Table of Contents
Instructions for this Report
Browsing the Mind of a Ph.D
Looking at Dr. James' Page
The Organization of Dr. James' Page
Differences between his and other pages
At The World Ideas Bank
Diagram of the WIB
Devising a Plan
Designing a Method of Objectivity
Online Generational Curriculum
Highlights of the OGC
Students and the OGC
Problems with the OGC
Long-term Programs with the OGC

Browsing the Mind of a Ph.D

The Page...

Dr. James' Page is one big table with a lot of information to look at. It reminded me of a gateway to a lot of different information set on other pages he has designed.  Among the thousands of pages he and his students have created, this page can access all of them.  When that is put into perspective, this page is the key to accessing everything Dr. James and the people associated with his work have done to date. One can only imagine the amount of information that this page can access. I remember that Dr. James once mentioned that he has about 15,000 files in his databases and if you take on (a very rough estimate) average about six files per student (2 reports, Newsgroups, Generations, Homepage, and Links), twenty students per class, three classes per semester, and that comes out to around 3,000 to 4,000 files, not counting icons. Add that total to Dr. James databases done by himself and other 499 students that could be well over 20,000 files associated with Dr. James. And this one page can access everything ever done by the generations since its inception in 1995.

The Organization...

The page is organized very simply and it has everything you would want to look for on on page.  It is organized in table-form for easy access to thousands of files.  The interesting thing about this page is that you really don't have to scroll at all [or very little depending on your browser size] to find everything, which makes this page much more efficient to use when looking for information on the web.  The general rule in Cyber-space is that all pages are considered under construction.  When that rule is applied, it gives the page more and more information to access as time goes on.  Every semester there is new and improved information that is created and this natural expansion continues to grow in almost every direction.  The largest thing lacking with Dr. James' page is images.  There are no "Bells, buzzers, and whistles" on this page which gives it a look of tables and text.  Despite its lack of commercial appearance, the page has a color scheme (Navy Blue) with contrasting text that makes each link easy to find and access.

The Difference...

The biggest difference between this and other sites is that it seems more straightforward than other sites due to its academic nature.  Other sites have frames, images, and other cutting-edge elements that give each particular page individuality and character while Dr. James' page gives you all the relevent information to start browsing the generational curriculum in all his courses in Traffic and Cyber Psychology (409a, 409b, 459). I have been to hundreds of commercial sites in the three years I have been surfing the net and I have gotten a pretty good idea on how pages have evolved from simple text pages to virtual reality, multimedia, and even video. His site has bypassed this advancement yet is still masterful in its simplicity. The concentration of his past academic works have been placed online by his Psychology 499 students and there are links to those 499 pages as well.

Looking at the WIB

The World Ideas Bank (WIB) was a page created by the students of Generation 3.  It is a Social Psychology database of human concerns where people can read and contribute to related topics that are on the page. this format is similar to a newsgroups format that is found in Dejanews, the newsgroups bulletin board most of the research was found for the newsgroups files.

The Diagram...

As far as diagraming the WIB page, it is pretty simple to obtian information. The part I am still trying to figure out is how to contribute to the WIB. I have firgured out that you must email your contribution to each respective student and THEY will post your message for you. This might be difficult due to someone not being around to receive your email for the contribution. Nowadays, it is done by CGI Scripting and the like.

If you want to read someone's contribution, just click on their respective link and read it. There are subjects such as:

"Things That Make Me Feel Good,"
"Confessions,"
"My Current Concerns and Worries,"
"Relationship Things,"

and other related topics which can be found below. As stated earlier, the WIB resembles a newsgroup which contributions are posted by the student responsible for posting email messages received that semester.

A: Moments to Remember

Here is the entire list compiled by the contrbutor to the WIB from Generation 3. As I posted the links, I did find some of the links did not work due to students dropping out of the class. I posted their subject without a link in those cases.

1. What I'm Proud Of----- Jasmine Chatelain
2. Things That Make Me Feel Good ----- Calvin Cheung

B: Confessions

3. My Current Concerns and Worries -----Cheryl Choe
4. Daily Hassles that Drive Me Crazy ----- Garrett Chun
5. What I'm Afraid Of ----- Karla Dias
6. Relationship Things ----- Noreen Dorion
7. Cyberspace Things ----- Catherine Heller

C: Good Ideas For...

