Web-based Project Research Articles

Collecting and analyzing Web-based project metrics

Metrics generated from real project data provide a valuable tool for evaluating and guiding performance. The authors describe their experience developing a Web-based project metrics system and encouraging its adoption. They also examine how such a system might encourage the adoption of metrics within a company.

Archival Content Anywhere@Anytime

SUMMARY As many librarians are beginning to acknowledge, the most enduring legacy an institution has to offer the world is its original or unique materials. Digital applications allow the distribution of content on a scale unthinkable a decade ago. The Northern Arizona University Cline Library leapt into the digital fray in 1995 with a pilot Web-based imaging database project http://www.nau.edu/library/speccoll/imagedb.html, drawn from a collection of 750,000 historic photographs. Cline Library staff have now turned their attention to the development of a content-driven database that will provide public Internet access to all archival material held at NAU. This article describes the benefits of such a robust tool and the challenges associated with melding archival practice, reference services, and available technology.

Case Study

This paper describes the development and implementation of a web-based project — Walking with woodlice (www.nhm.ac.uk/woodlice) — intended to encourage and enable first-hand encounters with the biodiversity of the natural world. Targeted principally at 7 to 14 year-olds, the project was designed to raise students' awareness of biodiversity by actively involving them in biological research. It also aimed to explore their use of identification keys and to investigate the potential of the Internet as a mechanism for sharing and distributing biodiversity data. The development of identification tools and the processes of data submission and analysis are described and examples of results are presented graphically. The paper concludes with a preliminary evaluation of the project's findings. The quantity and quality of feedback suggest that active involvement in a project of this type can promote learning about biodiversity both in general and in specific cases.

Kathleen Coen Buckwalter, PhD, RN, FAAN.

The use of crowds in research activities by public and private organizations is growing under different forms. Citizen science is a popular means of engaging the general public in research activities led by professional scientists. By involving a large number of amateur scientists, citizen science enables distributed data collection and analysis on a scale that would be otherwise difficult and costly to achieve. While advancements in information technology in the past few decades have fostered the growth of citizen science through online participation, several projects continue to fail due to limited participation. Such web-based projects may isolate the citizen scientists from the researchers. By adopting the perspective of social strategy, we investigate within a measure-manipulate-measure experiment if motivations to participate in a citizen science project can be positively influenced by a face-to-face interaction with the scientists leading the project. Such an interaction provides the participants with the possibility of asking questions on the spot and obtaining a detailed explanation of the citizen science project, its scientific merit, and environmental relevance. Social and cultural factors that moderate the effect brought about by face-to-face interactions on the motivations are also dissected and analyzed. Our findings provide an exploratory insight into a means for motivating crowds to participate in online environmental monitoring projects, also offering possible selection criteria of target audience.

Stepping Stones for Linking, Learning, and Moving Toward Electronic Literacy

SUMMARY This paper details the integration of technology tools into a third-grade Web-based literacy project. The project included 13 students at the beginning of the school year possessing a wide range of technology exposure and reading experience levels. The students were provided an opportunity to work in small groups-reading works by a selected children's author, researching biographical data and exploring the writer's style, and using of conventions of literary works such as characterization, plot, and setting. Included in the project were authentic purposes for writing; research on the Web and traditional sources; cooperative and collaborative learning opportunities; and planning, designing, and creating finished products in a multimedia presentation.

The Internet as an outreach tool: the UWC case

There are two web-based outreach projects based in the botany department at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), providing high-school level learning resources in the area of Biology and Environmental Education. An analysis of guestbook submissions and server logs was made to determine if the resources were reaching learners and educators, the geographical distribution of learners, and the degree to which users find the resources useful for learning support. The results indicate that a substantial number of learners, educators and parents find and access the resources, and that they invariably find them useful. The majority of users come from outside of South Africa, although there are indications that the number of South African users is increasing. The data indicate that a website with content targeted at school level can be a useful outreach tool. However access to the Internet among school learners in South Africa is still in its infancy. Online outreach can also target the global population, and possibly help a historically disadvantaged institution such as UWC become a significant player in the global HE marketplace. South African Journal of Higher Education Vol.15(2) 2001: 185-193

Online data collection with special populations over the World Wide Web.

