Analyze one or more historically driven sites or archives on the Web. I will be giving you the website.

In this assignment, you are to analyze one or more historically driven sites or archives on the Web in relation to their construction, representation and manipulation of historical knowledge. Using our readings and discussions as a starting platform, write an in-depth critique of how the site or sites present information in the context of usability, creativity, historical knowledge-making, and overall effectiveness. There are a number of ways to approach the assignment: an in-depth analysis of a particularly "thick" site (such as the Valley of the Shadow); a comparative analysis of two or more sites for their contrastive treatment of the same topic or materials; a set of sites that address a particular problem (three different historical archive sites; three sites that could be used in teaching Shakespeare, the progressive era in the United States, African American history, crime punishment, etc). Your analysis should focus both on the representation of historical knowledge in a scholarly context, and on pedagogical and public knowledge (i.e. what the public or students and teachers might glean from the site of archives and how issues of agency, intimacy, subjectivity, interactivity, collaboration, are used or addressed on the site or archive). The essence of the assignment is this: to carefully analyze and write about how the design, structure, and content of the site or sites work together to construct a particular kind of use and user, make possible the construction of particular kinds of historical knowledge, and reveal the implicit (and explicit) assumptions about the nature of the knowledge being represented. (As well as reveal something about the media being used). We should be especially interested in how sites transform knowledge from their traditional counterparts to electronic media, and how particular electronic designs are influenced by, reveal, and communicate historical knowledge in a way that is similar or different from traditional analog texts. You may choose any site(s), either from ones we’ve looked at in discussions or ones you have found on your own. FORMAT: The site analysis must be done a typed (times or times new roman 12), double spaced 5 – 8 page critique and evaluation of the site(s), it must reference our readings and discussions and should address the questions (or at least some of the questions) below. Remember these are topics to consider, I don’t expect that you’ll answer all of these questions. In fact, these questions should be used to help you formulate an analytical framework or thesis for your paper. The paper should be driven by your thesis, not the questions below. Remember good paper will introduce the sites/site place them into the context of digital history and digitization projects, positioning the object/s of review amongst others, in this case offering your reader some information about the migration of history on to the web and the evolution of historical web sites. then offer a thesis that offers an analytical framework for the site/s you’re evaluating. In other words create your argument explain how the sites fit the definition of a good website, why they are worthy of attention and offer up your overall evaluation. Please do not treat the following questions as paragraphs in your essay. These are meant to stimulate your thinking and the answers to them will create your thesis. The thesis of your paper will drive the construction of the essay. Note that “this paper will...” is not an effective or valid analytical thesis. Your paper should offer a more sophisticated analytical argument. WHAT KIND OF SITE IS IT? Is it an index? "Organizational agent" for a particular discipline? Is it primarily primary source archive or database? An electronic version of a text corpus (text corpus is a large and structured set of text usually electronically stored and processed. They are used to do statistical analysis and hypothesis testing, checking occurrences)? A "thick site" of information gathered on a particular topic? Is it exploratory, playful, pedagogical? Is it primarily a reference or scholarly site? Is it an exhibition, collection, documentary? Is it a textbook or reference work? Since most sites on the web are mixed and integrated, what aspects of the site are privileged or foregrounded? Is there a hierarchy or emphasis among its multiple genres? WHAT AUDIENCE(S) DOES THE SITE ADDRESS? Does it assume its users are novice or expert learners in the field? Does it differentiate among (implicitly or explicitly address) multiple kinds of users? Does the site distinguish between general and specialized knowledge? HOW DOES THE SITE CONSTRUCT ITS AUTHORITY AND AUTHORIAL PRESENCE? Is the site professional, commercial, or amateur? Who owns and designs the site? How is authorial presence represented? Is authorship singular, multiple, collective, diffused? What are the sources of the