Large multimedia projects are labor intensive and lend themselves to group efforts. For this effort, the seminar group will be divided into three working groups, each with the same assignment: prepare a new Homepage for the BGSU American Culture Studies Program. At the completion of the group projects, we will share them among ourselves and consider the possibility of working as a larger task group to make a final web site that will incorporate the most effective aspects of the previous three efforts. On completion,the web sites will be shared with the Director of ACS who may at his/her discretion elect to use one of them for the official BGSU ACS web page. These final projects will become the property of the ACS Program which may adopt them, change them to a more effective form, or decline their use. If one of the sites is adopted, the students responsible for creating it will be so acknowledged on the page credits.

I visualize several steps to completion of this project.

• 1. Review web sites of other ACS programs to develop a sense of effective design and to outline a criteria for your own page. You are not limited to ACS pages for samples, but should do these at a minimum. You are encouraged to look at other academic or institutional pages as well, keeping in mind that you can adapt models from any field to your purposes. Ready access to ACS webpages can be gained through The ASA Graduate Program Directory at http://www.georgetown.edu/crossroads/gradguide/tabl2.html or through the American Studies Crossroads site at http://www.georgetown.edu/crossroads/programs/ which includes undergraduate programs as well.
• 2. Each group should select a few examples for AmSt or other departmental sites as exemplary models. In some cases it may be one or more aspects of a site that you like, rather than the whole site. From these the group should develop its own prototype design for the ACS site, considering what features they wish to include and how the site should be structured. The best design authorities suggest this phase of the project is best done on paper or blackboard to provide a guide for developing the actual site.
• If you have not done so already, decide how the work for completion of the site will be done. Consider such aspects as research, design, and composition to determine how the work will be allocated among the group. There is no predetermined method for dividing the labor; each group shoud decide what works best in terms of its goal and available talent. The work should be as evenly divided as possible, but attention should also be paid to the learning process so that everyone benefits from the experience by expanding their expertise in aspects of in website development.
• When your final project is complete, we will schedule presentations by each group to allow them opportunity to explain the rationale behind their design and to demonstrate its effectiveness as a communication tool for the ACS Program.
• As a final step in the project, we will consider developing a final design which will incorporate the most effective elements of each of the group submissions. Depending on the will of the "committee of the whole," this final site may also be submitted as a final project for review by ACS administration.
• The final designs will be submitted to the Director of ACS who may, at his discretion, choose to adopt one of them as the official ACS website. The designers of the finally selected site will be given appropriate credit if and when the site goes public.