Building a Web Site for the History of the Atlantic Slave Trade

By Peter J. Kastor

Some General Thoughts

• How will you use this site? Are you providing an electronic version of an existing syllabus, a launching point for materials that you will use in conjunction with your existing course, or are you rebuilding a class from the ground up? These matter primarily when you consider how long you will need to prepare the site. An electronic version of an existing site can be up and running within a few days. It is also a good way to get familiar with HTML and with the particular network setup at your institution. As soon as you include additional material (usually images or supplementary text), the time requirement increases dramatically. For a class in the fall, you should allow the entire summer to prepare the Web site. Finally, a site that forms the cornerstone of a reconceived course is considerably more challenging, both in terms of technology and time. It is best to begin work on these projects a year before using them.
• How will your students use this site? It is easy (and dangerous) to assume that undergraduates feel at home on the internet. Many do, but it is still the case that a large number of undergraduates have no extensive computing experience. Even those who consider themselves "comfortable" on a computer, with hours of time in high school and college, still have a limited range of skills. Some of the best electronic projects are undone by their own sophistication, usually because they require skills that students do not have. Every Web project requires some kind of orientation for students. For the most basic Web sites, this can be a quick discussion at the beginning of class. For anything more complicated, however, it is essential to make certain that students have an opportunity to learn how the site works.
• Who will have access to your site? This is a matter of personal pride, not to mention the law of intellectual property and copyright. Most people who prepare educational material for the World Wide Web choose to make their material accessible on an unlimited basis. This is especially important if this is the first site you've built. You may feel comfortable using it with your students, but you may want to keep it away from colleagues outside your institution. In addition, some students are uncomfortable having their work available to the rest of the work. If you include student projects in your site, you may wish to make restrict access to particular documents.

Things to Consider Before You Build Your Site

Contact the System Administrator. If you have not worked on your institution's network before, it is essential to contact the people who maintain that network. You should ask them about the following issues:

 
• Storage. Every institution has a different policy regarding how much material an individual or organization can store on the institution's network. Textual information rarely causes a problem. As soon as you begin using still images, sound, or video, however, you can quickly run into problems. This is especially the case at institutions which automatically refuse to store additional material once you have exceeded a certain storage quota.
• On-Campus Access. Does your institution have readily accessible computer labs? Are all of them equipped with a Web browser? Most colleges and universities have these labs, but their availability varies dramatically. Even more unpredictable are the kind of computers in those labs. You may have a new machine capable of running the most sophisticated Web pages, but your students may have to work on machines which can do a lot less. Older computers also require considerably more time to process and show Web files. This is especially important when considering how many images to use. Likewise, it is important to learn about the multimedia capability of on-campus computers. Many universities have chosen not to have sound capacity in their on-campus computers, primarily to save money and to limit noise in the labs. If you do want to make use of sound of video, it will be important to learn where--or even if--your students will be able to use those files on-campus.
• Off-Campus Access. This matter involves both your institution and your students. Does your institution have a reliable dial-in network? At some schools (UVa included), the demand for modem access has exceeded the institution's resources. As a result, students often have difficulty even connecting to the system. Once they are on-line, you then face other questions that can only be answered by surveying your students. You will need to find out how many of them have home computers, modems, and internet access. You will also need to learn how fast those modems transmit and how fast those computers can think. This information is critical as you decide what sort of information you want to distribute.
• Institutional Support. Does your institution have a multimedia lab or any other support facility for faculty who want to use electronic materials in their courses? Increasingly, the answer is "yes." At only a few places will the answer be "no." Between these two extremes are a large number of institutions where technical support is tucked away in unfamiliar corners. Often it resides in departments that are unfamiliar to people studying the slave trade. Engineering, environmental science, natural science, and obviously computer science departments are often the home to impressive amounts of equipment and support.

Consider the Source of Your Material.

• Copyright. The internet remains a nebulous realm when it comes to copyright, but some general rules do apply. Most of the same provisions governing printed material apply to the internet. Placing any material on-line without restriction constitutes "publishing." As a result, placing scanned material on-line without permission constitutes copyright infringement. Universities benefit from fair use provisions, however, and there are various ways to keep a site safe and legal. The best way is obviously to use material with permission. Most large public institutions-- including the Library of Congress, the National Archives, and many university libraries--allow people to use their electronic materials for educational purposes without any prior agreement. Scanning material from a published source, on the other hand, is far more complicated. In those cases, fair use protects materials on-line for a limited amount of time with limited access. The best way to protect yourself from a legal standpoint is to place material on-line for the duration of a course and restrict access to people within your institution.
• Reliability. You should apply the same rules of provenance to electronic materials that you would apply to printed documents. Do the materials come from a reliable source? Unfortunately, this is more easily said than done on the Web. A respected professor at a prestigious university might well use materials that he got from another sources. This is neither illegal nor unethical, but it does make establishing the provenance all the more difficult. The best place to start is with the original owner. Fortunately, some of the largest document collections, both public and private, have begun to put their materials on line. Many of these will also scan materials by request in much the same way theywould send a photograph or photocopy.