8. New business or service on Internet ----- Kristie Hoe
9. Conservation Education on the Internet ----- (student withdrew)
10. Improvements in Procedures For Business & Government -----Helena Joseph

D: Recommended Web Sites...

11. For Being Entertained or Doing Things ----- Darin Kawamoto
12. For Learning Useful Things ----- Janel Kushimi
13. For Meeting People & Networking ----- Sherman Lee
14. For Being Shocking ----- Canaan Machida
15. For Being Uplifted in Mood ----- Rowney Martinez
16. For Searching for Information ----- Robin Miller
17. For Getting Things ----- Vance Mizuba

E: Spiritual Experiences

18. In Meditating or Reflecting ----- Conrad Moreno
19. In Vision or Aesthetic Perception ----- Amy Lam
20. In Doing ----- Heather Roylo
21. In Reading or Studying ----- Jason Tabudlo
22. In Ritual or Worship ----- Trent Takaki

F: Home Page Architecture -- Do's and Don'ts

23. Graphics ----- Denise Tanaka
24. Overall Appearance ----- (student withdrew)
25. Links ----- Claire Uchida
26. Content ----- Doug Wong
27. Interactivity -----Marc Wong

The Plan...

The best way I know on how to contribute to this type of database is to create it like a newgroups type of format that will allow people to read and contribute to the database.  I am not sure how old the entries can be, but this format will allow anyone to access files as old as the database exists. The flip side of this is that someone might have to maintain the database to get things posted or to manage the growing amount of material that people contribute. I know that posting things can be done automatically through CGI scripting, but in case things go wrong, someone might be able to earn 499 credit by maintaining, organizing, and managing the databases.

The Method of Objectivity...

The major question about the generations is whether or not each generation has improved from each previous generation before it.  In order to get the information needed, we have to compare earlier generations to later ones and show the differences in these areas:

1.  Quality

Comparisons between sites will show a few things on technology.  When Generation 1 started in the Spring of 1995, you can tell the technological differences with those from Generations 8, 9, or 10. Despite the technological differences, there were some people who took the design aspect of the web and flew with it. An example is Mary Elizabeth Pacheco from Generation 7. Mary had no experience with HTML when she started her semester and realized that she can put together an informative, yet well styled homepage that makes it a joy to navigate through. Many of us have started out with the "Skeleton HTML" from the Internet Literacy Exercises. I have seen far too often students stick with that generic homepage and leave it for the later generations to see. With HTML, there are a lot of different options to choose from and you can display your creativity for literally millions to see after you have completed your work. So, learn the basics of HTML to give your page your sense of style.

2.  Depth

As the Generations progressed, the documents got deeper, yet there were always certain students in each class that went more in-depth than others. It would make sense because the later generations have more resources than the previous ones but that base is not as noticable between concurrent generations as they are between widely spaced generations. I did notice that the format was noticably different in the earlier generations. For example, some earlier generations had more reports to upload, but they were shorter. Even earlier ones had to post reports weekly. In the later generations, the format used now requires more insight and research to complete even though we only have to complete two, excluding Newsgroups and Generations which is more straightforward.

3.  Richness

Indeed, each generation has some students that go nuts on the web creation part, but when you look at early to late, you can see the progression of HTML.  Most of the pages have the template that Dr. James gives us with a little add-ons here and there, but in the extreme cases where people really got to know the HTML basics and flew with it, the later versions of HTML, Java, and other types of Web authoring emerged. When I was in Generation 8, I remember a report done by David Chang that had a guy swinging on his page from a noose. Although it was grotesque in its sight, I was still fascinated. The statement I hear often when people view advanced things on their sight is, "How did you do that?" I was asked that in class regarding my Photoshop creations. The point is, Web authoring can really let creativity fly if you get past your "technophobia."

