Information Architecture for the Web: Course Materials: Requirements

This page provides a review of the basic requirements for the course. Go to the Course Guide for specific assignments and the Course Calendar for specific due dates.

Course Updates

Your instructor will be sending out periodic class updates to review important course information and assignments. Please read these carefully. If you have questions, please reply to these updates for clarifications or questions. If you think you've missed one of these communications, check the Course Email Archives.

Oncourse Overview

Since this is an online course, much of the sharing and discussion will happen using the OncourseCL online learning environment. However since you'll be experiencing many different technologies in this course, be sure to read the activity guidelines carefully to determine where projects should be shared.

Use the following documents if you have questions about Oncourse CL:

Oncourse contains a menubar on the left side of the screen for easy navigation. Use the following instructions to help you use the resources for this course:

The SYLLABUS links to all of the course materials.
The ROSTER shows the class list. You may wish to include a personal profile and photo so we can learn a little more about you.
The GRADEBOOK is a place where you can track your progress. If you lose a point, I'll provide a comment indicating the problem.
The MESSAGE CENTER contains a place to send and receive mail messages. You might want to check the settings. You can have these messages sent to your personal email if you wish.
The FORUMS area is the place where we'll be holding our discussions.
The CHAT area can be used by anyone who would like to share in "real time" with anyone in the class. There are no required course chats.

Below you'll find your first assignment. This will get you starting making Oncourse postings. Required course assignments can be found in yellow boxes.

Getting Started

This class is intended to be a practical approach to the skills needed by today's information technologists, media specialists, librarians, and educators. Whether you're interested in the role of the school media specialist, public librarian, or another type of information technologist, this course is designed to be flexible enough to address the varied needs of students.

Keep in mind that this class contains students with a wide variety of educational, work, life, and technology experience. Try not to compare yourself to other students. Instead, focus on your own strengths and weaknesses. Be sure to email your instructor if you have questions or concerns about the specific projects and how they can better fit your professional needs.

Introduce Yourself

Let's get to know each other. These introductions will help you get to know all of your classmates.

Your first assignment involves posting some information about yourself and getting to know your classmates. Some people like to share photographs, personal websites, favorite movies or books, family information, or other tidbits that will help the class get to know you. This is important because you'll be involved in lots of online discussions. This is all done in Oncourse so "outsiders" won't be able to see the information.

Enter the Oncourse materials, choose the class page. Click on the Introduce Yourself discussion. Post a new message.

Introduce yourself to the class. Put your name in the subject of the message. Include your name, a little personal and professional information about yourself, as well as the reason you chose this course and how you feel about online courses in general. This will be a good chance to share a little about your interests and expertise with libraries, website development, and technology. Also, tell us what makes you laugh and how you like to spend your spare time (like you have spare time). If you know how to use HTML, you may wish to insert a photo or favorite website. If you need help, check the "Help" discussion for the directions.

When you're done entering the information, click SEND to post your message.

During the first week of class, read the messages posted by classmates. If you want to share something you have in common or ask a question, enter information below the message in the area that says REPLY TO MESSAGE. You should post at least one response or observation. This area is also a place to go if you have questions. Find someone you think shares your interests, email them and introduce yourself personally. This contact may be helpful later in the semester as you have questions about the course.

Virtual Community

The biggest drawback to an online class is the lack of face-to-face communication with your instructor and your peers. I'll be sending out weekly course updates that will hopefully help you feel connected to me. I'll be reading your assignments which will help me feel connected to you. We can email personally whenever you have something you'd like to share or discuss. I LIVE on email... in the motorhome our living room, dining room, bathroom, and bedroom are all within 38 feet, so I'm always available. When I'm "on-the-road" I'll usually provide information in the weekly update. In this case, it should still take less than 24 hours for a reply.

Beyond the Course

Many of you will want to continue to maintain your website beyond the course. It is STRONGLY recommended that you explore the archives of the Web4Lib Electronic Discussion. This is an electronic discussion for library-based World-Wide Web managers.

Personal Web Space

You will be sharing many projects during the semester. Sometimes I'll indicate where they should be stored. At other times, you'll have a choice. The course materials also provide links to free storage space for resources such as videos. Rather than relying on university space, it's a good idea to start thinking about long-term storage of assignments that you might eventually wish to place in your professional portfolio.

You may wish to share your projects and get feedback from classmates before submitting to your instructor. Classmates can help identify typos and missing elements that can impact your grade. By reading the projects of others you can often find ideas that might enhance your own project. Remember this is not a competition, all projects are graded with the same checklist.

Use the following resources to explore sources of web space.

1. Personal Space. Use your own personal or work web space.

2. Oncourse CL. Provides space to store assignments. Use the following readings to learn more about this space:

3. IUPUI Space. Go to Personal Home Pages at IU to learn about setting up your own university web space. If you place your project here, it will have a URL such as http://mypage.iu.edu/~anlamb/filename

4. Free Web Space. Go to Web Site Hosting to find out about free services (like Googlepages) you could use to create your own personal site. If you need ideas of locations for free space, contact your instructor.

CourseQuests

The completion of three, inquiry-based CourseQuests are required for the graded portion of the course:

Each CourseQuest can be accessed from the section Information Architecture for the Web. You'll see the 3 CourseQuest links at the top of the opening page. You should work through each CourseQuest in a systematic manner. Each CourseQuest is divided into 5 sections: Task, Process, Product, Evaluation and Conclusion.