The quick ascendance of the World Wide Web as the dominant vehicle for internet communication has recently made experimentation in a multimedia environment feasible on the Internet. Although web sites containing online psychology demonstrations and experiments for non-handicapped individuals have appeared in recent years (especially in the areas of cognitive and social psychology), there appear to have been few attempts to conduct online experimentation with special populations. We recently completed two online pilot studies of families with Down syndrome or Williams syndrome members: a) A survey that asks (via Likert rating scales, adjective checklists, multiple-choice style questions, and text-entry boxes) about family background, computer use, and temperament of the special needs family member; and b) An experiment (completed by an individual with special needs) that includes auditory and visual digit span tasks and a memory-for-orientation task in which responses are entered via mouse clicks. Recruiting began with e-mail announcements to representative Down syndrome and Williams syndrome discussion groups, listserves, and bulletin boards, and submission of the project's URL (http://www.cofc.edu/~marcellm/testaw.htm) and key indexing terms to selected search engines. This paper reviews technical aspects of developing the online programmes as well as the strengths and weaknesses of online vs. traditional laboratory-based research in relation to issues such as experimental control, delivery of instructions, experimenter bias, participant recruitment, sample heterogeneity, generalization, attrition, privacy, financial costs, data integrity, and ethics. We conclude by offering our thoughts on two ways of implementing online experimentation with special populations: a) Using a remote parent 'helper' as a proxy to work with the target individual; and b) Collaborating with professional colleagues in Web-based projects conducted in traditional laboratory settings.

Project-based Customer Relationship Management in Virtual Enterprises

The Internet has revolutionized communication among companies and clients. New possibilities for global collaboration among companies on a project basis are possible with virtual enterprises. Virtual enterprises enable new ways of collaboration with clients and their participation in creative and inventive activities of individual products. Furthermore project work with clients allows tight bonds to them and goes beyond traditional forms of customer relationship management. In this paper we start with an overview of some basic concepts. We then present our approach of web-based project management that can be used for various forms of collaborative activities over the Internet, including customer relationship management. We have successfully used our approach for projects of a digital photography and a middle-class marketing agency. Currently, we are working on an extended platform for virtual enterprises in the area of facility management with many customers as well as sub-contractors.

On Developing a Barter E-Commerce Application

With the development of the web, e-commerce is made possible and has played an amazing role in our society in the last few years. It will undoubtedly be a major means of how people conduct business in the 21st century. This project sets out to create an e-commerce application to study the development life cycle of a web-based project, one that involves a unique business model and integrates various web development technologies.This paper describes the project developed, BarterZone.com. The business model and the capabilities of the business are detailed together with the web technologies considered and employed. Also, the experience of developing the project is shared and reflected upon.

Using Web-Based Projects in a Systems Design and Development Course

The design of a capstone course for undergraduate students in Management Information Systems is presented. The course integrates topics from earlier information systems courses within the framework of electronic commerce. The centerpiece of the course is a web-based project that involves using PC-based server software, HTML forms, CGI programming with Visual Basic, and live data access via a personal DBMS.All of the tools required for such a project are readily available for students to produce electronic commerce projects on the web from a LAN-based PC, without becoming bogged down by using institutional servers or other resources. Those resources often involve traversing a bureaucracy, which is necessary to manage a secure and reliable system, but can become a headache for instructors and students involved in experimentation and learning.

Libraries and Imagination at the Dawn of the World Wide Web

This article traces discussions from 1991 to 1994 about the impact of the World Wide Web on libraries. Librarians and other information professionals commented about the Web's potential as a tool for organizing and using materials on the Internet in print journals devoted to library science, in periodicals about computing trends, and in online media such as discussion lists. Evaluation of the Web took place in the context of interest in Internet Gopher, WAIS and similar applications, and the wish to simplify access to online information. Librarians reading about the Web at that time encountered two schools of thought. Some visionaries hoped that the Internet would free researchers from relying on intermediaries, including librarians. Practical-minded librarians, on the other hand, emphasized organizing the Internet as a service to readers. Both camps saw potential value in the World Wide Web. By 1994, librarians were experimenting with specific Web-based projects to organize digital information, improve online searching, guide users, and publish texts online. Libraries were soon using Web-related software to fulfill traditional missions in the new online environment.

Instructional Support in the Changing Library Environment

As the needs of library users change, libraries also change to meet those needs. Libraries are seeing increased demands for access to resources and services from off-campus users. The traditional library roles for instructional support are likewise being challenged to keep pace with the changing needs of the students. Librarians at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale (SIUC) have faced these challenges in a variety of ways, from interdepartmental partnerships and reassignment of personnel to redesign of services. Instructional Support Services, housed in Morris Library, has historically provided technology support to campus faculty for the delivery of quality instruction. As use of the World Wide Web increased, the library hired a librarian to develop web-based and multimedia projects for the library and for university courses. The recent appointment of two half-time reference librarian positions focusing on web and multimedia development also enhanced access to existing electronic resources as well as the development of electronic reserve and other services to support students' remote access to library resources. This article describes new partnerships, evolving responsibilities, and services to meet the changing needs of library patrons.

