Soc 257 Web Development Profile Memo

HTML Project Guidelines

This document presents important guidelines for the preparation of your Profile Page for the New Religious Movements web site. In addition, it offers some helpful hints and cautions. This is must reading for every Sociology 257 student . Failure to follow guidelines will negatively impact your grade for the project. This document was initially prepared in response to questions raised by students enrolled in the Spring Term, 1997. It was up dated for the Spring Term, 1999. Other documents in on the HTML Resources Page offer technical information not covered here. Here we offer both technical and substantive guidelines. To avoid needless investment of time in preparing revisions at the end of the term, please follow the instructions offered here carefully.

To: Soc 257 Students From: J. K. Hadden
Subject: Guidelines for Web Page Development

Each student will receive written freeback on their "confirmation" assignment and their "prospectus" assignment. The purpose of this memo is (1) to help you in preparation of these two assignments and, (2) to offer more concrete guidelines as to my expectations for the development of your web page. Not all of the comments are relevant to all students. It is your responsibility to be throughly aware of the content and make sure that your page is developed in conformity with these guidelines. Read this momo carefully and follow the instructions offered herein. I recommend that you read this document early, and then reread it before submitting your final draft work.

I. CLARIFICATIONS

A. Tips for improving the quality of a Profile .

The general guidelines contained herein apply to new pages as well pages that are "upgrades" of existing pages.

1. Checking and double checking the accuracy of the information.

It is understood that you must use authoritative sources to checking your work. Those who are doing upgrades will recognize that the rule of documenting sources was not adhered to during the first several semesters of this project. If you are upgrading an existing page, begin with the assumption that none of the information on the page is accurate. Part of your learning task is to developing the capability of discerning the difference between authorative sources and something that is totally lacking in scholarly merit.
The materials you develope this term will be read by persons from around the world. It is our mutual responsibility to do our best to make sure that what goes up on your page is accurate. I am an authority on a few of the groups on our class web site, but I don't qualify as an expert on more than a few of the groups we have profiled. Further, it is impossible for me to I check every detail on your page for accuracy. I must rely on you to be the first line of defense in guarding against the inclusion of inaccurate information. If I am not confident that you have adequately documented your work, it won't go up on the web site. It is just that simple. Thus, it is imperative that you check and double check your sources, and that you fully identify your sources in the text or in footnotes. When using Internet resoures, never loose site of the fact that there is little built-in quality control.
What constitutes an authoritative sources will vary from task to task. I have recommend the various encyclopedias written and complied by J. Gordon Melton which you will find in the Reference Room of Alderman. I very much respect his work, but treat it as you would other sources. He may have been right when he went to press, but things change. And, occasionally his information is wrong. Always use the most recent edition of Melton's work. And cross check his work against other sources that seem to be authoratative.
Aside from Melton's encyclopedias, what constitutes authoritative sources? Use common sense. Official web sites of a group should have a certain quality of reliability for factual information, but it is also possible that they may "fudge" their information to look more impressive. For example, some years ago when I was studying televangelists, a certain TV preacher from Virginia claimed to have 17 million viewers of his weekly television program. When I finally tracked down the monitoring statistics of Arbitron and Nielsen, they both placed the weekly audience at about 1.5 million--about one-tenth the size claimed by the televangelist. How do you deal with this? I reported both and indicated why I thought the Arbitron and Nielsen ratings were more reliable. You can do the same.
The class web page is currently receiving more than 100,000 hits per week. Undocumented statements, when someone challenges them, can create a nightmare to track down the information. Most of the people who report errors in our work are kind and helpful in pointing me to reliable sources. But some readers seem to be self-consciously assessing the quality of our work, with an eye toward being critical. Sometimes they write directly to me. Other times they post their observations on news groups or list-serves. When that happens, I may hear from a dozen or two dozen people within a matter of hours.
All of us will occasionally make errors in interpreting what we read, or errors of judgment in our selecting of sources. Both are understandable and certainly forgivable. What is not acceptable is the failure to source your work adequately and accurately. When you document your work carefully, and someone challenges your "facts," I have a leg up on figuring out whether you, or the challenger of your "facts" is correct. If your work work is not documented, I have three choices: (1) accept the claims of the writer I probably don't know, (2) esearch the materials myself from the beginning, or (3) take the page down. None of these are particularly felicitious options for me. So do please do your work carefully.
Look for books and scholarly journals. Use the reference shelves, engage the assistance of reference librarians, and don't hesitate to use e-mail to write to an organization if you think they might be able to help. It is absolutely critical that you document your sources (i.e., site references, including pages) with the same care you would in you were writing a paper to submit for publication. You are, after all, goint to be published electronically. Some of your pages will be read more frequently than are the large majority of articles in scientific journals. The bottom line, to repeat, is use common sense. If you think the source may be questionable, you may very well be correct.

