PROJECT 1:
A WEBSITE OF MISINFORMATION
AND/OR
MISSING INFORMATION
CSE100/INFO100
Fluency with Information Technology
Spring 2002
Copyright and Fair Use of Text and Images
Please Recall the Class Policy on Cooperation and
Collaboration
Part I: Due Wednesday, April 24th, Midnight
Part II: Due Wednesday, May 1st, Midnight
Writing Assessment
Request from the Dean of the Information School
What
does it mean to have “photographic proof” of an event? Twenty years ago, photographs were taken at
face value. A photograph could serve as
evidence for what it pictured: certain people or things had been in a
particular place, together, at a particular time, doing particular
activities.
What
does it mean to publish valid and authentic papers? Factual reports and accounts of current events? For many, many years traditional publishing
houses [for books, research journals, government documents, and magazines] have
used well-established criteria for validating and authenticating the materials
they print. A publishing house print or
media signature carried meaning about the level and rigor of review for the
content – with some imprints conveying greater rigor (e.g., The MIT Press, NPR)
than others (e.g., The National Inquirer).
This
world of twenty or more years ago, while far from being perfect, did have the
benefits of being able to validate content at a glance. That’s the upside. The downside was the barriers to publication. If your ideas were not “accepted” or
“validated” by the various review boards, your options for publication and
dissemination could be limited. A case
in point: Albert Einstein’s original paper on relativity was turned down by
numerous scientific and mathematical journals.
Enter the Digital Age, the Internet and the World Wide Web. Technology provides unprecedented opportunities for self-publishing and freedom of expression. If Einstein was alive today, he could post his findings on relativity on a Web site and his ideas would instantly be available to billions of individuals across the globe. That’s the upside. But, with unchecked self-publishing comes the downside of content that has never been edited to check for authenticity, for completeness, etc. How is the typical user who down loads a page from the Web to distinguish between the careful considerations of a scientist like Einstein and those of an amateur science fiction writer? Or if the user is looking for travel information or stock recommendations or whatever you wish to fill in here, how is the user to know that information is current, accurate, and complete? With the advent of digital images that can be easily manipulated (and as you will experience in lab), even photographs that previously might have served as “supporting evidence” are called into question.
In the
world we live in today, where the opportunities for self-expression are
seemingly endless, how do we discriminate between truth and fiction? Information and misinformation? What are the ethical limits on how content
should be manipulated? Project 1 is
designed to help you experience first hand the issues surrounding authenticity
and self-expression. Remember that on
the Web, the motivation for publishing misinformation does not always have to
be intentional misdirection. Many, many
sites contain inaccurate information that is published with the best
intentions.
Now fast forward to September 2001
where technology and terrorism crossed paths on
Since
September 11th of last year our world has been turned upside down by
surreal events that defy imagination.
Two of the world’s tallest buildings reduced to rubble and thousands
killed. The story itself seams unreal
to those of us who hear of it from afar.
It is only those who visited Ground Zero in the weeks after the attack
who could truly understand the enormity of the destruction and the inability of
any medium to truly capture the horror.
During these frantic months that have produced, quite literally, BILLIONS
of words of information and thousand upon thousands of pictures, two patterns
have emerged that are neither tied together, nor totally separate.
First: Information is disappearing.
Out of concern for National Security, thousands of web pages and web sites have
gone dark-pulled from the WWW for various reasons. Information that has traditionally been publicly accessible by
any citizen is being pulled, not only from web sites, but also from libraries
and government installations.
Second: Misinformation is spreading like wildfire
Misinformation, little white lies, selective dissemination of facts, while not
new, has been brought into the limelight because of the global attention
surrounding 9/11. Not only do
counter-intelligence agencies use the media to broadcast subjective, often
dubious reports, the average person now has the same opportunity.
In this
project, your challenge is to do create a Web site of “misinformation” that appears
as authentic as possible to the user. That
is, while the content of your Web site will be questionable, everything else
about your Web site should convey the opposite. There are no limitations on the topics.
Overall
steps [These will be broken down into 2 parts for submission. Read those Directions carefully]:
(1) Locate a
digital photograph from an online or other source (you can take your own
digital picture if you have access to a digital camera).
(2) Using
Adobe Photoshop (or some other image design software), modify that photograph
in a subtle but significant way.
(3) Create
some text, “the story”, to support your modified image.
(4) Put your
text and image together on a Web site that appears as authentic as
possible.
(5) Test
your Web site with at least two individuals to see how successful you are at
conveying the authenticity of your “fictional” content.
As
stated above, you may choose any content area for your Web site. However, it should permit comfortable
viewing by everyone in the course. If
you’re unsure about the “tastefulness” of a particular content, it is probably
a good idea to talk with your TA or instructor first, or choose something
else. Here are some possible ideas:
Assignment
1 provides some suggestions for searching for public domain images online.
The Web
site should be in your Dante web area, but should be in a separate
directory. Create a new directory
within your public_html folder. Name the directory infoproject; name
the page you will create for Part 1 as part1.html;
name the main page for Part 2 as part2.html. Please use this exact spelling and
capitalization so people (such as course staff!) can find your sites easily.
Other names within the site can be whatever you choose. Make sure the directory and the files in it
all have general Unix Read permissions.
