University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
School of Information and Library Science
INLS 80: Data Communication Networks
Option 1
Search Engine Analysis
These notes are to supplement in-class discussions about the assignment.
Overall goals:
-
To demonstrate your ability to search for information on the Internet
-
To give you some experience with searching for information on different
engines
-
To identify strengths & shortcomings of engines
-
To demonstrate your ability to create web pages
From the syllabus:
"Beyond the review content, each review should include:
-
A title; good organization; effective use of English
-
Identification of the review's intended audience
-
Identification of the resource's intended audience"
General format
You should be using more advanced HTML techniques than for your first
assignment and use at least one table.
The assignment
Write a brief (1-3 pages) comparison of search engines. Choose at
least three search engines to compare (examples might be Excite, Hotbot,
Lycos, Yahoo, Altavista, or a subject-specific engine/directory). Formulate
a question/query and use it to test your chosen search engines, and answer
the following questions:
-
What information are you looking for?
-
Do you already know a great deal about the subject or do you need to find
out lots of details?
-
What is your query? (This is not the same answer as the first question.)
-
What search terms will you use?
-
Which search engines did you choose and why?
-
Is there a particular feature that would help your search?
-
Of the three search engines used, which gave you the most satisfactory
result? Why?
-
Which features of the search engines did you use?
-
Compare the features of your chosen engines and describe any difficulties
you had with your search.
-
Did you find the information you were looking for?
-
If you had problems, what did you do to try and overcome these difficulties?
Option 2
HTML Editor Analysis
In this assignment, you will write a brief (2-4 pages) evaluation of at
least three different HTML editors (or two HTML editors compared to a text
editor such as notepad or Pico). We will discuss a variety of editors in
class, and you may choose from these or from additional ones that aren't
covered. Imagine that you are responsible for purchasing an HTML editor,
and consider the following questions:
-
Who is the audience you are considering and what background do they have?
-
What evaluation criteria will you use?
-
Why are these criteria important to this audience?
-
How well does each HTML editor meet these criteria?
Your paper should present the results of your findings in a clear and concise
manner, with a justification of your choice of criteria.
The purpose of this assigment is twofold:
-
To give you some additional exposure to the plethora of HTML editors available
and help you choose one to use this semester.
-
To give you some experience in formulating and justifying evaluation criteria
for software.