2. Clarity of presentation is always critical .

Many of the writings that have been assigned for upgrade and enrichment could be improved with clearer writing. If you are upgrading a page and find passages you don't understand, chances are the reader did't understand either. You should rewrite, but don't commence to rewrite until you are sure you understand yourself. The most fundamental principle of communication is that if someone doesn't understand what you write, you have not communicated. When you write, think of your task as telling a story. What are the important points you want to communicate to your reader?

Communicating clearly begins with understanding your subject matter well. Writing is one important way we come to understand. But writing will not likely lead to understanding with essential information has not been grasped.

A common fault in student papers is that they are not completed until the last minute. Get started early enough that you can go back over your work. Come to grips with the material before you write. Then, after information has been comprehended and copy drafted, the next step is to carefully edit our own work. Does it say what you meant to say? Is it easily understood by others? Try puting yourself in the place of the potential reader or, better yet, ask a room mate, friend, or a fellow member of this class to read your draft. If that person can't grasp the key ideas, your work is not finished.

3. Locating, organizing and presenting links to other web resources.

Information on the Internet is exploding at a tremendous pace. Along with quantity, the quality of material is generally improving (although this may not be true for all groups). And, as many of you have discovered, web sites that we linked to at an earlier date are no longer operative, or they have moved to a new address.

Many of you have mastered the search process; others among you need to take more time and discover what is possible. Search engines can usually get you started, but they are seldom the alpha and omega of the process of seeking out information on the Internet. Often, poking around on the links of good sites will reveal a lot more materials that is not accessible via search engines.

When can you be sure you have located most of the good materials? Again, common sense has to be your guide. But be careful to distinguish between common sense and the desire to get this part of the task behind you. On multiple occasions I have seen students turn in a Profile draft with only a few links when my intuition (or knowledge) told me there should be more. Usually I am right. If I go searching after you have turned in your work and find a lot more sites, that will negatively impact my assessment of your work. I do understand that very little exists for some groups. I welcome your inquiry as the semester progresses. And, if you are having real problems, we can schedule some time to search together. But the primary responsibility is on your shoulders.

Let me try to condense the task into a few guidelines:

a. search until you feel you have closure of the topic ;

b. identify the links that are of greatest importance :

* the official home page,

* other unofficial pages that present good information;

* pages that have links to yet additional useful resources that you'll not likely be including;

* scholarly analysis if available, and;

* examples of anti or counter-cult pages.

The total number of links will vary. We don't want links that have little content. If is OK to have ten or fifteen sites links, or even more, if each provides valuable or interesting material. But links that add little information will be a source of annoyance to people who visit your page. And, this will negatively impact readers overall assessment of the class page.

If you have a group for which there are scores of sites you'll want to identify one or two sites that are good links to all the other links. A good example of this is the Hare Krishna's where the organization has encouraged members to create sites. Scientology is now doing the same. Many more established groups will have local "church" pages. Similarly, geographical regions of a group may have pages. Look at the content; don't just link a bunch of pages because you came up them. If, on the other hand, someone has created a page that links to all the pages of a particular group, that link might be useful to someone who wishes to find local information.

Our goal is not to have the most, but the best links .

In considering whether to include a link, also ask yourself if it is a site that will likely be durable. My experience is that students often create some very interesting pages, but those sites ususally disappear when the student graduates. If you find a really good student page you want to include, your abstract should indicate that it is a student page. That will alert us to the high probabiliy of a dead link somewhere down the line.

c. organize the links into the order you want to present them :

Always begin the group's official home page if one exists, and identify it as the "official home page;"

Follow with pages in descending order of importance or value to the reader.

Place anti/counter sites at the end of the list.

