Wikipedia: Sometimes Misused

As I was watching the video Wikipedia Debate, I couldn't stop thinking about one ID test question from Dr. Smith's LBST course last semester. I think this real life example shows how Wikipedia is misused by students who are unwilling to take additional steps to get accurate information from more reliable sources. While I agree with the video that Wikipedia is a good place to start when researching, it should never be your only source of information.

Dr. Smith's LBST course looked at Slavery, Citizenship, and Manhood up to the Civil War. His tests were ID tests, where students are given a list of terms to choose to answer. On one such test, one of the terms was "Loyal Slave States." I read several answers to this ID. I was stunned by how many students said (roughly) the following: "There were eight loyal slave states. Four of them became loyal slave states after the battle of Fort Sumter."

After reading about ten incorrect answers (like above) to this ID, all making the exact same claim, I decided to check the internet to see where these students were getting this answer. 'Cause Dr. Smith certainly never said that!

I found myself at Wikipedia. The term "Loyal Slave States" has since been taken down (which, on a different note, shows how quickly this site can be changed and updated!). This is the entry that I found instead: Boarder States. Yet, if you read the first paragraph, you can still see where some of these students got their wrong answer. The original entry had faulty punctuation. And that's putting it lightly. This entry is more clear than the entry that lead these students to an incorrect answer.

My point with posting about this experience is to show how unreliable Wikipedia can be. It also illustrates how often undergraduate students go to Wikipedia and treat it as a credible source.

This is not to say that Wikipedia doesn't have value. It is a very valuable resource. As the "Wikipedia Debate" video points out, it's breadth of terms makes it a perfect starting point for nearly any research topic.

The lesson to take away from this is: check your sources and don't believe everything you read on the internet.

Creating a Group Contract: Plaza-Midwood Neighborhood Group

Before working with my three group members (Jennifer, Susan, and Sean), I felt a little apprehensive about how the project would come together. What I mean is, who would make sure I was scanning and uploading my exhibit pieces correctly? How were we all going to coordinate our written descriptions of our exhibit pieces to create a coherent story?

These two questions were answered once our group worked on creating a contract. We split the four components amongst our group members to ease the burden of meeting together. Susan created "chairs" for each of us, which emphasized our individual strengths. This answered the questions that I mentioned form above.

It turns out that I- with my experience in exhibits- will help pull the exhibits together to create a coherent story. And Susan- who has scanned many images her GA position in the library last year- will help scanning and uploading the images for consistency. Jennifer is our top-dog in a way, she will be holding the group together to make sure that everyone finds the sources and information that they need for the exhibit. Last (but certainly not least) is Sean, who has a lot of experience in computers, marketing, and site-building, will help us create our website, check our links, and make navigation as simple as possible.

All of the things that I was apprehensive about seemed to have been cleared up by the simple task of creating a contract. We four make a great team. And I'm excited to work with them. It'll be work, but my teammates will make it fun and easy.

I look forward to hearing about the strategies, tasks, fears, and excitements of my classmates.

Until then- GO TEAM PLAZA-MIDWOOD!!

Reflections and Comments on The September 11 Digital Archive

It was easy for my to choose which of the multiple online collections that Dr. Cox suggested we look at to complete this blog post. The September 11 Digital Archive jumped out at me for a really simple reason: it's one of many emotionally-charged museums that I would like to explore for my thesis project. Now, I realize that this is not a museum's website. This is an online database/collection/archive. The point stands that it may well make it into my thesis project for it's emotional influence on visitors.

This site is very well organized. On the home page (see above link) it has a very clear statement defining what the site offers and what the purpose is. It includes clear links that are not misleading. Items like "Browse," "Contribute," and "Special Collections" are very easy to understand and the pages that they lead you to are not surprising. What I mean is, these links to further pages make sense and are easily navigated.

My interest in this website for my thesis prompted me to explore further than, perhaps, my classmates would have. For instance, I poked around in "Browse" for a few minutes. The links within this new page are very well organized into specific categories, such as interview, documents, and much more. I enjoyed this page because of its ease of use, but also because this would be a phenomenal resource for a historian, sociologist, or any research interested in 9/11.

Let's skip ahead to the link that relates to our class assignment: Collections. I followed "Special Collections" and was surprised to see screen shots and links to exhibits and other resources as opposed to important or selected items of value. What I discovered was that the links went to various collections. The one I chose to explore was September 11: Bearing Witness to History, which was built and run by the Smithsonian. This link sent me to a collection of oral histories from people all across the country- short and long accounts of their experiences on September 11, 2001. It allowed you to browse through these accounts and even invited you to add your own.

Overall, I think this website offers a diverse, plentiful, organized, and easy-to-use collection of 9/11 oral histories, documents, recordings, e-mails and videos. One important feature of this website was the "9/11 FAQs." This offers visitors the chance to put these primary sources into context- if they do not already understand the context. Especially for younger visitors to the site, this is an important addition for clarification, chronology, understanding, and context.

Omeka.net Plugins

My group (Susan, Jennifer, Sean, and myself) are doing our online exhibit on the Plaza-Midwood Neighborhood. So far is appears that we will focus on structures and activities. Our online exhibit will be geared towards the neighborhood, people interested in the neighborhood, researchers, and the class (of course!).

So I looked on Omeka for some useful plugins. I lack the vocabulary to understand many of these plugins' internet-speak. Given that handicap, I was relieved that there were a select few that made some sense to me. The one that I felt was most useful (albeit very basic) was Google Analytics, site stats.

