Organizing our Final Project

Today we regrouped in order to begin our final project for DigiCiv 2012. While students had been grouped both in historical period groups and a digital culture topic groups, we have now organized them into content groups or production groups. Our students will continue blogging at least twice weekly, but their focus now will shift to developing the content for their assigned group.

DigiCiv Content Groups:

• Art & Music
• Business
• Education
• Government
• Inquiry
• Intellectual Property & Creative Commons
• Openness
• Science

We are producing an eBook as our core project, complemented by a YouTube channel, an image gallery, and a final event to launch and showcase our work.

DigiCiv Production Groups

• eBook
• graphics
• video
• event

Two students head up each of the content or productiongroups (based on expressed interest and on content they had produced to date) and all students will serve as resources to the other groups.

As outlined in the Prezi presentation embedded below, each week each content group will supply content to the eBook leaders by noon on Monday for a "build" that the eBook leaders will create and publish for all to review on Tuesday.

Digital Civilization Final Project on Prezi

We do not expect content to be complete or polished at the beginning, but as all groups contribute their provisional content and review the current build, this will help all of us to conceptualize, develop, and polish the content that we are in charge of producing. So, within the categories listed below, groups may have little to offer during week one, but this will quickly change.

The content due each week from the content groups correlates with what we are planning for each chapter of the eBook, as follows. Some of this content is more interim or provisional; it may be content that is more for internal and working purposes than it is actual content intended for final publication. But that's okay. We all know that the early builds are more for us than for our ultimate audiences:

1. Text (a Word document or Google Doc)
1. A title
   Titles help content come into focus and are closely related to the main claim. At the beginning this will be a working title.
2. A "tweethis"
   This is a tweetable claim used to help focus chapter content (take a look at the tweethis statements that appear under chapter titles in the table of contents of this student-produced eBook). A tweethis is also helpful as a way to get early and ongoing "social proof"of one's central claim. (See this post about tweethis statements or read about a student's success with circulating her tweethis statement.)
3. Main content (historically-informed) 
   An historically-based argument that illuminates the digital cultural topic for that chapter. 
4. Bibliography
   An annotated set of resources divided into "Further Reading" and "Thought Leaders" as described in detail in this annotated bibliography assignment.
5. Social Graph
   Students must answer the question, "Who cares about this? Who has a stake in these issues" by documenting results of their social discovery and social proof efforts. This section could include an annotated contact list (see examples by Bri Zabriskie, Ashley Lewis , or Tara Pina). It could include lists or discussion about the people, communities, and social networks of those who have a stake in these issues. It can also be a kind of demographic and marketing study as we seek to discover authentic audiences as well as worthwhile sources for interim feedback. 
6. Action Plan
   A section on how readers can take steps to act on the information provided; an action plan.
2. Video
   Ultimately, each chapter will have at least one accompanying video (which will be embedded within the enhanced eBook and which will be available, compiled with all others, on a separate YouTube channel). Groups may also choose to create or use other video (such as interviews or creative commons-licensed available videos). In the beginning, groups will submit ideas for these videos; later, they will submit working and then final versions of their videos.
1. Teaser / Overview video
2. Other video
3. Graphics
   Ultimately, each chapter will have several images to break up the text and create interest. All groups will produce an infographic, too. These graphical images will appear within the eBook, but will also exist independently on a photo gallery site such as Flickr, Picasa, or Deviant Art. In the beginning, groups will submit ideas or "placeholder" art drawn from any available source. Later, they will be sure to supply final graphical art with appropriate permissions or creative commons licenses.
1. Infographic
2. Other pictures or illustrations

We will use the Final Project Guide on our course wiki to centralize style guides, submission procedures, and any other info from the production teams, and of course to archive each of our interim builds as we work toward final products.