If you have a fairly large number of links, you might wish to organize them into categories. (See the Christian Science and Scientology pages of examples of this).

d. give the link a name :

Most names will be obvious, e.g., "Unification Church Official Home Page." or the name that appears on the front page of the site;

If you need to make up a name, create as short a name as possible with information that will help the reader identify or recall the site, e.g. "OCRT on Eckankar," or "Watchman on Eckankar;"

The hyperlink should be on this name.

e. prepare abstracts or annotations for each site you include :

Abstracts or annotations should not be very long--two, maybe three sentences. Search engines typically offer very brief descriptions of content. This is usually automatically generated and are often not very good. DON'T copy these description. Write your own. They should descriptive of what the person will find if they click on the side. In addition to general content of the site, you might want to note special features, e.g., "a good section on the history of the group," or "lots of links to other good sites," etc. A few sites have such extensive graphics that they take a long time to load, and this may be worth nothing,.e.g., "great graphics, but content is thin" (or) "slow to load because of graphics, but content worth the wait," etc. Inadequate abstracts are one of the weaknesses of many pages. Use examples of full abstracts rather than one liners.

f. link directly to the information on your group

In the case of large multi-purpose sites, you should make your links go directly to the information you want, not the top of a site. [For example, if you wanted to link to Nation of Islam on the Soc 257 homepage, you wouldn't make the link "http:\\cit.itc.virginia\~jkh8x". From the top of the class page, one would have to navigate through several steps to find Nation of Islam]. Occasionally, a site will be a single large document so that you can't link directly. In this instance, offer brief instructions on how to find the material within the site.

g. Include the full URL address of the site on the line following the abstract .

The reason for this is that it permits the reader to make notation of how to get to a site at another time.

4. Developing a Print Bibliography .

The amount of print material for any given group will vary from enormously extensive to pretty thin. This is where you need to used not only Virgo, but the various electronic search tools in the library. New data bases are emerging all the time. Don't hesitate ask a reference librarian for help. You'll not only learn more about your group, you will become familiar with the vast array of electronic resources that are available. I guarantee you'll find this useful in courses you take in the future.
In developing your bibliography, keep in mind the same general guidelines as apply to the development of web site links. We're looking for quality rather than quantity. Also consider accessibility. As a general rule, I would not site obscure newspaper or popular magazine articles unless (a) you have read them and (b) they contain information not available elsewhere. There are some instances, the Church Universal and Triumphant, for example, where the local newspaper near their headquarters (Bozeman MT) contains lots of information that is simply not available anywhere else. In this instance, you would want to include information on where and how to locate this newspaper. It may be the archive URL for the newspaper, or specific instructions on how to find the materials via Lexis/Nexis. There is no point in listing a reference that no one will be able to find.

Very brief annotations on key bibliographic items are welcome if you feel like you can do so with relative ease, but this is not part of the assignment.

B. Documentation with Authoritative Sources

I mentioned this above, but let me elaborate a bit here. For every piece of information you put in your Profile, I need to know where you got the information. If a print resource, I need the same kind of documentation that you would include in a paper you were turning in for a term paper [full source, page, etc]. If it is a Web source, you should include a copy of the Web page on which the information appears along with (a) the URL and (b) the date you printed the information.

Since information can be placed on the Internet without the traditional editorial procedures of print publication, I encourage you to try and document your sources with print materials. But even when you are using print resources, you need to ask yourself the simple question "is this source authoritative?" If your source is an anti-cult or counter-cult page, you should be extremely cautious.

If you are not certain about the source (and sometimes when you are) it is appropriate to note the source in the text. For example, "The Bubba Bill movement claims that they have over a million members." This number appears inflated. Melton (1997:357) estimates membership at 75,000 and other sources tend to estimate the size of the Bubba Bill's in this range."

Groups tend to inflate their size and so do their adversaries [big = important]. Moreover, adversaries tend to present slanted or inaccurate information. When it comes to religious movements, journalists can be very sloppy, accepting information from apostates and other adversaries without bothering to check other resources. And some people who create web pages have not conception of the idea of "fact" or "truth." The bottom line is, approach all information with caution.

C. Attribution

Related to the question of getting the facts correct is the matter of proper attribution. When I explore a particular topic on the Internet, I often find the same material--line for line--on multiple pages without any attribution of source whatsoever. The word for this is plagiarism. It is fundamentally dishonest. Some of this may be the result of carelessness with a new communications medium, but that really does not excuse the act of taking other peoples' materials and presenting them as if they were your own. Don't be a part of this. You can quote other people. Within reason, you can copy and paste for another source as long as you clearly identify that source. You cannot copy images, logos, etc without written permission.

D. Pictures/Images

Every semester, students propose the inclusion of pictures or images in their work. When this page was initiated, I made a decision (in consultation with ITC) not to put up pictures and to minimize the use of images. There were three reasons:

1. Images/pictures eat up large amounts of server space compared with text. Space is not unlimited on the CTI server;

2. Images/pictures take much longer to load onto a computer (you have no doubt observed this when visiting an image rich site). Our goal is to be know for good content not great graphics; and

3. Pictures, logos, etc. are protected by copyright. If someone wants to pick up a logo or picture from another page, they should have written permission to do so from the owner. To be sure, there is a great deal of violation of copyright. As members of an academic community, we have a responsibility to uphold copyright laws. We could request permission, but that would add a whole dimension of complexity to this project.

