Identity (Year three topic - Autumn 2008)

Project Focus

Each group should chose one of these as the theme for their project. Within each theme there are many different topics that could be included. Decide the theme and do some research around it to decide how you want to tackle the subject and what aspect/s you want to concentrate on. Your group should focus on either one specific area or 2/3 issues within the chosen theme.

Virtual communities

Information and communication technologies create space - virtual cyberspaces where people interact with each other. Some of these can have a big impact on groups of people such as young people etc. Cyberspace - the range of virtual environments created by information and communications technologies such as MySpaces and YouTube. Other virtual communities exist for particular interest groups – Moodle and Elgg might be examples of this.

Identity online

What happens to us online? Are we the same people we are face to face? Do we adopt different identities in different online contexts? Can we really trust anyone online? There is a wealth of literature dealing with online identity deception and the games people play and this theme allows for some critical analysis of at least some of the issues surrounding how we use online technologies to communicate.

Your project wiki

You should envisage your audience for the project wiki is other LCC students who have come to the home page and been sufficiently interested to follow the links and learn more. Your site should:

• introduce your topic
• present an appropriate selection of ideas, themes and issues
• explain these ideas clearly
• include some analysis of the ideas you present
• draw a conclusion

It's possible that you will find it difficult to separate community from identity and vice versa, this isn't a problem as long as you clearly state the perspective you have adopted when you introduce the topic and that the approach adopted is coherent. You also need to include a page that lists all the members of your group with a photo of each person and links to each of their blog sites.

The project wiki should follow the principles of web design and writing style discussed during the module. It is a piece of work being presented by a group of honours level undergraduates and the standard of work should reflect this. Any quotations must be fully referenced and it is expected that the work will be checked for spelling errors and typos.

Your blog

You will setup a personal blog to summarise on a weekly basis the project’s progress, your ideas, sources and reading and skill development. How you feel the project is progressing, the ups and downs etc. You can use your blog to summarise your the approach, sources of information, inspiration and project progress and reference your ideas, sources and reading to substantiate your work.
This will be assessed as your individual reflective analysis on the project. Essentially this should be a reflective account of progress and process during the module. Some of the areas that you might comment on include:

• What are group’s successes and difficulties, what can be improved and how?
• What is your contribution to the group project, and how effective are you being?
• How the technology/media affects the work of the group?

It should not just be a narrative (blow by blow account of what you or others did), it is a reflective account. It is not a description of what you did with no analysis. Nor is it an account where everything went well or very badly. Try to look at both positive and negative aspects. You must write an entry every week but there is no reason why you can't write in it more often if you wish. "Barebones" entries will not be seen as sufficient to get a pass. A series of a couple of sentences for each weekly entry probably wouldn’t supply me with enough material to assess your contributions. At some stages of the module you will be asked to carry out some specific research and post the results on your blog. Towards the end of the module you will be asked to end your blog by critically summarising your progress as well as that of your group (more guidance on this will come later)

Your first entry should outline your thoughts on setting up your weblog. Before the third group session you should find at least two websites (perhaps ones you visit yourself) that you think are an example of either good or bad web design. You should add a link to the sites on your web log and provide an explanation as to why you have chosen these sites. Carry out this comparison based on the points raised in the "Analysing web sites" presentation.

You should also put your group’s project plan on your blog as soon as the group has agreed one.