Practical 6B

For this week, there would be no lab as it's 1st of Jan which is a public holiday. Instead we would need to do e-learning where we would have to participate in OLE discussion forum. Activity 1 would require us to sign up to an Internet discussion forum related to my group’s topic and post a new discussion topic or respond to a discussion topic. After which for activity 2, evaluate one more resource which can be retrieved in Practical 6a using the attached template.

Activity 1

Chosen Discussion Forum: www.music-forum.org/

URL: http://www.music-forum.org/gforum.cgi?post=7628;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;forum_view=forum_view_collapsed;;page=unread#unread

Activity 2

Title of Internet Resource: MP3.com

URL: http://www.mp3.com/artist/yon-teenagers/summary/


Purpose

The purpose of the website is to attract more customers to register and join its membership in order to access its facilities. It provides viewers with the latest music updates as well music videos for streaming.

Coverage

MP3.com basically focusing on the latest trends that is happening in the music industry. It features the latest up to date news from the entertainment network. The site allows viewers to search for music as well as artists. Videos are also available for streaming but only limited to registered members otherwise rejected. Links to other sources are also available from MP3.com especially in the news section so as to provide further details. The intended audiences are basically music lovers who are usually on the look out for latest music updates. Overall it has been an efficient site in providing services for music lovers.

Accuracy

The information is mostly reliable and up to date as all of it is based on the news. The contents found in the articles from the site are reliable and does contain any political or ideological biases. Sources are mostly abstract from another source and references are indicated clearly. Grammatical and spelling errors were not present in any of the contents.

Currency

The information provided are mostly up to date since they are news and happenings quoted from other sources. The information found on the site were continuously updating as the date was constantly changing to recent ones.

Accessibility

The speed of access is not that fast since it has to load images from the site. The language of source is simply using English and no other languages. However, downloading of music requires logging in of user name as well as password. Registering of membership is free and does not require and payment. The site also offers cookies to store usernames and passwords for its members who save time for users to re-enter their usernames and password. The information is mostly free and accessible unless users wanted to download files from the site which requires membership. Copyright ownership are listed on its site, if requesting permission to use any content from the site requester will need to review their permission and reprints page.

Presentation and Arrangement

The arrangement of information are well presented and easily found and understood by viewers. Navigational icons are also provided in the website which facilitates users with additional help functions. Such navigational icons which are available are “News and Features”, “Videos”, “Home” etc. Advertisements were also seen on the site and graphical images were not used.

Usability

The website was well managed and easy to use. Navigational icons were well understood, easily handled and the additional search facility was very useful if users wanted search for music related topics.

Overall

Overall, MP3.com was a very useful website that supports music and video streaming. The site is user-friendly and is easy to access and navigate around without following any steps or instructions.