I would remind you that the product you create will also go up on your own home page. You are welcome to include pictures and images on your own site, but please don't submit work for this class with images. And, if you decide to include pictures and images, follow guidelines regarding copyright. Also, be aware that each student has a defined amount of space on the server. Before you create a image rich page, best check with ITC about space guidelines.

E. Accessing Print Resources

There are a number of core references resources that should be consulted by all students. And, generally, these sources should be included in your print bibliography on your Profile page. Most of these resources are available in the Alderman reference room. Check Virgo for location.

1. Melton, J. Gordon, Encyclopedia of Americans .

This is a must reference for every student. This volume is now in its Fifth Edition which is in the Alderman Reference room. Earlier editions are in the stacks. You can use earlier editions to get started, but I don't recommend using anything before the Fourth Edition unless you later check the Fifth Edition to update information. For your final product, you must site the Fifth Edition and include page number(s).

2. Melton, J. Gordon, Encyclopedic Handbook of Cults in America . 1986.

This volume contains information on about 25 groups; the text tends to run a little longer than in the Encyclopedia above. Copies available in the Reference Rooms of both Alderman and Clemons.

3. Melton, J. Gordon, Biographical Dictionary of American Cult and Sects Leaders . 1986.

As the title indicates, this volume provides information on leaders. There are at least a couple of hundred. A reasonable source for verifying bibliographic. Alderman Reference.

4. Melton, J. Gordon, Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology . 1996.

Melton recently revised this two volume work that had been prepared by another scholar. For non-christian groups, it is useful to check this volume. Many eastern religious groups are presented in this volum. Alderman Reference.

5. Saliba, John A., Social Science and the Cults. An Annotated Bibliography . 1990.

An exceptionally well done volume. Contains 2200 annotations of books and articles. As a matter of courtesy to you fellow class mates, I would ask you to use this resource in the library. This is a circulating volume. May I urge that you quickly skim this resource and copy any information that may be of use to you.

6. Saliba, John A., Psychiatry and Cults. An Annotated Bibliography . 1987.

Another exceptionally well done volume. Contains 1900+ annotations of books and articles. A circulating volume. As with the Saliba volume above, you can very quickly skim this resource and copy any information that may be of use to you. As a matter of courtesy to you fellow class mates, I would ask you to use this resource in the library.

While I have found both of these Saliba volumes very helpful, skillful use of electronic data bases may serve your purpose equally well.

Keep in mind that this list does not begin to exhaust the materials you should be able to access in both hard and electronic form in the UVa libraries. If you have not had much experience with electronic data bases, this is the right time to learn. Ask the librarians for assistance, or come on by during my office hours and I will be happy to give you a few pointers.

II. NEW DIRECTIONS, NEW INITIATIVES

As I have gained experience in the development of a web site, I have discovered that it is possible to bring each cohort of students along a little more quickly. Here are four initiatives that should be incorporated into all new web site developement.

A. Refocusing "How/Why = History "

From the onset, my idea of "why/how" was to present a very brief history of the group. Who created the group? When? Why? How? Where? As we moved back in time to create groups that are not exactly new, there is a history to tell. What is the route they have traveled? I'm not looking for long essays here, but a capturing of really salient events that everyone would agree is important to know about the group. I don't have a specific word count in mind. Some people may find that they can capture the essential history of a group with something in the order of 250-500 words. Others will be longer. A page on The Family is quite a bit longer. Be mindful of the fact that your job is to introduce readers to the history of a a group, not to write the definitive word. Focus on important events, people, etc. If your history runs longer (say more than 500 words, work at breaking it into smaller pieces which may be accessed as links off your primary Profile. You'll find several examples of this. (see, for example: Theosophy).
Also, label this segment of your Profile "History" rather than "How/Why." One day we'll get back in and change all the earlier pages.

B. Issues & Controversies : Past and Present

Some of you have groups that are not presently embroiled in controversy, but many are, or have recently experienced tension with the culture. Remember, high tension is one of the attributes that is characteristic of NRMs. Several of the groups we consider in this course have been in the newspapers this term; others have been within the last few years. This is where search instruments like Lexis/Nexis can be very helpful. But they can be eversomuch more helpful if you can identify events and times.