4.  Technique

Technique can be viewed in different ways, but I will focus more on the presentation of reports and its hypertext integration.  This is where we have a little more of the same thing between generations due (my hypothesis) to the "beginner factor."  In other words, most of the people who start out with 409 or 459 start out in the same place: not knowing a thing about HTML and that's where everyone looks the same on. I have mentioned before in this report about the "conquering your fears" when it comes to the computer. I have sat through two generations and I have found that a lot of students hit that wall. I did a report in another Psychology class on computer use and I found that among college students, most use the computer for three main purposes: Internet surfing, email communication, and term papers. Upon entering Dr. James' class, HTML is usually a new concept to them. So, everyone is a beginner and goes through the same frustrations as everyone else.

5.  Scholarship

The effort one puts into a report is more of an individual thing rather than a generational one so there were people who put more effort in an earlier generation than someone did in a later one. I rememember my generational report was sixteen pages long and took a span of two weeks to get a quality draft posted on time. I spent thirteen hours sitting in front of a monitor at the CSS lab trying to finish the project and I was so dizzy I spent the rest of the night trying to get the digital images which had burned in my mind. Alhough length can sometimes be an indicator of effort, scholarship is measured differently. Of all the reports I have looked at, most were in first person abut personal feelings toward a particular driving or internet behavior. I remember another student in Generation 8 who put a disclaimer on her page. You can view Faith Matsuda's page to see her unique perspective on her pages. Read the fine print carefully!!

6.  Connectivity

Connectivity within generations are more noticable due to referencing or linking to each other's pages and viewing them often. Connectivity happens between generations with the generational reports and being able to build upon the previous generations' work. When linking to each other's pages occur, it provides another link or connection to the generations making the generations more and more inter-connected as the generations grow.

7.  Site Integration

An inportant point was brought up in the beginning of G10:  "How much text is needed to do well?"  The point of that discussion was people were struggling with reading 2 million lines of text.  All the generations have this "feature" no matter who they are.  Only on a few instances have I seen a sight that matched its content well. A great point was brought up by Stephen Weers that site management that included brief paragraphs and a "click for full text" feature can help with readability. My approach is to include pictures and other stuff that moves on my pages so people don't go blind finding relevent text and information. I also try to ease the blindness by providing an entertaining homepage that outlines each report's title and I provide a lot of tables and links to each so that students can browse my reports more efficiently.

8.  Navigation Capabilities

Most, if not all the pages I have seen navigate very little beyond the report, homepage, or generation.  In G8, Dr. James had us create a links page that helped the reader go to different links in Cyberspace. My links page reflects the activities I like to do most which are computers, mountain biking, and soccer. Yet, with the connections between generation becoming more integrated, finding information regarding road rage and other traffic issues as well as Cyber-psychology issues becomes easier to obtain.

Online Generational Curriculum

Well, what is the Online Generational Curriculum? Basically, it is a gathering of reports from all the generations on different topics. Normally, the OGC is compiled in each new generation by searching through previous generation's reports and pages and adding to them in their own reports. The format is searching through different generations and classes and providing a report on four students from generations past. It can be found in the "generations.html" report which is mandatory on each homepage.

The Highlights...

The highlights of each page and the gateway to finding all the generational reports can be found in Dr. James' hompage. Everything you need to start mining the generational curriculum can be found with this key, so I suggest you use it wisely because you can get lost finding certain things in the curriculum because it gets larger every semester. By the time you review this page, I can be sure that at least eleven generations have gone by and there is a ton of information to look for on a variety of subjects. My generations report can be found here. Look at it as an example of what this report looks like.

The Feeling...

The feeling of the generational reports is very academic. You will not find too much of the multimedia dazzle found on those ".com" pages. Most of the OGC is lines upon lines of text. I have done a report and I know that within those lines of text is information as rich as can be on a variey of topics that interest college users like you and I.

The Problems...

The biggest problem with the OGC is that you practically navigate it blind. There is no grouping by subject, author, or title. The best you can do is go by generation, but you don't really know who is in the generation (or a class within the generation) until you get there. Running a close second is the mountains of words. It can seem lifeless and can make you go blind, but it is worth it when you find a report that is really good.

The Long-term Programs...

I think the long term programs that the generations (like 499) should look at is some sort of database organization so we can look up things by Author, title, or subject. It will take a lot of 499 students with a lot of coffee before we get to see anything looking like a generational database. I would help, but I am graduating this December. Seriously, it is a worthwhile effort to organize this wealth of knowledge on the web. Think about it......

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