Being a member of that particular database my response may seem biased, but I believe that I have pretty good insight into this issue because I was a part of it.
Even though the site is no longer active I do not feel as if it was a complete loss and I do feel that we were successful. We did succeed to put up a reasonable database complete with relevant links, indexes, homepages, reports, etc. We also succeeded in collecting data, even though it was mostly coming from members of our own class. Nonetheless, we succeeded in going through the motions of creating, erecting, and maintaining a database. Just like with all great things they start off slow, plagued with problems, but in time those problems will help refine it into something greater than expected.
What were the problems?
There were many problems that were encountered when first started the WIB site.
One problem was motivation.Some people in class were not happy with their assigned database so when it came down to doing the nitty gritty side of searching for relevant pages they were not to inclined to put in the time. That of course, was only one probem.
Another problem, was the time factor. Learning how to use the internet, e-mail, ftp, pico, seach engines, transport, html, ect. is a task in itself, now compound that with the creation of a site, homepage, index, contribution page, and data collection with searches and you have a whole lot of knowledge to swallow, understand, and implement. That's a lot if you ask me and it took way over twenty hours online a week to do this!!! Every weekend morning I was at the Click lab, then in the weekdays I was at keller, then at night I was at porteus. This process took so much time a lot of people didn't have and unfortunately it showed. Luckily, We laid the foundation for the future generations to build upon.
How would I devise a plan that would allow G-5 students to continue the online database?
I would first have to stick to my guns on giving topics out because if you let students decide on what topics they want to do, then there would be no direction or order. I would however, make the topics broad and then allow them to pick a specialty within that topic that interests them. This way there can be order and motivation in thier work.
I then would assign these data bases and then have them immediately put up their WIB pages in order for them to start the html proccess. Then I would spend the next two weeks having them search throught the net for information related to their topics and I would also expect them to e-mail at least one member in class with something that would benefit thier topics. This way they would work as a community and not as solo scientists (One has to remember that this is a learning community). This will also increase the productivity within the group on the assumption that the knowledge would be shared and used amongst the members in the group.
Finally, I would have weekly status reports, about two minutes long per student, for the students to report to the class on their status. This way it should increase the coehessiveness of the group and also bring up problems so they can be discussed, solved, and benefited by the whole class.
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