Information and Content Management over the Web: October 2012

Thursday, 25 October 2012

Survey - item 4

1) Is this your first completely online subject?

Yes

2) What do you enjoy about the use of blogs during the subject? (Please provide a few sentences or bullet points.)

Adds a personal touch towards the subject
Gives a sense of loyalty to your followers
Finding out there are a such thing as blogs and what they are

3) Do you feel group work via blogs is a productive way to work through the course concepts (e.g., Web 2.0, Information Architecture, Content Management, etc.)?

Please indicate on a scale of 1 to 10 (where 1 = Strongly disagree to 10 = Strongly agree)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

4) What do you enjoy about the use of Facebook during the subject? (Please provide a few sentences or bullet points.)

I never used Facebook for this course, but if I was to use it, id assume it would help get students to get to know everyone else.

5) Do you feel that the use of social networking enhanced your sense of being part of the class community given that there was no real-time interaction within the subject (i.e., lectures, tutorials)?

Please indicate on a scale of 1 to 10 (where 1 = Strongly disagree to 10 = Strongly agree)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

6) What would you recommend to enhance the experience of a student in an online environment? (Please provide a few sentences or bullet points.)

Some other topic for optional objectives in blogging. Summarizing does not seem like a work objective work extra credit.
Get students into groups for group work in a blog to promote organisation blogs.

Google PageRank - item 4

PageRank is the algorithm used by Google's search engine. It is based on the theory that the importance of a research paper can be judged and rated by the number of citations the paper has from other research papers.

The inventors of the algorithm Sergey Brin and Larry Page, transferred the research paper importance theory to the web, making so each web page can be judged by the number of hyperlinks which are pointing to it from other web pages. (Horrell M., 2001)

Example of the theory behind PageRank.

What is this equation?

PR(A) = (1 - d) + d(PR(t1)/C(t1) + ... + PR(tn)/C(tn))

Legend:

'PR(A)' is the web page's PageRank
't1' & 'tn' are pages which link to page A
'C' number of outbound links the page has
'd' the damping factor (usually set at 0.85)

How does it work?

A simpler version to understand is:

a page's PageRank = 0.15 + 0.85 * (linking page's PageRank/number of outbound links on page)

In plain terms, a page's PageRank is calculated by dividing a page's number of inbound links with its number of outbound links (inbound/outbound). Then the value is multiplied by the damping factor. Finally the product of "1 minus the damping factor" is then added to the result. The final product is then achieved.

References
Horrell M.(2001), The Google PageRank Algorithm. Retrieved from http://www.markhorrell.com/seo/pagerank.html

Monday, 15 October 2012

My Chosen Website - Item 3

This assessment item I have been asked to make a website using blueprints, wireframes, and metadata to show its shape, function, and strategy.

The kind of website I wanted to make was an information wiki made by university students who can edit all subject areas and create new pages. But first what is my target audience? I'm looking at an audience with these characteristics and backgrounds.

Either female or male
Ages 18-25
Able to read
Highly educated Students
Within a Tafe or University community
Has a social life for looking for information to their area of study
Able to access the internet

Hierarchy Navigation for website.

Here is the blueprint of the website's pages and functions.

It is a hierarchy navigational system. The website has 5 main functions which are also pages; home page, the advanced searching, adding new content, contact information, and post page.

The home page is an introduction to the site with a description of how to use the site.

The Select by Area (Hierarchy) is an advanced search page that gives the user a couple of ways to narrow down their search preferences using hierarchy. It then posts results the user can view.

The Add New Content allows logged in users to enter new content to the site. It goes through a process of asking the user where the content is contented under, as well as letting them enter the content. The user can then view the content with a preview on the website. If they want to edit, it takes them back to the Add New Content. Otherwise, it publishes the content and sends the user to the post page.

The Contact Us is a web page that gives information of the developers and owners, as well as their content information to send an email if they have a question or report of a bug of the website.

The Search is not a page, but a search box that can be used on any webpage of the website, that uses the query entered and uses algorithms to narrow the searches down and displays them in a list.

Here are the wireframes for the website. Descriptions for the wireframes are found in the images themselves.