructor will assign another classmate from IS 190 to evaluate each completed project using criteria developed by our class.

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Instructor's Criteria for Judging the Assignment:

• Completeness by evidence of inclusion of the elements originally described as part of the project plan
• Evidence of a coherent organizational plan.
• Evidence of a defined purpose that demonstrates the major goal of your project: to communicate instructional information, to promote services offered by a group or to entertain or delight an audience.
  
• Application of the criteria developed by the class for judging the final project.

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