Post 1
Question 1:
I believe that regarding this course, our community consists of the students in our class, our activity is the creation, usage, and interaction of a functional blog. Our class will create relationships with one another unlike the relationships with our peers from other courses because in other courses there is little outside communication. Subsequently, this course can only function if the communication outside of class is fluid from start to end. In our case, the use of blogs will allow for continuous and fluid communication. I am wondering whether other students have a different interpretation of how this course breaks down. So my question is, Do you agree with this statement said, if not explain.
Question 2:
After reviewing the websites, I found that The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War was an archival site. It was easy to navigate because you had multiple options, browse through the format built by the webmaster, or simply click on the sitemap. A question arose regarding archival websites. Is it worth hindering accessibility of information for a intricate design format, should the just have a sitemap, or should there be a combination of both like how this particular archive was constructed?
Question 3:
After reading the readings and view the websites, I understand that the web is saturated with websites that contain practical and reliable information. However, many of those sites are block to the public that cannot afford membership. Do you think the future of the internet (expanding at an exponential rate) will make these websites obsolete?
January 23rd, 2006 at 8:52 pm
I am not sure that it will make such websites obsolete. In many ways mebership fees save websites from having to sell advertisement space and this in turn ads to the credibilty of the site. Just think about how much more professional a site looks without the advertisement for the new McDonald breakfast sandwich. Also I think that as long as individuals have to pay to subscribe to traditional mediums for newspapers, magazines, and journals they will have to pay for them online as well.
January 23rd, 2006 at 10:11 pm
I agree with that statement. In some classes, especially larger classes, you may not talk to every person in the class. Also, unlike other classes, we are reading each others thoughts and ideas, and then responding to them. While this happens in class discussions, class discussions are still limited to how long the class is and how ever long the professor will let students debate an issue.
Good question about free websites versus sites where you must pay. I think that as long as websites were a subscription is required will continue to provide valuable and useful information then they will stay relevant. Copyrighting is a key issue here as well. Another interesting thing is many newspaper websites will let you read parts of articles or current articles, but if you want to access the full article or online archive you must subscribe to the website. I believe the New York Times does this. In cases like that I think there are many free alternatives available to people, such as a different newspaper. Of course, I think companies with such prestige as the New York Times, which feels it can charge for some of its online features, will probably continue to do so.
January 24th, 2006 at 1:03 am
I think that communication outside of class is fundamental and will lead to all of us getting to know each other much better than in a typical lecture or even discussion class.
I think website design is key to captivating an audience. A site map comes across as so dull, like looking through an index. While poorly designed sites make finding things a nusance (check out the DMV or dc.gov site sometime for a fun rush to frustration), well designed sites make going to them an enjoyable experience.
I think pay-sites will become obsolete. Good and free information is becoming more readily available each day. I think that many paysites were kept alive by academics or people using the web for academic pursuits. With most Universities now picking up the bill and allowing students and faculty free and unlimited access, popularity of paysites among the average person will fall way down. I think that more sites will do what refdesk.com has done and provide a great reference site and ask for donations to keep it alive.
January 24th, 2006 at 1:17 am
I think that as long as we have copyrights (which I don’t foresee disappearing), we will have pay-sites. There will always be information that people want, but it may only be available from someone who wants money for it. The sites that come to mind are sites for scholarly journals, which people in academia need, and are willing to pay for in order to gain access to them. They aren’t going to ship the journals for free, and therefore they won’t want to give access to the articles for free. Though Universities pick up the bill, it is only for their students and staff. Granted, this is probably the majority of the users, but the fact remains that the access is paid for, even if not by the individuals.
January 24th, 2006 at 2:28 pm
Interesting conversation–i’m of two minds on the issue. To some extent Gated scholarly sites are beneficial-in that you pay for it and instantly are guarenteed a level of quality that you won’t necessarily find elsewhere. On the other hand, pay-sites, as has been previously stated, can easily be bypassed for other places of information.
The one site I enjoyed looking at was the French Revolution site–what was fascinating about that one was that it was A) Free, B) An intriguing topic–especially in hte papers that looked at visual culture and the revolution. But not all free sites can be that high quality–one has to be able to sustain a certain amount of hits etc.
At the same time though–and in terms of digitzation and copyright in the global patent world, there is some use to having free access to information. Recently Indian and Pakistan have begun ditizing aruvedic and yoga information (aka homeopathic remedies and such) in order to divert US and other forgein corporations from stealing the material and then patenting it as their own (a case that comes to mind is the one involving Basmati rice) in that sense free sites are beneficial.
Anyway…I’m not sure pay-sites will become obsolete, in fact I think tha they are multiplying–more and more sites are asking you to register to personalize your experience…..if the company/corporation can provide some sort of valuable service–payment is not far behind. (Another example would be the recent selling of tv shows on itunes!)
January 24th, 2006 at 3:52 pm
I do not think pay sites will become obsolete. As long as academics (and their institutions) pay for access, such sites with essentially limited audiences will continue to prosper. Academics accustomed to subscribing to journals and maying membership fees for organizations understand that the cost of such websites is offset by the reliable and accurate information they provide. Additionally, archival sites like JSTOR are incredibly expensive to maintain, and Santral’s point about advertising is an important consideration. Perhaps most importantly, there is not a wide audience for such sites. The average internet user does not need access to JSTOR and until there is a nonacademic demand for such sites, I doubt the gated sites will have much competition.
December 23rd, 2006 at 2:32 am
good blog is dead blog:-)…
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December 24th, 2006 at 11:48 am
very good post…
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January 15th, 2007 at 6:50 am
very good post from our team…
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