Website

Group Website Project

LMC 3403, Unit 3 Deliverable

Description

Congratulations!! The Rose Foundation for Social Justice has approved all your Project Proposals and awarded you funding to produce your Climate Change websites. The website you build will redresses some sort of misinformation about an environmental topic of your choice by providing audiences with the following resources: podcasts, infographics, feature articles, and glossaries. In addition, each website will include a splash page, standard navigation and design, team bios, and a references section that applies standard conventions of web writing, design, and audio production to engage audiences. Through the sites you will identify your target audience and then persuade them that a failure of public commination exacerbates the problem you outline before providing them with specific solutions. The goal for this project is to engage audiences in your solution environmental degradation through a participatory approach to risk communication

Audience

You will create your own target audience for this project. Be sure your you know the following about your target audience:

  • Where does your audience spend time both on and offline?
  • What sorts of tools do they use to communicate?
  • What are their major sources for new and information?
  • What is their demographic information (ex: age range, expertise, location, job title, hobbies, etc.)?
  • What is their psychographics information (i.e., behaviors, attitudes, lifestyle, personality types, etc.)?

Tools

You are free to compose your site with a website builder such as WordPress, Weebly, or Wix OR you may build your site from scratch

Design

In order to support environmental education projects that promote ecological awareness and stewardship, your proposed project will help provide a range of audiences with the information required to take responsible actions to protect the environment.

Please complete the following for full credit:

  • Splash page that describes in 2-3 sentences the overall goal of the site, the problem you identify, and the solutions you submit. The splash page should also provide in 3-5 sentences a general overview of the site and what the user can expect to find on it
  • Consistent navigation throughout, e.g., users should have more than one option to move from page to page
  • Consistent aesthetic that corresponds to both the principles of visual design and the site content
  • Content such as .pdfs or mp3 files, for example, must be embedded in the site when possible

 Podcast

In your podcast explain how the environmental problem you identify on your website is amplified by a failure to adequately communicate evidence and analysis of that evidence to a general audience. How can you redress that communications failure in your podcast?

Please complete the following for full credit:

  • 1 group, 5-7-minute Podcast OR 3 individual, 2-minite podcasts (1 each per group member)
  • Include at least 1 “interview;” at least 2 citations from authoritative source material
    • I invite you to find an expert guest, who will count as 1 of your 2 authoritative sources. If you cannot find an expert guest, then 1 group member may play the part of the expert guest.
  • Employ sound queues and musical tracks as needed to direct audience attention; use sound queues to signal transitions and remember to announce yourselves before you speak
  • Be sure that all group members speak on the podcast for at least 2 minutes each if completing the long form podcast.
  • Embed or link Podcast in its own page and include an approx. 100-word precis
  • The Podcast Page should be accessible from any point on the site

Infographic  

For full credit, illustrate for a general audience how your topic been politicized due to a public communications failure and how your project aims to solve that communications failure. Similar to the rest of the website, the goal of the Infographic is to illustrate the central problem that your website investigates and the solution(s) it proposes.

Please complete the following for full credit:

  • Graphs, Charts, Iconography, External Images
    • Though the context and background data will be different for all of your projects, consider graphing or illustrating stats/data key to your problem/solution
    • For those of you incorporating user or audience data, consider representing some of that information here
    • Also consider incorporating famous illustrations of your problem (perhaps to suggest how/why they fail). E.g., polar bear on the last block of ice, the Hockey Stick Graph, greenhouse gas cycle, etc.
  • Infographic should be at least six blocks long and include 2-3 key visual features, such as a chart, map, or timeline; balance text and image; employ design basics, i.e. contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity.
    • If you use a template be sure the final draft of your graphic is at least 60% different from the template in color, layout, image, etc.
  • Embed the graphic in its own page and include an approx. 100-word introduction
  • The Infographic Page should be accessible from any point on the site

Fact Sheet

For full credit, illustrate for an expert audience how your topic been politicized due to a public communications failure and how your project aims to solve that communications failure. Similar to the rest of the website, the goal of the Infographic is to illustrate the central problem that your website investigates and the solution(s) it proposes.