An Interdisciplinary Team Teaching Model: A Web-Based Project Approach for Teaching Integrated Marketing Communication

An Interdisciplinary Team Teaching Model: A Web-Based Project Approach for Teaching Integrated Marketing Communication

A World Wide Web-Based Research Project

The World Wide Web (Web) is a good source of data for class projects. In this article, I review a Web-based experimental psychology research project examining human mate preferences. Designed as a conceptual replication of Hayes's (1995) study of newspaper personal advertisements, students collected information from Internet personal advertisements to provide support for or against evolutionary (Buss, 1985) and social learning theories (Hayes) of mate selection. Students collected information from 4 personal advertisement categories: men seeking women, women seeking men, women seeking women, and men seeking men. I summarized and returned the data to students who wrote an American Psychological Association style paper on mate selection. I also review the advantages and disadvantages of using the Internet.

Collaborative Web-Based Project on Tourism and Marketing

Summarized in this article is a three-phased process for planning and implementing a web based project in marketing and tourism classes.

Spinning Tales from the World Wide Web: Qualitative Research in an Electronic Environment

How do you learn about the texture of life from children with medical problems, and how do you translate their narratives into a web site for all to read? This article attempts to answer those questions. It describes the process of using qualitative research strategies to gather data for a Web-based project, "Band-Aides and Blackboards: When Chronic Illness, or Some Other Medical Problem Goes to School." The article discusses the rationale for using the Internet as a forum for collecting data and explores the advantages and disadvantages of its use. In addition to the Internet, focus groups and individual interviews were identified as rich sources of stories from children with serious health problems, and the article examines their utility. In addition, it details the process of publicizing an invitation, attracting children, and acquiring parental permission for their inclusion. The text takes a look at the barriers that were encountered along the route and addresses each of them, describing as it does the strategies employed to overcome them. A number of web addresses from the site are included as reference so that readers can go "on-line"for a more in-depth understanding of the process.

On the PROW

Using the URL at the [end][1] of this item, readers can immediately offer feedback and suggestions on this topic. Protein Reviews on the Web (PROW; [www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/prow/][2]) [[HN1][3]] is an online knowledge environment that organizes human protein and gene information. As a proof of principle, the editors of PROW have first tackled human cell-surface molecules (CD). There are approximately 200 human CD cell-surface molecules, and information about each of them is available on this Web site. The content on PROW is a combination of “PROW Guides,” peer reviewed contributions from selected experts in the field and “Forum entries,” which are open World Wide Web submissions. The latter are reviewed by editors before appearing on the site. PROW can be searched by entering query terms or viewing an index. For each molecule, short reviews are available in bullet format. Hypertext links to other Web resources such as SwissProt, Mendelian Inheritance in Man, and Medline/PubMed are available to add more depth to the content. Viewers are encouraged to provide feedback by adding comments that can be linked to the review. In principle, the PROW approach can be applied to other families of molecules. The open, global approach of PROW is a highly laudable one, but for it and other similar Web-based projects to be sustainable, contributions from many authors will be essential. Over time, it may be hard to solicit submissions on goodwill alone. Perhaps academic tenure boards will start taking into consideration an author's track record for publishing in sites such as PROW. Digital Mailbox:[www.sciencemag.org/dmail.cgi?53543][4] ### Numbered Hypernotes 1. [PROW][2] is a Web resource/journal from the [National Center for Biotechnology Information][5]. [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.279.5354.1231a [2]: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/prow/ [3]: #p-7 [4]: http://www.sciencemag.org/dmail.cgi?53543 [5]: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/

The Garden of Forking Paths – Forms of Scholarship and the ‘Formations’ Pre-Prints System for Cultural Studies and Related Fields

This paper describes and analyses a web-based pre-prints project in the UK's Electronic Libraries Programme in order to raise issues about the forms of scholarship that are best suited to online working. Specifically, the paper describes some of the underlying processes at work in academic research and seeks to match these, where appropriate, to forms of online working. In doing so, the paper describes in detail a scholarship of integration which seems well suited to online tools such as pre-prints systems, but speculates that such forms of scholarship are too seldom explicitly identified when academics refer to research as a totality. As a consequence the potential match between working practices and emerging tools may not be obvious to academic researchers. To investigate these issues further, the paper examines the degrees of formality involved in different kinds of online communication and describes how academic working practices might be supported by adapting established 'groupware' tools such as Lotus Notes. The eLib 'Formations' project, which is using Notes to develop an integrated pre-prints and e-journal system for research in cultural studies and related fields, is described in detail, focusing on the underlying technology and the overall design.

Managing the development of a web-based project

Managing the development of a web-based project

Managing the development of a web-based project

Managing the development of a web-based project