It allows the owner/builder of a website to track the number of people who visit the site. I admit that this seems almost too minor to note as an important plugin for our online exhibit. Despite that, I would argue that keeping track of how many people visit the online exhibit summarizes the very purpose of building a website! There would be no purpose to building an online exhibit if there is no interest in making sure that it had reached your desired audience.

Some Neat Blogs...

I tried to finish up last weeks assignment by commenting on the blogs I found, however, I have discovered that my office computer does not like it when I comment. By that, I mean, my office computer will not load the comment page. Annoying.

So! I shall discuss these two blogs I found. The one I am most excited about is: THE HISTORY CHEF! This blog combines two of my loves in life: cooking and history. What this site does is very clever. it starts off with a famous character in history, such as George Washingtion. Then the blog tells a familiar or not-so-familiar story about that person, such as U.S. Grant's tendency to roll his bread into little "cannons" to fling at his children during family meals. Then the blog offers up a recipe of the story or of the time period translated to today (Cherry Pie, Rice Pudding, etc.) Finally, the blog gives you a "food fact"! It's either something silly and historical or nutritional. Check it out!!

The second blog I chose was out of topic. I wanted to see how a museum professional might set up a blog about museum work. However, every blog I found was discontinued or not a blog at all. The first I came across was: The working life of Museum of London. The title isn't catchy (but let's face it, after "THE HISTORY CHEF!" any title would look dull!) and the layout of the site reflects that. It's pretty plain and if you aren't interested in preservation techniques, I wouldn't recommend visiting. The site it very much geared towards professionals seeking situational advice. While this is fascinating and helpful to me or someone else who is interested in/working in the field, it's not snazzy or entertaining.

My overall critique should be pretty obvious. If not, I will reiterate it. I think entertainment and pizazz are important in creating a blog with the intention of reaching a lot of people. History is fun! Your blog should reflect that!

How the Washington & Jefferson College Website Changed Since 1997

I was amazed at how simple and plain the Washington & Jefferson College website was when it was first created in 1997. First of all, isn’t that a bit late in the “Internet boom” for a website to start up? I suppose W&J has always been a little old fashioned.

Despite being plain, at least the title of “Washington & Jefferson College” was read, which reflects what is now our school colors (black and red).

By 2000, you start to see some structure and links to information. Our school logo was in use in 2000, which is surprising to me given how freely UNCC has changed their logos over time. But, like I mentioned before, W&J has always been old fashioned and nostalgic.

I jumped ahead six years and found a very familiar-looking website! Finally, some normalcy that I can relate to! The background is read in 2006, which must mean that the people developing the website were doing more fancy tricks and such. The accents were black. And of course, out logo of Old Main is prominent.

In 2011, my last year at W&J, the red background faded to white and the body of the website was gray. Since I’ve been gone, I suppose the folks in IT got creative. I checked what the website looked like today (August 29, 2012) and the red background is gone! The traditional lettering of the logo was also gone! It’s replaces with calligraphy lettering with the school crest in the background. There is a lot more gray with red lettering.

I would say overall that the change has been significant and dramatic. The inclusion of color and more complicated links by the 2000s only took a few years to achieve. Since then, the site became more and more elaborate with shifting pictures of activities on campus, more news and events are listed, and far more detail has been put into the links, labels, photos, graphics, backgrounds, and even the logo!

If you would like to see for yourself, here is a link to the WayBack. Don’t worry, I already plugged in W&J’s website for you!

http://wayback.archive.org/web/19970701000000*/http://www.washjeff.edu/

Enjoy!

Resisting the Internet is Futile

I admit that I was reluctant to open myself up to the concept of online exhibitions being as good as or better than a physical exhibit in a museum (or anywhere else, for that matter). When I started reading for this week, I was particularly defensive when I opened Creating a Winning Online Exhibition.

The author, Martin R. Kalfatovic, made the point that 3D objects in online exhibits did not come across as well as they did in a physical exhibit. I thought, Well of course not! Physical exhibits give visitors a chance to be with an object of significance! You can’t mimic that online.

As I kept reading, however, my opinion shifted. I remembered the struggles that I faced during my internship this past summer. My boss, Annmarie, and I planned for and then set up a small fashion exhibit at the Cleveland County Mall. Sounds simple enough, right? Well, it was hard to adjust to such a limited space on a budget.

Our text was limited to one panel. The items we chose for display paired with labels had to tell the rest of the story. We were very proud of the exhibit we created, especially considering the limited budget and space. The downfall was that the items we chose were disconnected from one another and constructing a chronology of fashion for men and women from the late 19^th century into the mid 20^th century with four outfits and a dozen-odd accessories is just shy of impossible.

This reading opened my eyes to the limitless possibilities of this fashion exhibit on the Internet. Not only would we not be hindered by space, but we also could have chosen a lot more outfits to represent changing fashion into the 20^th century. We could have separated female fashions from male fashions in order for the audience to choose which fashion evolution to follow. The accessories might have been a category of their own as well. In addition, the story of changing fashion could have been constructed better and followed the various trends throughout the chronology. The possibilities are truly endless!

So while I still prefer to explore and create physical exhibits, I will remember this revelation years from now when I am making exhibits for a museum. Physical exhibits in museums and elsewhere do not have to be limited to exhibit spaces any longer. Visitors can see more, know more, explore more if Curators translate and expand their exhibits online.

This will bring an exhibit to people who cannot visit the museum, or become available to students. That’s the real purpose of museums: to reach and impact as many people as possible.