GRADING:

1. Lab Exercises = 3 exercises at 5 points each = 15 points
2. Blogging = 10 blog entries over 13 weeks, 2 points each = 20 points
3. Participation = 20 points
   
4. Policy Presentation = 20 points
5. Final Project Proposal = 5 points
   
6. Final Project (Group) = 20 points
7. Final Project Presentation = 20 points

1. Lab Exercises (15 points):

Along with our in-class discussion of each topic, resource, or application - you will be assigned a short exercise where you'll have to use what we've talked about in class. These exercises will be given out during the class session in which the topic is discussed and will be due within several days. Each exercise will be assigned a number of points based on difficulty. The combination of all the exercises will comprise 30% of your final grade.

2. Blogging (20 points):

In your blog entry, please find a website that is either really well designed or really terrible - the website content is not important (although - no porn please) - what we're interested in discussing is the design, layout, and audience for the site. Blog entries should be short, bullet points are okay, and I expect this assignment to take between 20-40 minutes per week.

Address four points : 1) your best guess at intended audience; 2) usefulness of content; 3) consistency of design; 4) ease of navigation

3. Policy Presentation (20 points):

Each class (beginning with the September 20 class) we will have "Policy Discussions". These sessions will be group presentations on some policy issue associated with the Internet.

Students will be randomly assigned to work with 1 or 2 other people and each group will be asked to:

• send the class references to at least three readings on the class listserv by 5PM one week before class - for the September 20 class, for example, please send out readings by 5PM on Thursday September 13;
• send the class discussion questions related to the readings on the class listserv by 5PM on the day before class - for the September 20 class - please send out questions by 5PM on Wednesday September 12;
• for the class provide a 30 minute presentation of the major policy concerns associated with the topic you were assigned. That 30 minute time must be split between each of the three presenters and least 10 of those 30 minutes should be reserved to answer questions and have a discussion.

The policy topics are:

1. Net Neutrality (9/20)
   
2. Open Source and Linux (9/27)
   
3. Privacy Issues (10/4)
   
4. Accessibility and Usability (10/11)
   
5. Education and the Internet (10/18)
   
6. Information Quality and Gate keeping (10/25)
   
7. Online Communities (11/1)
   
8. Intellectual Property and Fair Use (11/8)
   
9. Life at Work (11/15)
   
10. Politics on the Net (11/29)

4. Participation (20 points):

For each "policy discussion," students in the class will be expected to do the readings and participate in the discussion. It is difficult to lead a discussion if no one is willing to talk, so credit will be given to those students who obviously do the readings and come prepared to discuss them.

5. Final Project Proposal (5 points) = Due October 11

The Final Project Proposal requires you to do the following:

• select one or more design, usability, and/or standards issues that you would like to showcase in your final project / define a project which you will work on
• write a one page description (approximately 300-500 words) detailing the scope of your final project with respect to these issues / this project

6a. Final Project Option 1 (=20 Points) = Due December 6

There are two options for the Final Project.

The first is to to create a website about one or more design, usability, and/or standards issues that have been interesting to you throughout the semester. You will use empirical research to support your presentation and discussion of these issues and you will use current websites/pages to illustrate your discussion.

Specifically, this project requires you to:

• select one or more design, usability, and/or standards issues that you would like to showcase in your final project
• identify 8 scholarly articles that discuss/investigate these issues
• while you should reference our course readings in your work, and in particular, "Research-based web design and usability guidelines," required course readings cannot count as any of your 8 sources
• your sources should include at least 4 empirical pieces of research; empirical research describes the result of a study that has been conducted, rather than just stating general design guidelines. Many of the references in "Research-based web design and usability guidelines" are to empirical pieces of scholarly research
• create an annotated bibliography of these eight sources
• integrate these articles into your discussion
• identify example web pages/sites (minimum number = 6) that illustrate these issues
• describe why/how these web pages/sites illustrate these issues
• create a site map/outline for your site
• design and code a 10-page web site using XHTML and CSS that coherently presents the material identified above
• use external style sheets only
• this project should be contained within the following directory structure inf380K/final/ with the homepage set as the index page
• all image files should be contained within a separate directory called 'images' within the main project directory
• use relative paths for linking internal pages and images
• include appropriate metadata and comments for all of your pages
• insure that your website obeys principles of good design and usability and that your code is valid

You are required to include:

• a home page that has some content (i.e. don't just code a splash page)
• an annotated bibliography page that lists and describes all of the sources that you use in your website
• a site map that demonstrates the different pages of your website and the organization and structure of your website
• a page that describes you and the project

When you have finished, zip all of the files together and send them to me as an attachment to the following email address : megan [at] ischool [dot] utexas [dot] edu. Also include the URL in the email.

6b. Final Project Option 2 (=20 points): Due December 6

The final project is a group undertaking and is designed to let you create your own network based information resource or application. You along with two other classmates are to implement (that means a working system) an Internet accessible World-Wide-Web service with information available on a topic of benefit to either our school, the campus in general, or an organization of your choosing.

If your group will be working on improving an existing Web based system, you must clearly define what has been done already and what you are adding or improving. In addition, if you will be building on a Web based project that you have worked on before, you must clearly define some NEW thing that you will be doing. I will not accept projects that just add more basic HTML pages to a site that is already full of basic HTML pages. However if you wanted to add some Java scripts or add some multimedia elements and you didn’t already have any of those elements present, then the project would probably be acceptable.

It will be up to your group to determine the scope of the work and who does what. Your group must submit a written proposal describing what you’re going to do (one or two paragraphs via email is sufficient) on or before October 25. I suggest you discuss your project with me in advance however to be sure it is appropriate. Your written proposal should clearly define what you're trying to do, what information you need to obtain to do it, how the work will be divided in your group, as well as the "end-user" you'll be working with on the project.

Final Project Presentations (20 points) = Due December 6

The final projects are due on the final day of class and your group will be given 15 minutes to demonstrate to the rest of the class what you did. In order for the project to be considered complete you must document what you did in writing (I’d like specifics as to what each person contributed) and explain how your system works and why you set it up as you did. You only need to complete one project documentation report, each person does not need to do their own and generally it can be quite short (5 pages or less).

The project will be graded based on the difficulty of the task, how well you implemented your proposed system, the design and usability of your site, how easy your site is to navigate, is the site appropriate for your target audience, what advanced capabilities did you try, and how well did you document what you did.

Grading

A = 120- 108 points

B = 107 - 96 points

C = 95 - 84 points

D = 83 - 72 points