Computer Science 403

Online Network Exploration

Sections 6 and 7 -- Spring 2008 

Final Project DUE DATE -- May 7

Absolutely no late submissions accepted without permission.

200 Points (separate from assignment grades)

Email me a detailed theme for your presentation by 3/26 (10 points)

Table of Contents

• Theme
• Introduction
• Getting Started
• Grading
• Technical Requirements
• Project Submission

Picking a Theme

Before you can begin to design or implement any Web presentation, you first need to determine the theme of that presentation. In other words, you need to begin by asking yourself, "What is my purpose and how do I intend to achieve it?"

I expect your project presentation to be focused on a single theme or purpose. The theme or purpose you choose for your project presentation is completely up to you. The only limitation is that your purpose must be more than to simply tell the world about yourself. What I mean by this is that I do not want to see a final presentation whose only unifying theme is that every page is about you or your different interests. Instead, pick one aspect of yourself or one specific interest you have and develop a presentation to share that specific topic (and your unique perspectives and contributions on that topic) with your readers.

There is a nearly infinite range of topics and approaches that are acceptable. Feel free to create a presentation that serves another purpose in addition to fulfilling your project requirement. If there’s something in particular you’ve always wanted to do with a Web presentation, this is a prime opportunity. It’s fine to do a presentation for your employer, an organization to which you belong, or anything else you feel warrants representation on the Web. Just try to keep your goals reasonable so that you do not get started on a project which you do not have time to finish. If need be, create a project which can act as a starting point for a more involved presentation in the future.

In general, the best themes are those which allow the author to share things that only they are able to share, since such themes result in presentations that offer something truly unique. So if you are at a loss for ideas, try thinking of things that you might contribute to the Web based upon your unique experience, background, or knowledge. This will often lead you to the things that will both hold your interest and provide something attractive to your readers.

Whatever you choose as your theme or purpose, make sure it’s something that interests you enough to keep your attention for the rest of the semester. You’ll be spending a lot of time on your presentation over the last few weeks of the semester.

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Introduction

The idea behind the final project is to give you a chance to apply the knowledge you have acquired throughout the semester.

Up to this point in the semester, the XHTML and CSS you’ve been writing has been for practice with the mechanical aspects of creating XHTML documents. That work has laid a foundation upon which you can expand to employ some of the more involved aspects of XHTML and CSS.

Please note, however, that the final project is much more than a mechanical exercise. It is also intended to give you experience in the creative and artistic aspects of designing and implementing an effective Web presentation.

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Getting Started

Creating a full-fledged Web presentation can be a time-consuming task. Therefore, I strongly encourage you to get started as soon as possible. And the place to start is with a design of some sort.

There is no standard way to design a Web presentation, but you should at least sit down and decide how best to present your ideas in order to achieve your goal.

• Decide what information you want on each page and how you want to organize it for maximum impact.
• Decide on the images and formatting that you wish to use.
• Decide how users will likely wish to navigate among your pages.
• Identify appropriate remote resources to enhance the utilitarian value of your presentation.
• Keep in mind that all of these factors will be taken into account when your project is being graded.

As you plan your approach, be sure to keep the minimum technical requirements in mind, since you will need to work them into your presentation somehow.

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Grading

There are two major components to the grading of the final project. One is subjective, and the other is objective.

30% of the grade is subjective. To determine this part of the grade, I will be looking at several aspects of your presentation:

• Effectiveness: Playing the role of an average user out surfing the Web, I will try to determine how easy it is to identify the theme or purpose of your presentation. Then, I will assess how well your presentation achieves that purpose, holds the reader’s attention, and encourages them to return for another visit.
• Ease of use: I will try to determine how easily a typical user is likely to find their way around your presentation in search of the information they seek.
• Content: I will examine the amount of original content in your pages and the writing quality of that content (including spelling and grammar).
• Creativity: I will judge the level of creativity with which you have presented your information.
• Utility: I will assess how useful a typical reader would likely find your presentation. Is the information easy to find and helpful? Are the links to remote resources likely to be of interest?
• Professionalism: I will also be looking to gauge the professionalism of your presentation. Is it rough or polished? Is it easy to find your contact information, last modified dates, and/or copyright and credit info? Have you followed the design features discussed in class?

Invest some time and generate some meaningful content (yes, that means write it yourself!) For instance, if your project involves your favorite sports team, don't just list their roster, record, and statistics. Or if your project is a fan site for your favorite band, don't simply list a discography and tour dates. Instead, tell your reader something that only you can tell them. There are dozens of places to find discographies for bands or statistics for sports teams already on the Web. Do something that will make your presentation special. Don't be afraid to share your thoughts and opinions! Tell readers why this is your favorite band, or team, or hobby, or sport... That's what the Web is primarily about -- sharing your thoughts with others.