Once the
due date has come and gone, do NOT alter your files again in any way. Files with a modification date later than
the due date will be considered late, and your freebie will be used. Files that are modified more than 24 hours
after deadline will not be graded. Any
changes you make between the due date and receiving your grade for that project
piece will eliminate any position you may have to question the grade.
·
To design and implement a Web site using HTML
·
To manipulate a photograph in Adobe Photoshop
·
To experience first hand the ease with which
“misinformation” can be made available online
·
To reflect on how much information we have lost due to the
events of September 11th and formulate an opinion on whether or not lack of
information can also constitute misinformation when there is nothing to be
found to counter new "facts" that are appearing every day.
·
To become aware of and systematically explore the “cues”
that users may use to assess the content of a Web site
·
To conduct user testing to evaluate your Web site
·
To reflect on the challenges for misinformation online
·
Ultimately, to become an appropriately cautious user of
online information
Images and other files and content on the Internet are protected in the
same way as print materials and photographs.
Use of digital images for purposes of alteration and display on the
Internet has limited coverage under the conditions of fair use: See the Four Factor Fair Use test at: [http://www.utsystem.edu/OGC/IntellectualProperty/copypol2.htm]
and the readings assigned for Assignment 1.
Public Domain items are those in which the copyright has been lost, has
expired, or the author of the work makes no copyright claims to reproductions
or enhancements of the work.
Photographs taken by Federal Workers and posted on Federal Government
sites are public domain. Photographs
posted on City, County, and State sites have varying copyright policies but
tend to fall in line with Federal copyright guidelines. ALWAYS note the copyright policy of ANY site
you visit, regardless of its status as a commercial, non-profit, government, or
educational site.
If you use an image of a person for reasons of making a profit, you are
responsible for obtaining permission from the person or their heirs. If you use a trademark image, you must also
get permission.
It is valuable to work with a friend or classmate when
learning a new application or working out a problem. However, the work that you
perform in FIT100 for a grade must be your own work unless "working in
groups" is explicitly allowed. The
Projects involved in FIT 100 are NOT intended to be group projects. It is OK to run ideas and scenarios past
your friends or classmates, but the solution you create should be based on what
is inside your own head.
(Hint: read through all of these items carefully before beginning):
1.
Using the Photoshop skills you learned in Lab 5, modify the image(s) as
described in Part 1. Don’t be afraid to
try other features of Photoshop, etc. while you are at it!
2.
Make a copy of the part 1 web page to modify. Do NOT modify the original part1.html file. The copied file should be called part2.html. In your web site, you may create additional
files as needed. They should all be
within the original infoproject directory.
However, do not create any files with names that begin with “index”,
such as index.html, index.htm, etc.
You may
also want to add additional links, etc. Remember what you learned about
evaluating a Web sites and work on “improving” some of those features in your
Web site. For example, consider how you
can use fonts, colors, spelling and grammar, presentation, textual content, and
vocabulary to further enhance the “credibility” of your image.
4.
Using the more advanced HTML skills you developed in Labs 5 and 6,
continue to refine your Web site of Misinformation as follows:
a.
Add a mailto link to
your email address.
b.
Use styles in at least a couple of places. It’s OK to also use the older ways of formatting text, but
styles are the future of HTML, so show us you know how to use them.
5.
Create a separate Web page in which you reflect on the problem of
misinformation. Keep this in the same directory, and call it disclaimer.html.
a.
On this “disclaimer” page, provide a disclaimer for the quality of
information on your Misinformation Web site.
b.
Provide a discussion of the ethical issues concerned with conveying the
accuracy, completeness and validity of the information you are presenting. This probably needs at least two paragraphs
to be sufficient.
c.
Include a link from this page (the disclaimer page) back to your Web site
of misinformation; and to your Dante home page.
6.
How effective is your Web site of misinformation? Find out by trying it out on some
unsuspecting visitor! This is a form of
experimentation, a typical tool in many disciplines.
a.
Create a copy of your part 2 Web Misinformation
file. Keep the page in the infoproject directory,
and call the new file main.html. On this
copy, remove the misinformation title and anything else that gives hints that
the page is bogus. Link this test page
to your disclaimer page and the disclaimer page back to the user test page.
b.
Show this version of
your Web site to two individuals; ideally, people who do not know you’ve been
working on this project. After they’ve
looked at it for a while, have each visitor rate your Web site according to the
evaluation criteria you used in Assignment 2 – source, currency, verifiability,
and so forth. For this purpose, create a table of the user evaluations of your site.
c.
Summarize the results. Include
the table and your summary on your disclaimer page.
d.
Write a paragraph or so of the ethical issues surrounding the publication
of so much “information” by so many people on so many different topics.
e.
Write a final paragraph on your disclaimer page discussing how effective
your Web site was at establishing the credibility of misinformation. How you
could have improved the credibility of your site, especially if you had more
advanced knowledge of HTML or programming?
In the effort to
improve our school and programs, the
Mike Eisenberg
Dean
If you agree
to participate in this assessment, I would generate a print out of your project
1 web site and remove the references to your URL. There would be no electronic copy sent and only the print copies
would be used for assessment. Please
indicate on the print copy that you submit in class (for steps 9 and 10) if you
are willing to be an anonymous participant in this assessment.