Capstone Project Bibliography
Description
The final unit of this course (Unit 8) will be to do a capstone project.
A capstone project is a piece of work that demonstrates your overall knowledge and skill from the course.
Since this project includes a research phase, it is important to start now.
The complete overview for the capstone project is available in the Word doc linked here,
but you do not need to study this document thoroughly right now. For this activity, you will be completing Phase 1,
and this web page will walk you through the steps you need to take.
Remember, you are NOT doing the whole project now. You are only completing "Phase 1: Topic Research" NOT the whole project.
Choose Your Topic
Before you get started, you will need to get your topic approved. Your teacher will have specific instructions on how they want you to submit your topic for approval. This project is an informational site, so you will need a topic broad enough to span multiple web pages. For full points on the project, you will need at least five pages on your final site organized by sensible sub-topics. Good topics might include:
- An animal: the homepage could include an interesting fact about the animal, with additional pages about the animal’s physical features, behavior, habitat, and diet
- A celebrity: the homepage could include a personal note about why you are a fan of the celebrity, with additional pages about the celebrity’s career, personal history, and philanthropy
- A sport: the homepage could include an inspirational quote from a professional player, with additional pages about the history of the sport, how it is played, what equipment is required, and professional/Olympic records
- A topic from another class: Do you have a major project for another class, too? Consider asking your other teacher if this website could count toward that project. It may just help you to focus on one topic for both projects, even if the requirements are totally different -- using what you are learning in another class for your topic could help you learn it better and save research time
Set Up Your Project Folder and Bibliography Page
While you are waiting for your topic to be approved, begin organizing files for your project.
- Create a folder for the project. The name "captsone-project" would be a good choice for this folder.
- Make a sub-folder, inside the "capstone-project" folder, for storing images. The name "images" might be good for this folder.
- Open your HTML template file, and save a new copy of it called "bibliography.html" in the "capstone-project" folder.
- Change the H1 tag to read "Bibliography" and be sure to update the TITLE and META tags as well.
- Save and test your changes.
Research
Once your topic is approved, you should gather research on your topic. This will help you determine appropriate sub-topics for each page of your site and give proper credit to avoid plagiarism or copyright infringement.
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Use a new P tag on your bibliography page for every source that gives you information that you might use on your project web site.
Inside these P tags, paste the URL where you found the information, and make a note of the specific information you wish to use.
Remember, you need enough information to create at least a 5-page project for full credit.
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Also use a new P tag for each image you might use on your project web site. A web site is boring with only text,
so you should find at least 2 images that relate to your topic. You should also include any images that you want to use
purely for visual design. In these P tags, you should paste the URL where you found the image, and include any
information on your rights to use the image or how you need to attribute the image to the author/owner.
Make a copy of the image in your project folder's "images" sub-folder,
and show the image directly on the bibliography page with an IMG tag.
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Save and test your bibliography page after making each P tag, to be sure you are saving your sources and showing your images.
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As you find more information, you may wish to use H2 tags to create sub-headings on your bibliography page,
corresponding to the sub-topics that you will use when you organize your final project.
This could help you later when deciding what information to put on different pages of your final project.
If you look ahead to the captsone project overview,
you can see the grading rubric for the final project (remember, you are not doing the whole project right now,
just Phase 1--this document is linked here to help you plan ahead, NOT to do the whole project right now).
You’ll notice in the rubric below that one of the features you’ll be graded on is your respect for intellectual property rights.
The easiest way to guarantee full credit in that feature is to track your information and images as soon as you find them,
so if you find more information for your capstone project after you are finished with this assignment, you should add them
to this bibliography page as soon as you find them so that you don't forget.
Grading
Your bibliography will be reviewed twice: once as a unit activity and again in the final project rubric.
Your teacher will tell you how they will grade this unit activity.
Follow their instructions for how to submit this bibliography page for grading with this unit.
The capstone project overview document is linked above if you wish to look ahead to how the final project will be graded
at the end of this course.