Q&A

Date: July 20, 1998
From: bob@unc.edu
To: JOMC050 students

Hi again,

A few questions in the past two days might interest more than the individuals who asked, so here are the answers (questions edited to preserve anonymity).

Question: How are our research pages going to be graded.

More on function (links should work) and content than on style. Part of the grading will be simply counting things: The assignment asks for a summary-introduction to your topic, a ten-item bibliography with comments on each item, and a comment on the relative merits of the Web and non-Web sources. So I'll be checking those off on a list, and watching for sources that seem to be especially well-chosen or well-explained (or off-base, hastily added and poorly described).

In addition, all the links should work, text should be readable, spelling and grammar should be checked, and standard bibliographic style should be followed, including use of italics for book titles, etc., as described in the DTE citation guide.

If you've designed a more artistic approach to the topic and you're convinced a standard bibliography doesn't work into the design, feel free to use that creative page as your topic's summary or introduction and link to a separate bibliography page (use the research.html template for the template as a shortcut). Keep your comments short and to the point, and proofread for spelling and grammar.

If pictures or special layout features help the presentation of the material, that's good. (And if they hurt, that's bad. For example, if the whole screen is bright yellow with red and orange type blinking on and off so that tears run down my face before I read the third line, that's very bad.) When in doubt, leave it out.

Question: What exactly are we suppost to turn in? Do we start with section 5 and go from there?

Yes, do section five as described in Monday's supplementary handout (online as treasure2.html), then sections six through eight as described in the Dead Tree Edition.

Question: Are we going to get time in class to work on this second treasure hunt?

I'm hoping to give you at least a third of the class on Tuesday and Wednesday and two-thirds of it on Thursday.

Question: What if there aren't many web-sites on my topic? I have only found a few, one of which was usable.

Sounds like the topic is too narrow, so go ahead and broaden it as much as you have to. The real point here is to give the search tools a good test, and I don't mind if you shift your topic to accomplish that.

For instance, if you can't find anything on "pickling okra" you might have to look into "canning and preserving vegetables" or "Southern home cooking" -- or just plain pickles. If you're not finding information about a particular city, look for information about the county, or the state.

If you haven't used them yet, see the Library of Congress Subject Headings books at the library to see topics they consider related to yours.

If all else fails (or if more searching will keep you from finishing on deadline), go ahead and include sites that you don't think are very good and in your comments discuss their shortcomings. The deadline has to be firm so that I can get the grades in on time and we can all get on with the summer!

Question: Is there a certain guideline we must follow for making our research web pages, or are they supposed to look similar to the ones that students made in the first session of summer school?

The first session students did their Web pages before their treasure hunting, which I thought made everything too rushed... So I came up with the proposal-first, contents-later version of the assignment. As a result, I'm expecting a little thought to have gone into the comments on the quality of the sources.

If the extra time also helps people give their research pages more "personality" in terms of design, that's great, but following the basic J50 research template is perfectly OK.

Question: Is it not possible to get a tag like .gov or .mil or .edu without actually being one of those institutions?

The groups that assign names should be enforcing standards. The assignment of domain names, including introduction of new domains beyond the current ones and questions of who controls issuing them, is one of the hot issues on the Internet today. There's demand for new, more specific, domains because of the incredible growth of commercial use of the net. Jump to the last paragraph of this "Brief" Internet history from the Internet Society for a reference to the issue. Domain names (including top level domains, like .org, .edu etc.) are assigned by InterNIC, which involves the National Science Foundation, Network Solutions, Inc., and AT&T, plus IANA (Internet Assigned Number Authority, a nonprofit group that assigns IP addresses), and IAHC (Internet International Ad Hoc Committee), which is considering enhancements to the domain name system.

As usual, these are all good questions... please ask any follow-ups in class so we can all benefit!

-- Bob

-30-

Is an old newspaper code for "The End"