Above is a basic diagram for the Generational Curriculum on my professor's page. It starts from the main page, and branches out to, among many other links, the main ones charted. To see a bigger view of the diagram (which is clickable), simply click on the small one above.An excellent link that, I feel should be included on every page is an Introduction page (like the Introduction to the Community Classroom Generational Curriculum Page). This helps to orient the viewer as to what to expect at the site and some of the key sites to visit.
Another link that comes from the Generational Curriculum (G.C.) is the Topics Link. This link is an "<A NAME>" link, which means it is a specific area on a designated page. In this case, it jumps to the "Topics in the Generational Curriculum and Daily Round Archives" on the intro page. To see an example of how this type of link works, click here to jump to the bottom of this page (just scroll back up the page to get back to this point).
The next two links, go to the different student areas for the classes that my professor teaches online (the Traffic Psychology and Cyber Psychology generations). These are, in turn, linked (just as they are from the G.C.) to the different Generations and each individual student thereafter.
The Daily Round Archives refers to the same "<A NAME>" link that the "Topics" link went to. This is because the Daily Round Archives is listed and linked from the Topics area.
Feedback is an essential part of getting viewer response from your page. My professor includes this, as well as a link back to his home page to complete the diagram.
The ease of link structure on the G.C. page is a delightful break. I found myself pointing and clicking easily, with a general idea of where I was going (even before I saw the page load!). Each topic is properly organized into separate areas (a table separates the Traffic from the Cyber Psychology student areas), making the finding and surfing that much easier.
This organization will also help when the page develops. Being that this whole site is an ever-expanding one, being orderly and organized will aid in inputting information (from the creator side) as well as navigating (from the user side).
Other ways of looking at structuring this web page for organization, quicker navigation or general ease-of-use can be integrating an index, CGI (Common Gateway Interface) Map, search engine, tour guide or an interactive AI (Artificial Intelligence) Guide.
Creating an index for this page might be a good idea to provide links to all sites (including those links from images) and perhaps, see them in some sort of order (e.g. alphabetical). Indexes are an excellent way to get organized in terms of the page creator. Having an index aids in knowing, especially if you have a huge site with many links, what you have within your site, and what you want changed, edited, removed, etc.
CGI Maps would probably be best suited for sites that have a small number of direct sites. What a CGI Map does, is it takes an image (created off line) and converts it so that each area on the image is a hot link that usually represents the image or image text that lies directly below it. How this does this is it designates specific coordinates to each little area on the image as a URL and when clicked, it takes that information, processes it, and does the appropriate page change. Check out this example map of the Hawaiian Islands that I worked on for my job as an example.
Integrating a searchable engine/index would be very helpful, not only on the G.C. home page, but on my professor's main page. Sites that have a lot of information and many links are the best suited for a searchable index. Visitors can type in a search string and directly be shot to the like page.
Some type of guiding device might help in navigational simplification. Hard to navigate sites, big sites or new sites often have a type of guide (such as a tour guide) to help in getting around the site. For the G.C., a tour guide would probably not be necessary, for the site is not very confusing to surf through. A great example of a tour guide would be the one created by a student for my professor's site entitled WIB Tour Guide '96. This tour "debriefs" any surfer that shreds through my professor's site, who may have become a little disoriented or overwhelmed with all of the knowledge that is packed into this web site.
To most, this type of web site may also be a whole new entity. On my part, I have never witnessed or participated in such a "futuristic" event. This site uses the latest in technology and education and integrates them to create a whole new learning environment.
Postings (from students, as well as teachers) are on a regular basis. Each semester starts a different round of students, or Generation who experience a whole new set of reports. This constant flow of cognitive knowledge over time (from varying viewpoints) sets this site apart from others trying to achieve the same thing.
Consistency also help in keeping this web site unique. A few years ago, ever since Generation One crawled out of the woodwork, the same basic theme remained. With a few minor adjustments, my professor chose to stay consistent to the theme that we, as CyberPsychologists, should use technology to help, rather than hinder our education of the mind, <BODY>, and soul.
And with staying consistent to one's theme, comes predictability. Unless my professor suddenly has a change of heart and decides to quit teaching to become a professional belly-dancer, we know that the Generational Curriculum is here to stay for some time.
Aside from the tour guide, this site is relatively difficult to navigate. This is mainly for the fact that there is such a plethora of information that one wouldn't know where to start. A front end utilizing a CGI word search could perhaps help a surfer find their sense of place and discover cohesive organization within a site. Building this utility, is probably the last thing to support user task before complete Utopia.
Why Utopia? Because the surfers are not the only people gaining benefits from such a web site. We, as members of the latest generation (4b), gain from the knowledge brought forth by the professor, previous students' mistakes, viewer feedback and a better understanding about what this is all about.
