PLEASE NOTE: All CMIT modules have now been withdrawn,
and are unavailable for the 2010/11 academic year
These web pages and lecture notes are left as reference for those students
requiring CMIT modules to complete their programme only, and are not an
indication of modules currently offered.
assignment: Web Review
The web review is due on or before Thursday 14 January 2010 at 12 noon. You may submit this work early (on or before Thursday 26 November 2009 ) to receive feedback on your progress.
Assignment Outline
Your task for this first assignment is to write a critical review (approx. 2,000 words) of three web sites (sites, not pages) that cover an academic or educational topic, if possible relating to your main degree.
Using a journalistic style, evaluate the content and design of each site, examining areas such as the following (these are suggestions only):
Informational Content
- Is the material interesting and relevant?
- How much information do the pages contain?
- How accurate and trustworthy is the material?
- How much of the content is original material, rather than regurgitated paper-based material?
Effectiveness of Communication
- Do the pages communicate their message clearly?
- Does the material lend itself to this format readily?
- Did you learn from the material?
Style and Design
- Are the pages merely linear text converted to the web, or are the benefits of hypertext used effectively?
- Does the design of the pages get in the way of readability or information content?
Use of advanced features
- Are the more advanced features (e.g. animation, forms, etc.) merely gimmicks which slow down the loading process, or do they serve a useful purpose?
Marks are awarded for choosing the most appropriate criteria for evaluating the chosen websites, so some adaptation of the above will almost always be necessary.
Submission Guidelines
Your review, which should include both subjective and objective arguments, must be approx. 2,000 words long, and must clearly state the locations (URLs) of the pages you are evaluating in a bibliography or links page. The review should be written as a series of web pages, using XHTML and CSS. You should not use graphical web design tools to create the pages; it should be encoded using a text editor.
For the feedback submission, you should upload the completed review to your personal web space on people.ex.ac.uk via the student portal, in a folder called mit2114/review, and send a link to the main page of the URL to
<cmit-submissions@exeter.ac.uk>.
Alternatively, you may hand in notes on paper or a copy on disk/usb-key for this feedback submission only.
For the final deadline only, you should also submit your work as hardcopy, printed as viewed on screen (ie without showing the XHTML tags), and clearly write your URL on your submitted hardcopy (or ensure it appears somewhere in full).
Note:
Failure to upload your review or to submit a printed copy may result in a fail mark.
For students based on the main campus, all hardcopies must be handed in to the CMIT Office (i.e. not to Gary personally). You should ensure that the work is signed in correctly. State clearly your URL and your student number on your work; do not include your name.
Distance learners should email the URL of their website to
<cmit-submissions@exeter.ac.uk> before the deadline, and send their printed copy via internal mail to: Carole Lewis, CMIT, Queen's Building, Streatham Campus, or to our usual contact address. Note: It is not necessary to allow for postal delays for this printed copy provided the work is submitted electronically on or before the deadline.
Weighting of Marks
Marks are equally divided between the presentational aspects of the assessment (the design, structure, and quality of XHTML) and the content (quality of analysis, and selection of sites and critical discussion points). The Cover Sheet which will be returned with your draft review gives and indication of the marking criteria for the Web Review assessment (you do not need to include this with your submitted work).
Example Reviews
There are some example reviews in the CMIT archive. Note that the sites they review may have moved or changed since last year!