70% of the grade is objective. To determine this part of the grade I will be looking at two essential aspects of your presentation:

• Correctness: I will evaluate the correctness of your XHTML, URLs and CSS to ensure that you followed the rules as presented in class.
• Completeness: I will assess how completely you satisfied the minimum technical requirements outlined below.

Note that the technical requirements are minimums; you should feel free to include more features than those described.

Although it may seem that placing such requirements on a Web project is needlessly artificial, they do play an important role in the grading. The technical requirements provide a basis for a significant portion of the grade which is easily measured by both you and me. That is, you should be able to assure yourself of having met the requirements (or not, as the case may be) and I will be able to verify that you have done so. Through past experience, I have found that this level of objectivity produces significantly less grade anxiety than the alternative (which is for me to make the grading entirely subjective).

Most students agree with the need for minimum technical requirements when I point out that the alternative amounts to trusting a significant portion of their semester grade entirely to how much I liked their project presentation! Also, the requirements force you to put into practice many of the features of XHTML and CSS we have covered in lecture throughout the semester, and figuring out how to incorporate the requirements into your presentation (presumably without forfeiting its overall effectiveness) will lead you to evaluate different ways in which various aspects of XHTML and CSS can be used to enhance your pages.

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Technical Requirements

The minimum technical requirements which the pages in your presentation must meet are as follows:

• Your presentation homepage must be accessible via your link on the Homepages page. You need to place the final project in a folder called project.  Create the folder in your public_html folder.  The main page of your project should be called index.html.  Because you will be storing this in the project folder it will not overwrite your current index.html page (if you do this correctly).
• Your presentation must consist of at least ten local pages.
• Somewhere within your presentation you must have appropriately utilized the following CSS features:
  • At least 1 external style sheet (called project.css) linked to all of your pages. project.css must include:

       

    • At least 5 rules with different element name selectors
    • At least 4 rules with different class selectors (and the appropriate use of those classes within the XHTML)
    • At least 4 rules with different ID selectors (and the appropriate use of those IDs within the XHTML)
    • Among these rules you should utilize at least 15 different CSS properties (By “different” I mean unique. That is, background and color would count as 2 different properties, but 20 different uses of the color property would still only count as 1)

     

• Use CSS for page layout.
• You may use additional external style sheets, inline styles and embedded style sheets as needed.
• At least one of your pages must use CSS to specify a background image in addition to the background color. Remember, a texture is considered a background image.
• Somewhere within your presentation you must have used at least seven images (in addition to any images used as backgrounds).
• The files which comprise your presentation must be organized into at least two subdirectories of public_html. XHTML files for the project must be stored in a directory called project. Your image files should be in a separate directory called project_images. No files for your project may be stored directly within public_html .
• Somewhere within your presentation you must have used at least two different types of lists (ordered, unordered, or definition).
• Somewhere within your presentation you must have used at least two tables. Do not use tables for page layout.
• Somewhere within your presentation you must have at least eight links to different remote resources.
• Each of your pages must be linked in some way via a local link to the rest of your presentation. It is not necessary for every page to have a local link to every other page. Nor is it necessary for any one page to contain local links to all of the other pages. However, somewhere within your pages there must be some way to reach every page in your presentation via a local link. Pages that are not accessible via local links will not be graded.
• Somewhere within your presentation you must have at least one form which contains at least five different types of controls and submits its contents to you using the cgiemail form processing agent as discussed in lecture. You will find additional information on the use of this agent in The cgiemail User Guide.

In addition to the above, I will check for:

• features listed in the Notes on Web Pages

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Project Submission

Once the submission deadline arrives, please do not modify your online files until after the final exam to allow me time to grade them.

What you need to turn in:

• The source code of each page
• The source code of each css file
• The text file which you use for your form.
• A Project form.
• Make sure every page is clearly labeled with your name in a comment at the top and the name of the file, also at the top.  Usually textpad or notepad will include the name of the file when it is printed.
• Either staple or paper clip all pages together or place in a folder. Place the Project Form on top, then the index page, then your other pages and lastly your css page(s).

Your page will be evaluated by other members of the class(es) as well as by me.  More information about that will be forthcoming.

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• What’s New

• About the Course
• Instructor
• Required Book
• Policies

• Schedule
• Assignments
• Project ----->
• Homepages
• Posted Grades

• Assistance
• Notes
• Sample Files
• Blackboard