REQUIREMENTS

WEB-CT

A. JAMES MCADAMS

NOTRE DAME

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Page Two

Tuesday, 2004

Projects

For the remainder of the semester, we will work on two sets of projects: 1) individual essays on specific aspects of the private and public aspects of the Internet, and 2) the design and development of group Web pages. The Group assignments can be found below.

 

 

Group Web projects

The goal of this assignment is to use a Web page to illustrate all of the issues involved in one aspect of the Internet revolution. I am not asking you to take one or another side to a controversy. Rather, I want each group to provide the educated viewer with the information and perspectives required to understand the relevant issues and to identify the challenges they represent for citizens and policymakers in a democracy. If you are successful, the viewer should be able to make up his or her mind based entirely on the information available on your page.

Each Web page should be organized around one particular question. This question should help to clarify our thinking about both 1) the various aspects of the issue; and 2) the general context. A good way of looking at this is: why should I care to know more?

To be specific, you must respond on your page to the following items:

1. What is the topic and what does it mean?
2. Why is the topic important?
3. Why would people have strong disagreements about how to deal with this topic?
4. What are the social and political implications of acting one way or another?

Requirements:

Groups are required to use all forms of communication availed by the Internet to design these pages. I am asking you to be creative, even daring.

Structure: Your work must be truly collaborative. No single person should take responsibility for your page. Your group should not be divided into leaders and followers. Because your goal is to create a page in which every component is woven into every other, you as a group will need to reflect collectively on how to do this. It is your responsibility, as a group, to ensure total participation, on WebCT, other internet media, and in class meetings.

Content: Each page must contain the following items:

1. Information collected from at least one survey that you conduct on a subtopic of your choice. To allow for comparison, the data must be collected from two groups: a) at least 25 Notre Dame students (not in this class); and b) at least 25 Notre Dame parents (only one parent per family; these may not be your own families).What is the topic and what does it mean?
2. Information on your topic that you have collected from at least 3 sources outside the United States. This information must come from breathing human beings, i.e., not static Web pages. These must be people you’ve never met and will likely never encounter in person. It is your responsibility to locate them, so begin now!
3. Information collected on the basis of questions posed (online or in person) to one or more members of the Notre Dame Internet Group. For the members’ bios, see http://www.nd.edu/~netgroup. These individuals have considerable expertise that could prove useful to you.
4. References to the relevance of your topic to student life at Notre Dame.
5. References to the Web pages of at least 3 current US presidential candidates.
6. References to WWW-based college syllabi on your topic. Syllabi may not be from ND.
7. One pedagogical tool or class assignment that did not occur to me when I designed our course page. I will draw on your suggestions in future classes.
8. At least one reference to the war in Iraq.
9. One reference to Notre Dame athletics.
10. One reference to Haiti.
11. References to both recent court decisions on your topic and recent policy decisions by either Congress or the White House
12. Information on your topic that you have collected from at least 3 sources outside the United States. This information must come from breathing human beings, i.e., not static Web pages. These must be people you’ve never met and will likely never encounter in person. It is your responsibility to locate them, so begin now!