Administrative Considerations

Equipment. Creating materials for the World Wide Web actually does notrequire a lot of computer equipment. You can create documents on any word processor, and most new computers can handle the software necessary to work with images. How much equipment you need will depend on how much you want to do and whether your institution already has a computing lab with the equipment and support necessary to create Web sites. If you want to be able to do everything from your office, or your institution does not have the equipment anywhere else, here is what you will need to create a good Web site:

• Computer. A PC running Windows '95 should have at least a 200 mhz (megahertz) Pentium chip, 32 MB (megabytes) of RAM, and 3 GB (gigabytes) or storage on the hard-drive. Older machines with a 133 or 166 mhz chip can suffice, but less than 32 MB of RAM often makes the machine too limited to handle large images. An ideal configuration would be a PC with a 300 mhz chip, 64 MB or RAM, and 4 GB storage.
• Scanner. You will need to be able to scan up to 600 dpi (dots per inch). This figure refers to the level of detail that the scanner can catch. A document feeder is also useful if you will be scanning a large amount of textual material.
• ZIP Drive or JAZ Drive. These disk drives enable you to store large amounts of data. On ZIP disk can store up to 100 MB, compared to 1.4 MB for a standard diskette. While the final destination for your Web site will be a server maintained by your institution, ZIP and JAZ drives offer a way to keep backups or store work-in-progress. They are most useful if you are using a large number of images. Otherwise, they are not necessary.
• Image Software. These applications are like word processors, except they create and manipulate images instead of text. They are essential for any work on images. While most computers come with some sort of image manipulation tool, few of them have the kind of applications that are easy or flexible enough to create images for a Web site. The most popular image manipulation software at many institutions is called Photoshop, made by a company called Adobe.
• Text Software. Optical character recognition (OCR) refers to a computer's ability to see the picture of text and convert that information into computerized text. OCR remains an imperfect technology. On a clean sheet of text created by a laser printer, most OCR applications will make only one or two errors. Anything else, however, and the software runs into trouble. All OCR documents require considerable editing. People have tended to overestimate the ability of computers to scan documents, instead of acknowledging the inevitable frustration that goes with this process. Omnipage Pro is a highly accurate and reasonably priced OCR package.
• HTML Editors. While you can create HTML document on any wordprocessor, many people prefer to avoid the process of entering tags. The easiest way to convert a word processing document into HTML is to use a the most recent versions of Microsoft Word and Wordperfect. Both applications enable you to save files directly into HTML. Unfortunately, they cannot save footnotes or endnotes. They also do not have an easy way to insert images or special formatting information. Another option is to buy an HTML editing application. Claris Homepage and Netscape Professional both enable you to do far more than is possible through a standard word processor. Important note: whatever you choose to do, it is important to keep in mind that all Web editing tools still have significant limitations. As a result, it is important to have a basic familiarity with HTML and to have ready access to an HTML guidebook.
• Total Cost. A multimedia computing package, including computer, scanner, ZIP or JAZ drive, and software, usually costs about $5,000. A more basic computer, capable of editing images you've scanned elsewhere, usually costs about $2,500-3,000.

Institutional Resources

• Information Capacity. This is where the information you gather from your system administrator comes into play. Storage capacity, accessibility, and technical support will all play a role in deciding the scope, and even the aesthetics of your project.
• Library. Find out of your library already has a digital center. If so, they may be willing to scan materials from their holdings. This is especially useful for digitizing rare materials. Placing old documents on-line provides access to an unprecedented number of users, and finally makes original materials a viable option for large classes. Equally important, a scanned image of the original document connects students to primary materials in a way that is impossible with transcriptions or black-and-white photocopies.

Funding. Information technology remains expensive, and creating materials for the Web still has a high price tag. Fortunately, computing remains the only growth field in the humanities. In addition, there are numerous ways to reduce your own workload, which is no small concern given the amount of time required to prepare information to go on line.

 
• State Legislatures. Public officials are under tremendous pressure to make information technology available to students. Indeed, the number of computers at a public school, college, or university is often a boasting point for legislators. As a result, state legislatures have opened their coffers to fund electronic projects in way they have been reticent to do with more traditional research or teaching projects. Obviously, this is limited primarily to public institutions
• Administrators. Educational administrators are under the same kind of pressure as public officials (often because they must answer to those same state legislators). They too have proven willing to provide seed money or (in some cases) long-term financial commitments to electronic projects.
• Foundations. Public, private, and quasi-private foundations are currently investing large amounts of money in electronic projects. The National Endowment for the Humanities, the Ford Foundation, and state historical societies, are examples of the kind of organizations that have provided money for electronic projects. Some of these have funded specific classroom applications, but most have gone to broader archival projects designed to increase access to rare materials.
• Libraries and Museums. Some of the most effective projects have been collaborative ventures involving local repositories. Major museums and libraries have created their own electronic exhibits, but many smaller collections remain untouched, often because these institutions lack the expertise or support to launch a Web site. These organizations have proven eager to work with universities, which can offer exactly the sort of resources that libraries and museums often lack. The most problematic aspect of these relationships usually involves access. Private collections usually want to keep tight control over their materials, deciding what can go on line and who should be able to see it.
• Work Study. Undergraduates and graduate students remain an undervalued resource for electronic projects. Not only do most of them have some familiarity with computers, but many of them are eager to learn. This is particularly important, because the absence of people experienced with scanning, HTML, etc., does not mean you will encounter difficulty finding people to work on your project. To the contrary, your own project can provide students with the sort of practical experience and resumé filler they feel they need to find employment.