General Information. This is an individual assignment although you may choose to team up with another member of the class. In this case I will expect a bit more in the analysis and will assign the same grade to each of you. It is also possible to suggest an alternative assignment. (For example, there are some interesting issues relative to technical standards for some of these new communication media and an examination of some aspect would make a good paper topic and might be of interest to information science majors)
Media/Topic Choice. You have three choices of information media for this assignment. You may choose to examine 3-4 web sites on the same topic, perhaps selecting a commercial site, an organization site, and an individual one for variety. Or you may choose to examine 3-4 electronic journals -- perhaps a selection of a scholarly, a popular, and a special interest ejournal. Or you may choose to subscribe to a listserv (or examine one you are already subscribed to).
It will be relatively easy to begin with a topic of special interest to you (personal or professional) for either the web site or the listserv analysis, but for the ejournal analysis, you will not have as much choice and may have to be content with a selection based on the form and type (scholarly vs popular). (You may include an online newspaper as a special example of an ejournal)
Once you have selected your media and topic (if applicable), send me an email telling me what you have chosen. Please give me this information by or before Jan. 30.
Sample Selection. It will be important to select an appropriate sample to analyze. For web sites, you will want to choose those which have a number of connected pages of information. For ejournals, you will want to sample 2-3 issues of each one. For a listserv, you will want to collect a sample from at least 2 different time periods several weeks apart and in sufficient quantity to have at least 200 messages to analyze.
Criteria for Analysis. You will want to develop appropriate criteria of analysis, depending on your topic and choice of media. Among other aspects you will probably want to assess the advantages/disadvantages this media offers over more traditional ways of sharing information. Format, structure, ease of access, navigational ability, appearance, accuracy, reliability, etc. are other criteria you may want to consider. And, of course, as good communicators, we always need to be aware of the audience and how well the media fits the need. How well do your sources meet the needs and expectations of their intended audience(s) (if that intended audience can be ascertained)?
Write-up. For your write-up, you may create a web site with pointers to particular examples (if you chose websites or ejournals) or you may do a more traditional word-processed report. This method may be more appropriate for a listserv analysis as you can easily append one or two spreadsheets if you desire.
However you decide to submit your final report, it should be not less than 6 nor more than 12 pages long. Include in your paper the reasons for your choice of media and topic (if applicable), how you selected your sample, what criteria you used for your analysis, your method of assessment, your results, and a discussion of the implications of your findings with possible suggestions for professional use or product improvement.
Examples. A somewhat wordy example of an analysis of some scholarly electronic serials is provided for you on your reserve list as:
Bishop, Ann Peterson, "Scholarly Journals on the Net: A Reader's Assessment," Library Trends 43(4) (Spring 95) 544-570.A number of Master's papers have also recently been completed here at the School assessing various categories of web sites.
These examples are for general guidance only as they are generally more comprehensive than you are asked to be in this assignment.