A5TeamAwesome

A5TeamAwesome

To-Do

1. Please work as a group (minimum: 2 members; max: 6 members — discuss the answers between your group members) and submit one answer as a group (clearly identifying the members of your group)
2. Choose a web site and claim it as yours by editing the list on the Meta-Design Sites page (first come – first served)

Describe your understanding of meta-design in your own words (not copying a paragraph from a paper or a website)

As computers continue to evolve, so does the way we use them. Since the creation of the internet the spread of ideas, information, and knowledge has become rampant and anyone can look up anything they desire with a few clicks of a keyboard. In more recent years, Meta-Design has become a commonplace practice. Meta-Design involves any number of users collaborating on a variety of different projects, whether it be information databases or programming projects. Most Meta-Design platforms provide users with a single storage and access space, whether it be a web page or code repository. From there, users can access any files they need and make edits or changes to them as they see fit. Once their own changes are completed, they can submit or check-in their work for their peers to view. The peers can then accept the changes, revert to a previous version, or continue building upon the work done before them. With Meta-Design large scale projects can be tackled by an equally large number of users, and through collaborative efforts, enormous projects can be completed faster and more efficiently than ever before.

Setting: you are talking to another student who is interested in design; how would you explain to her/him the strengths and weakness of meta-design as a design methodology

Strengths: One of the biggest strengths of Meta-Design is the fact that you no longer have to complete tasks on your own with your own ideas. If we apply the age old saying that two heads are better than one, surely we can come to the conclusion that a whole community of users possess more knowledge than any one of the users alone. Meta-Design gives all of the users access to all of their collective knowledge in a simple and easy to use space, effectively encouraging the spread of ideas and information and giving anyone with a computer access to the wealth of all human knowledge.

Weaknesses: One of the primary weaknesses of Meta-Design is that by opening up these platforms to all users, they are often subject to abuse by those without the best intentions. For example, many Wikipedia pages have come under attack and users have posted slanderous and hateful messages on them. Furthermore, even a well-intentioned user may not have the most accurate information available to them and by using Meta-Design, they spread information that is flat-out wrong and could have unforeseen consequences down the road.

Which Web site did you select?

http://www.eol.org/

Analyze your chosen web site from a meta-design perspective:

The Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) is an ideal example of Meta-Design being put to good use. The website itself contains all of the information you could find in a library of Biology books, but by making it collaborative, searchable, and easily explorable you open it up to a whole world of new users who otherwise may not have had an interest in Biology. By requiring users to register and funneling new submissions through a peer review process, EOL maintains a high level of credibility and ensures that information posted on the site is as authentic, accurate, and reliable as possible.

One of the only complaints about the EOL we have is that the information present is very technical, heavy in taxonomy, and requires a lot of clicks to navigate. However, as Computer Scientists we may not be the best judges of this layout and should consult with Biologists before coming to any conclusions.

Please provide the names of your group members who contributed to this answer.

Aaron Vimont, Brionna Lopez, Ian Smith, and Adam Jackson.