The Task. Each Task section outlines your mission or the main objective for the WebQuest. It sets the tone and gives you an idea of the projects and activities to come.

The Process. Each Process section takes you step by step through the activities and readings necessary to complete the CourseQuest. In each step of the process, you are challenged to explore, read, reflect, participate and practice your information technology skills. You are also given the specifications for the final product for each CourseQuest.

Readings

As you read through the materials, pay particular attention to the following symbols:

When you see a red checkmark before a bold/red word, this indicates a hyperlink to an example or reading that will be particularly valuable in your learning. You should click on the hyperlink and spend a few minutes thinking about how the example or reading contributes to your understanding.
When you see a red exclamation mark , get involved and think about the question or try out the recommended idea. You aren't required to submit an answer, however it's important to complete the activity for your own learning.
When you see a red arrow before a link, you will be going to an internal link within the course website. Be sure to read each of these pages carefully!
When you see a red star before an activity, you should complete this assignment and submit it to your instructor for grading.

Reading Guidance

You could easily do endless hours of content exploration. Instead, we've provided some guidelines that will help direct your attention. Please read these guidelines carefully:

You'll find many words in the body of the text highlighted with a bold, red font. These are links to other pages or websites. These hyperlinked materials are optional resources that provide additional information, but are not required readings. Many of these links provide background information from Wikipedia that's constantly changing.

Read. In many instances, the materials will direct you to READ. This means that you should literally read the article or web page. You aren't required to read the links associated with the article, but you should read the article itself. The details are probably not as important as the overall issues presented. In many cases, reflective questions or activities have been provided to guide your reading. Then, ask yourself: Why did he have us read this? What are the key ideas that I should add to my "professional bag of tricks"?

Skim. Sometimes you'll be directed to skim an article. In this case, the details of the article aren't important. Instead concentrate on identifying the key ideas. In many cases, these are alternative sources or other views on issues already presented in the text or other articles.

Explore. In many instances, websites are provided on a single topic. Many of these websites contains multiple pages and links. Rather than examining all the items in-depth, spend a few minutes with each resource and determine it's personal and professional value.

On-site versus Off-site. As you explore the Multimedia Seeds pages, you'll notice that some readings refer to on-site versus off-site materials. On-site materials are those housed at our eduScapes website . The off-site materials are linked to the work of others. If you can't get to an off-site article that says READ, notify your instructor so the links can be updated or removed .

In most cases, off-site links are not marked. For example, you might be reading a sentence and notice a hot link. This hot-link probably connects to an off-site article that expands on the idea presented in the sentence. You may or may not use the link depending on your interests. Lists of off-site links with supplemental materials are also not indicated as on or off-site. If you're not sure, just look at the URL and you can see whether it's an eduScapes or 42eXplore address or not. Note: Our online resources reside at both the eduScapes (http://eduscapes.com) and 42eXplore (http://42explore.com) domains, and when we speak of eduScapes we are often referring to both or all of those resources.

Use these readings will to help you with the Hutmate Discussions, Skills Building Activities, and Projects. There will be a quiz over the readings in each CourseQuest.

Hutmate Discussions

You'll also find pink boxes which contain 8 Discussion activities. These are intended to help you analyze and apply the course content. These assignments are required. They must be posted in the Oncourse forum area.

Some of the Hutmate discussions are worth 3 points. Two points will be awarded for the posting. The postings will be evaluated based on the following scale: 2 points = excellent; 1 point = adequate. One point will also be awarded for providing at least one reply within the discussion area. Replies should provide helpful feedback or ideas for classmates.

Some Hutmate discussions focus on sharing ideas and evaluating projects. These assignments are only worth 1 point.

Skills Building Activities

Along the way, you'll find yellow boxes that contain Skills Building Activities. These are intended to help you practice and develop your coding and IA skills. These activities will be uploaded to the web, linked from your personal site, and graded according to the requirements listed. They are worth 5 points each.

The Product. This section contains guidelines for your CourseQuest projects. These projects will be uploaded to your website and linked from your personal site.

The Evaluation. This section contains the specific criteria which will be used to grade your CourseQuest product.

The Conclusion. This section details how you are to "wrap-up" the CourseQuest and provides some final thoughts on the material you just covered. It also leads you on to the next CourseQuest.

In some cases you will be asked to provide a "high quality reply" to at least one of your peers.

Below you'll find examples of the kinds of "responses" that will be counted. Feel free to "get into" the discussion with as many comments to your peers as you'd like. However to receive your 1 response point, be sure that your response is insightful and will help others in their learning.

Provide technical support or suggestions. You might provide a tip or suggestion related to Flash that might help a student expand their project or solve a technical problem.
Act on a suggestion. For example, after reading a comment from a peer, you might decide to add an example, suggest a website address or other resource, or answer a question.
Provide feedback to others such as a specific comment or idea along with an example, expansion, or suggestion. In other words, "way to go Susie" is a good start, but won't get you a point. You could even start with "that's crap Susie", however the key is providing positive, constructive criticism or helpful and encouraging advice. Healthy debate is fine, but let's discourage mean-spirited comments.
State an opinion and provide supportive evidence or arguments. This can be fun because it can really get a discussion going. For example, you might point out why you think a particular project is effective or ineffective. Be sure to be specific.
Add an insight. If you've had an encounter with the topic being discussed, it would be valuable to hear your thoughts and "real world" experiences. This should be more than "I'll use the idea in class." How and why will you use the idea? Would the idea work in another area? How or why?