The Test

Well, better late than never, I always say. After a bit of a rough week and a bit, I've finally had some time to contemplate a website (or page in my case) in order to give our rubric a bit of a test run. Our group has decided to do our project on Pictish burial. Our focus is on a site called Forteviot, in central Scotland. When we chose to do this site, I don't think we realized that nothing had been published on the site just yet, as it is still 'new'. So, because of the limited sources, I thought about taking a bit of a more general approach to test our rubric out. I was Google searching for pictish burial, the picts, etc. Surprisingly, not finding a whole lot. Apparently death photos of Osama Bin Laden are related, though!?? Not quite what I was looking for, Google.

Anyhow, I happened across a webpage on a website called Wikinut. Considering this is a public website in which any old person can sign up and write about whatever they please (at least, from my understanding), I didn't have a whole lot of hope in it. However, the information that was provided, brief as it may be, actually was pretty decent. I had read about/heard about much of what the author of the article was discussing, so I kept reading. Once I arrived at the end, I noticed that there were even a couple of references that I recognized! So, on the basis of that, I decided to do my test on this webpage.

Our rubric contains categories for a data base and cooperative work. This article was only written by one author that I can see, and there is no data base within the work. Naturally, I have removed these two categories from this particular test, as they are not relevant. That leaves us with Content (/20), Content Accuracy (/15), Layout (/15), Research/Bibliography (/15), Spelling and Grammar (/5) and Citations (/5), for a total of 75 possible marks. Our original rubric is set up to be out of 100 marks. Round numbers are our friends.

In terms of content, for the type of page it is, I think it provides a nice introduction and overview to who the Picts were, and the types of things associated with them, such as their symbol stones and burials. The author spends most of the article discussing the Pictish symbol stones (but briefly), which makes sense seeing as that is what they are generally "known" for. Overall, the content itself is good, but not super. I would give this category a 13/20. I feel like I need to bunch Content Accuracy in with this paragraph also. As stated before, a lot of the information here, I had read about or heard about prior to finding this page. The information I found was from textbooks and other scholarly articles. I have a problem with some of the things the author states, as there is nothing to back up what they have written. So, for this category, I would give the page a 10/15.

The overall layout to the page reads well, and the different categories are well defined at the very top of the page with hyperlinks to the different sections. Categories are clearly marked on the page through the use of special headers (larger, different colour, etc.), and key words and terms are in bold font. The author does attempt the use of images in the article, but only uses one photo. I feel like they could have probably used a few more photos and/or maps to enhance the article. The type of site that it is, it tends to look extremely cluttered near the top part of the page, and near the bottom where all of the comments are listed. As a total, I would give this category a 10/15.

The only photo used on the website; a photo of a Pictish symbol stone.

Remaining categories, research/bibliography, citations and spelling, grammar I feel I should stick together. There were some sources on the page, but only listed at the very bottom, and not in any particular format that I could easily recognized. The citations had no dates, or other distinguishing factors apart from author name and title of article, or links, when appropriate. There was definitely an attempt at research in order get the information correct, but only three sources were listed. Of these sources, I could not see any citations within the text telling where the authors ideas and facts came from. I did not notice any errors in spelling and grammar, although, I've never been super at finding silly grammatical errors. I make them a lot. In total, I would give the research category a 7/15, citations a 1/5 (only because sources were listed), and spelling & grammar a 5/5.

That gives us a grand total of 46/75 or 61.3%.

After doing this little test, I think that our rubric might still need a wee bit of tinkering, just to get the categories more clear and concise. Now, it is time for me to go read some more about lovely Picts (60 page paper! Joy??), have some tea, and relax!