TWC452/552 Information in the Digital Age (Spring 2007)

TWC452/552 Information in the Digital Age
Spring 2007
Assignments

Confirmation email (5 pts, due January 21)

Your confirmation email will serve as your "contract" for the course, acknowledging that you agree with course guidelines, policies, and expectations and that you will be a full participant in the class.

Send email to me with the following information:

That you have read and understood all course documents and agree to all guidelines, policies, and expectations
That you have been able to access the Sakai coursesite and have spent some time becoming familiar with it
Questions, comments, concerns you may have

Discussion Board Posts (14@10 pts each)

Outcomes measured: R2, C1, C3, C4, C5, P3, K2, K3

Discussion Board posts are the equivalent of class participation. You should engage in discussion of the topic and demonstrate that you have completed and understood the readings.

Original post (5 pts; due by Wednesdays, 11:00pm): As part of this course you will be doing a good deal of reading; some will be theoretical in nature, others will be practical. Many of the course topics will be ones that are familiar to you and that you have already formed opinions about based on prior knowledge and experience. The readings are intended to give you an overview of the topic, to provide you with potentially different perspectives, and serve as a starting point for discussion. Your original post should include:
- substantial discussion demonstrating that you have completed, understood, and critically thought about the reading(s). That is, your posts should not be statements of unsubtantiated opinion. They should be reasonably thought out and integrates the readings in a way that supports your claims. Your posts should also pose questions about the topic, if appropriate.
- an example applying the concepts in the reading(s) in a real-world setting/context. Your example should not repeat what another student has already posted.
Response posts (5 pts; due by Sunday, 11:00pm): Discussion cannot take place in a vacuum. In addition to your original post, you should respond to a minimum of 2 other students. Your responses should be substantive. That is, posts that say something along the lines of "good post, I agree" may be a response but it lacks substance, thinking, and leaves little to no room for a response. What I would like to see is a conversation develop about the course topics.

Because of the amount of content covered in this course, late postings will receive a grade of 0 points. Flaming or lack of civility in posts will automatically result in a grade of 0 for the week.

Information Organization and Retrieval (10 pts; due February 25)

Outcomes measured: R1, C2, C5, P1, P2, K1, K2

Over the course of history, libraries have developed cataloging and indexing methodologies to organize materials to simplify finding relevant information. As the Internet has grown, it has become increasingly apparent that finding information, especially relevant information, is difficult. Ways to improve searching the Internet have been developed. Others are still under development. For this assignment, select an information retrieval system and evaluate how information is organized and retrieved.

In your report, 1) describe the information system you selected and why you chose it; 2) summarize the ways information are organized, the mechanisms used to browse and search, and how information is structured to allow (or impede) effective searching; 3) analyze the system: how effective is the information structure to facilitate retrieving relevant information focussing on how the organization of information aids (or does not aid) finding and retrieving it.

Examples of an information retrieval system may include:

Library catalog
Periodical index or database
Website
Shopping bot
Specialized search engine.
Image or media database
Other?

Format: Submit your report to me in memo format . Sources must be properly cited in APA style format. Required course readings may be cited; however, at least two additional sources must be cited in support of your argument. You must also include actual search examples as part of your paper to illustrate your thesis.

Grading:

This report is worth 10 points toward your final grade and will be evaluated on the following scale:

Clearly stated thesis:	2 points
Clarity/comprehensiveness of analysis	5 points
Relevance/integration of sources; sources properly formatted	2 points
Formatting and mechanics	1 point

Information and the Media (10 pts; due April 1)

Outcomes measured: R1, C1, C2, C4, C5, P1, K1

For this assignment, find a story reported in a newspaper article. You can use any mainstream newspaper (Arizona Republic, New York Times, etc.) but it must be either the print version or a copy of the article reprinted on the newspaper's website.

Next, find the same story reported on in a minimum of 3 of the following media:

blog
alternative or independent media outlet (not mainstream)
non-U.S. news source (print and/or electronic)
radio broadcast
television news broadcast
popular magazine (for example, Time, Newsweek)
specific genre of magazine (entertainment, sports, technology, etc)
social networking space or virtual community
news-related website that has no print counterpart (CNN, for example)
news aggregator (Associate Press, for example)

Presentation of information is influenced by many factors including audience, purpose, and media. Compare, contrast, and analyze the content of the story and how the information is presented in the different media. In this assignment, you should do more than summarize what is included in the different media. Analyze within the context of the course; use course readings to help.

Format: Submit your assignment as a memo to me. Sources (the articles you have located) should be cited in proper APA style.

This report is worth 10 points toward your final grade and will be evaluated on the following scale:

Clarity/comprehensiveness of analysis	8 points
Sources properly cited	1 point
Formatting and mechanics	1 point

Newsletter or Magazine Article (15 pts; due May 1)

Outcomes measured: R2, K1, C3, C5, K2, K3

Globalization may be seen as one of the outcomes of the "information age." In the introductory video to the course, I pointed out that information does not care about boundaries; we live in a time when it can be easily and rapidly transmitted across national borders. Globalization, of course, has both positive and negative impacts. Impact also depends on your perspective. Outsourcing of customer service jobs, for example, may be a positive impact if you are the CEO of a company trying to cut costs but a negative impact if you are the service representative in the U.S. losing your job to someone in India (or Ireland or...).

In this final assignment, you will write a magazine article about globalization. The magazine must be the official magazine for the membership of a professional society. For example, you may write an article for:

Intercom (Society of Technical Communication)
IEEE PCS Newsletter (IEEE Professional Communication Society)
Crossroads: The International ACM Student Magazine (Association of Computing Machinery)

If your discipline is not technical communication or technology-related and you wish to write for another professional society's magazine, please email me prior to writing your article.

Your article should be on an aspect of globalization that will be of interest to the readers of the magazine and within the context of this class: information in the digital age.

In order to write your article you will need to understand who the readers are of the magazine as well as their interests. IEEE PCS and Crossroads are available online. The tables of content for Intercom are also available online. If you are not an STC member and would like to see copies of articles published in Intercom, plase contact me.

Your article should be submitted in the style and format of the magazine you have selected. Be sure to read the submission guidelines for the magazine and to take a look at a few articles to become familiar with the style and tone of writing used.

This article is worth 15 points toward your final grade and will be evaluated on the following scale:

Clearly stated thesis:	2 points
Clarity/comprehensiveness of analysis; appropriate information and analysis for the audience:	5 points
Formatting and mechanics	3 points

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Last modified: 10 January 2007