Please complete the following for full credit:

  • Include Graphs, Charts, Iconography, External Images, etc.
    • Though the context and background data will be different for all of your projects, consider graphing or illustrating stats/data key to your problem/solution
    • For those of you incorporating user or audience data, consider representing some of that information here
    • Also consider incorporating famous illustrations of your problem (perhaps to suggest how/why they fail). E.g., polar bear on the last block of ice, the Hockey Stick Graph, greenhouse gas cycle, etc.
  • Fact Sheet should be a single page, include 2-3 key visual features, such as a chart, map, or timeline; and employ design basics, i.e. contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity.
    • If you use a template be sure the final draft of your graphic is at least 60% different from the template in color, layout, image, etc.
    • Fact Sheet should have more text than image and include a call to action
  • Embed the Fact Sheet in its own page and include an approx. 100-word introduction
  • The Fact Sheet Page should be accessible from any point on the site

E-Tool

For full credit all sites must have a participatory e-tool such as a calculator, survey, quiz, map, game, or any sort of crowdsourcing/participation application you and your group can invent.

Feature Story

Each group member will write a feature story (800 min.) on a key detail, person, place, animal, technology, or scientific fact uncovered over the course of the web building project. The goal of the story is to engage readers with a feature they might not otherwise know or care about.

For full credit please include the following:

  • Strong Lead: anecdote, strange quote, conflicting data, etc.
  • Description: set the scene—where does the “story” you are telling take place/provide context
  • Evidence: include evidence to support and develop your through-line or claim—cite the evidence and/or link out to it from your article
  • So What?: either throughout or in the conclusion, connect your article to the website’s larger problem/solution, e.g. how does your feature story redress the public communications problem you explore throughout?
  • 2 or more captioned illustrations and links to any pertinent outside sources
  • The Article Pages should be accessible from any point on the site

Glossary

  • List and define 10-15 key terms on a separate page
  • Each definition should be approx. 50-100 words and may include captioned images at your discretion
  • The type of definitions you include will depend on the audiences you identify. In general, successful Glossary entries typically combine formal and informal definitions, and include operational and expanded definitions as needed.
  • Link terms out from website content to Glossary Page (guideline: each key term should be linked at least once—more than once at your discretion)
  • The Glossary Page should be accessible from any point on the site

Team Bios

  • Team Bios should be 50-150 words
  • Include your name; a pic or image that represents you ; your current position and what it is/what you do; company or school name and what they are/do; one professional accomplishment; briefly state your values or work philosophy, and how your values/philosophy inform your career.
    • Feel free to use bios from earlier in the semester
  • The Bios Pages should be accessible from any point on the site

References List

  • All works cited in any portion of the website need to be included in APA formatted References List
  • Please cite the data base from which you uploaded your images if the author and/or publisher is not available. If you have multiple images from a database, it is sufficient to cite it just once.
  • See the Perdue OWL APA Formatting and Style Guide for guidelines
  • The References Page should be accessible from any point on the site

Assessment

  • Rhetorical awareness: Does the final version of the website fulfill the promises outlined in the proposal? Does the final draft of the website redress some sort of misinformation about an environmental topic of your choice by providing audiences with all the required resources in completely and/or with unexpected insight? (20%)
  • Stance: Does the final version of the website articulate a unified argument/goal? Does the site, (both parts & whole) show audiences how your topic been politicized due to a public communications failure and illustrate ways you redress that communications failure completely and/or with unexpected insight? (20%)
  • Development of ideas: Does the final draft of the website explicate the central problem/solution by citing and analyzing credible scholarly and web-based source materials to describe the significance and context of the problem/solution; justify the methodology; and outline the intellectual merit/impact of the site completely and/or with unexpected insight? (20%)
  • Organization: Does the final version of the website include all required resources: Podcast(s), infographic, Featured Stories, Bios, Glossary, and References? Have the designers established a clear pattern for users to navigate from resources to resource throughout the site completely and/or with unexpected insight? (20%)
  • Design for medium: Does the site (both whole & parts) use the affordances of the medium in which it was composed to enhance the goal/argument completely and/or with unexpected insight? (10%)
  • Process: Does the final version of the website demonstrate planning and revision? (10%)