If you have a relatively new group that is free on controversy in the recent past (understood pretty broadly), then you don't need to include this section. If your group is older, and histories have been written of the group, look for controversy and high levels of tension the group experienced with the broader culture in its formative years.

C. Developing In Text Hyperlinks .

One feature of the Internet that is absolutely unique and exciting is the possibility for nonlinear learning. If we have always had the ability to skip to the end of a chapter to read the conclusion, or ignore a particular part of a book that didn't seem particularly interesting to us, the concept of linear learning is deeply ingrained in our collective and individual consciousness.

Hyperlinks, creatively constructed, can permit a learner to pursue a totally nonlinear course of inquiry. In part, hyperlinks permit the reader to follow their own path of interest, rather than proceeding paragraph by paragraph, page by page, through the creation of the author. At another level, we can view hyperlinks as a way to instantly comprehend the relationships among things, events, or concepts that me might not otherwise have understood.

There is sufficient information about many of our groups to permit is to begin the process of developing creative hyperlinks. There are many excellent examples of hyperlinking in the work of students who created pages from the Spring of 1997 forward. Let me suggest three criteria that should guide the task of building hyperlinks:

(1) Clarification

(2) More detail or elaboration

(3) Pursuit of interesting information that is beyond the focus of your report.

Now, an illustration for each. I'll use Nancy Ward's report on the Amish.

1. Clarification . Nancy writes: "The Amish people are descendants of Anabaptists..."

Many readers will have heard of <Anabaptists> but few probably really know much, if anything about them. Nancy could offer a sentence or two to identify this group and your learning experience would be enriched. And maybe she will do that, but Anabaptists are not the topic of her presentation. Suppose you decide, for whatever reason, that this would be a good moment for you to learn more about Anabaptists. A <hyperlink> to a site that provides a concise statement about Anabaptists would offer you the opportunity to pursue this interest.

2. More detail or elaboration .

Nancy writes: "The < Ornung> are the rules of the church and are not specified in writing."

This is something of that is unique to Amish beliefs, and could be of considerable interest to lots of readers. Once again, Nancy might want to write a few sentences about Ornug , but probably not much more. We are dealing with very short introductions to the beliefs and practices of each group, not detailed essays. So, again, a <hyperlink> to a more detailed discussion of Ornug would would offer that opportunity for elaboration.

3. Interesting information beyond focus of profile .

And, again, "The Amish people <immigrated> to Colonial America in the eighteenth century..."

Discussion of immigration -- why they came, where they settled, etc. is more detail than the Profile requires. But for the person who has their interest level raised by reading the Profile, an examination of Amish immigration is one logical direction to of interest to pursue.

Creation of in text hyperlinks is limited only by your imagination and your willingness to locate materials . Here are a few ideas to keep in mind.

a. Creating hyperlinks can be done in two ways: (I) going outside of your document to another site on the Internet, or (ii) pasting a passage of someone else's page at the end of your document as effectively footnotes. Alternatively, you can place your pasted materials on another page of your site so that they will come up quickly. IF you cut and paste materials into your own document, it is very important that you give full attribution under the guidelines of fair use.

b. Many sites that you might link to will provide interesting information beyond the specific text to which you want to link. That is a good reason for linking outside your text. But consider how quickly the site can normally be accessed quickly? If the site is image rich and always takes a while to bring up, consider a cut and paste of a brief passage and then, at the end of that passage, add another line, e.g., <for additional information, please click here>.

c. Hyperlinks are not difficult to make. We'll provide information in class on how to do this. But keep in mind that you should link directly to the spot in the text you want your reader to find. Don't send them to the top of a document and leave them to search for the information you wanted them to read.

d. a link to a poorly written, or non-authoritative source is a bum trip for the person who clicks on your hyperlink. Ask your self the simple question: "is this good stuff?" If it isn't good, don't link it just for the sake of having an in text link. Also, remember that when you linke and the reader clicks on that link, you are guiding them away from your work. Ask yourself if you are sending them to a location where they will have an enriching experience. Use links wisely, not just for the sake of having links.

D. Capture the "Movement" Dimension in the Development of Older Groups .
The theoretical rationale guiding the development of this web site is that all religions were once new. Once we covered most of the significant contemporary "new" religions, we began to move back in history and explore other groups. If you are working on a group that is older, you will enrich the value of your contribution greatly by addressing the conceptual and theoretical issues that provide the basic orientation to the course and the web site. Does the group remain in tension with the broader culture, or has it moved back toward the main stream? See what you can learn about your group's tension with the broader society when it was really new. What happened when the founding leader died? Etc.

Prepared for Spring Term, 1997
Last Revised 05/24/99