PROJECT 1:
A WEBSITE OF MISINFORMATION
CSE100/INFO100
Fluency with Information Technology
Copyright and Fair Use of
Text and Images
Please Recall the Class
Policy on Cooperation and Collaboration
Part A: Due Friday,
January 24, 2A.M.
Part B: Due Monday,
February, 3 2:00AM
What
does it mean to have “photographic proof” of an event? What does it mean to publish valid and
authentic information? 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).
While
far from being perfect, it was possible to validate content at a glance. That’s the upside. The downside were 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.
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, 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.
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
disception. Many, many sites contain
inaccurate information that is published with the best intentions.
In this
project, your challenge is to 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. The only limitations to your topics are
these:
Overall
steps [These will be broken down into 2 parts for submission. Read those directions carefully]:
(1) Locate a
digital photograph that is public domain or copyright free 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.
(6) Publish
the results of your tests along with a summary of your findings.
The
content of your website of misinformation should permit comfortable viewing by
everyone in the course. If you’re
unsure about the “tastefulness” of any particular content, it is probably a
good idea to talk with your instructor or TA first, or choose something
else.
Here are
some possible ideas:
The Web
site should be in your Dante web space (public_html or student_html), but
should be in a separate directory (folder) within that web area. Create two new directories within your
public_html. Name one directory proj1a; name the
other directory proj1b.
The page(s) you will create for Part A should be placed in your proj1a
directory. The page(s) you will create
for Part B should be placed in your proj1b directory. DO NOT create
any files with names that begin with “index”, such as index.html, index.htm,
etc in either of the folders. Use the
exact spelling and capitalization given on the directories above so people
(such as course staff!) can find your sites easily. Other file names within the
two directories can be whatever you choose.
Make sure the directory and the files in it all have general Unix Read
permissions (you will know if they do not when you try to look at your web page
on line and receive a “permission denied” message).
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. Once Part A is complete, you should not need
to touch the files in the proj1a directory again. If you need to make copies of those files to modify and use for
part B, do so and place them in the proj1b directory.
·
To design and implement a Web site using HTML
·
To manipulate a photograph in Adobe Photoshop (or some
other photo manipulation program)
·
To experience first hand the ease with which
“misinformation” can be made available online
·
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].
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. One way that
you may collaborate is to connect to a classmate’s project as one of the
“sources” that back up your information.
In other words, you may do a misinformation site on smoking and your
classmate / friend may decide to do their site on a fictitious organization
that does smoking research!
(Hint: read through all of these items carefully before beginning):
<script type="text/javascript">
document.write(“Last updated: ”)
var modified
modified = document.lastModified
document.write(modified)
</script>
You do
not need to know what the tags and code mean at this time. What this code will do is display the date
your HTML file was last modified on the web page for us. You will learn HOW this works in the next
section of the course.
1.
Using the Photoshop skills you learn in lab, modify the image(s) as
described in Part 1A. Don’t be afraid
to try other features of Photoshop, etc. while you are at it!
2.
Make a copy of the part 1A web page to modify. Do NOT modify the original file.
The copied file should be renamed something like part1b.html and placed
in your proj1b directory along with copies of images used. In your web site, you may create additional
files as needed. They should all be
within the proj1b directory. 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 later HTML labs,
continue to refine your Web site of Misinformation as follows:
a.
Add a mailto link to
your email address.
b.
Use tables to format your page in a professional manner.
5.
Create a separate Web page in which you reflect on the problem of
misinformation. Keep this in the same directory (proj1b), and call it disclaimer.html.
a.
On this “disclaimer” page, provide a disclaimer for the quality of
information on your Misinformation Web site.
In other words, let the audience know that the information is bogus and
done for a class project.
b.
Provide a discussion of the ethical issues concerned with conveying the
accuracy, completeness and validity of the information you are presenting. What are the issues surrounding the
publication of so much “information” by so many people on so many different
topics? What are the responsibilities
of those who publish information and those who seek information on the
Internet? This discussion probably
needs at least two significant paragraphs to be sufficient.
c.
Include a link from
this page (the disclaimer page) back to your Web site of misinformation.
d.
Add the following
piece of code to the very bottom of your HTML page. Place is immediately ABOVE the </BODY> and </HTML>
tags in your source code:
<script type="text/javascript">
document.write(“Last updated: ”)
var modified
modified = document.lastModified
document.write(modified)
</script>
You do not need to know
what the tags and code mean at this time.
What this code will do is display the date your HTML file was last
modified on the web page for us. You
will learn HOW this works in the next section of the course.
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 1b Web Misinformation
file. Keep the page in the
proj1b directory, and call the new file something like 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.
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
have looked at it for a while, have each visitor rate your Web site according
to the evaluation criteria (answers should be in a 1-5 range):
1.
Accuracy – Does the
page seem accurate, free from errors, grammatically correct, etc.?
2.
Authoritative – Does
the page seem true, to support the information with facts, additional links,
etc.?
3.
Objectivity – Does
the page seem to present the information in an unbiased way?
4.
Currency – Does the
page seem to be up-to-date, fresh, etc.?
c.
Summarize the results. Include
the answers (in a table) and your summary on your disclaimer page. The summary should be at least one
paragraph.
d.
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?