site's authority? Is authority a highlighted (self-conscious) element of the site? Does the site overall provide a venue for discipline-based (i.e. specialized) authorities to speak or be represented? How does the site construct its accountability? IS THE SITE ORGANIZED AROUND A PARTICULAR METAPHOR OR SET OF ORGANIZATIONAL METAPHORS? To what extent does its design borrow from traditional analog sources or book design principles? What kinds of print texts is it modeled on? Is it encyclopedic (alphabetic, synoptic, categorical)? A textbook? Bibliography? Critical collection? Is it based on media or multimedia models: print magazine, video, film? Is the site organized spatially (shopping mall, city, library)? Is it organized metaphorically as an interactive space (town square, parlor, agora, classroom, conference)? HOW IS THE SITE DESIGNED STRUCTURALLY? With what kind of structure is the site organized and presented? What aspects are presented as a grid or table? A hierarchy? A narrative or sequence? A Web? How do the multiple components fit together? What components are treated more centrally? How does its structure affect its usability and its overall narrative? Does the structure shape the story told? TO WHAT EXTENT DOES THE SITE ENABLE USERS TO ACCESS AND INTERACT WITH ITS MATERIALS? What kinds of filters or metadata are available for users to navigate the site's content? Does the site include its own finding aids? What tools does the site provide for search and retrieval? Does the site offer multiple search strategies and interfaces for different kinds of users? To what extent are the multiple search/finding tools integrated with the sites' knowledge-constructing strategies? Does the metadata reference only the content internal to the site or does the metadata position the site's electronic materials in relation to a field of knowledge? HOW DOES THE SITE STRUCTURE THE USER'S NAVIGATION? How is the user's movement within the site structured? Is it narrative? Top-down? Back and forth between grid-content? Is the linking structure primarily paratactic (coordinating) or hypotactic (subordinating, embedded)? Are there ways to navigate an embedded linking structure? Is the site an open or closed system? Is it highly cohesive or indexical to external sources (that is, is movement centripetal or centrifugal)? How do internal and external hypertext features interact and coexist? What level of recurrence does the site's hypertext have? Is there a sense of internal integration? Depth? Is the site compartmentalized or fluid? HOW ARE PRIMARY HISTORICAL TEXTS RENDERED ELECTRONICALLY? IF THEY ARE AT ALL. IF THEY AREN’T WHY DOESN’T THE SITE USE PRIMARY SOURCES? What elements of the original primary texts are represented in electronic form? What elements of the original texts are privileged? Is the physical text/artifact represented electronically? As facsimile? Are the physical characteristics of the text as object recorded and preserved? Are text artifacts rendered as historical evidence, aesthetic objects, or objects for critical analysis? What design elements facilitate "artifactual" rendering in the site? Are electronic texts rendered as hypertexts or as discrete objects with their original integrity? To what extent does this rendering of objects or their electronic manipulation effect their “authenticity” and usability. WHAT ROLE DOES NARRATIVE OR INTERPRETATION PLAY IN THE SITE? If there is a narrative structure present, what is it? Documentary (cohesive, organized, narrative)? What elements of the site act as interpreters? How is the electronic text influenced by a thesis, interests, bias, frame of reference? Is that frame of reference rendered self-consciously or unself-consciously? HOW DOES THE SITE FACILITATE THE CONSTRUCTION OF HISTORICAL KNOWLEDGE? How does the site interrelate its archival, database, narrative, or indexical elements? Is the site compartmentalized into zones of knowledge? What characterizes the different zones? Is the site's function primarily "iterative" (i.e. referencing and making available established disciplinary materials and approaches) or "interrogative" (i.e. questioning particular disciplinary approaches)? {These stances can be rhetorical and need not be one or the other.} How do the sites represent the user's role in the construction of historical knowledge? Is it passive, active, collaborative? Does the site utilize inquiry strategies as a structuring element? Are there elements of the site that dramatize discovery and knowledge-making? IN WHAT WAYS IS THE SITE COLLABORATIVE AND WRITABLE? In what ways does the site invite collaboration? How is it responsive to collaboration? Is collaboration unidirectional? Is the text alterable, dynamic, writable? How central are the collaborative elements of the site? Are they compartmentalized or integrated with other components of the site? Given what we’ve read why does this matter? TO WHAT EXTENT DOES THE SITE LIVE UP TO THE PROMISE OF HISTORY ON THE WEB