ADH 9.0 — HIST 428

World War II MWC Project

Mission Statement

We will create a website that displays the experience of Mary Washington College students during World War II through newspapers, oral histories, and yearbooks. We aim to target UMW alumni, as well as individuals interested in local Fredericksburg and World War II history. Our advertising will consist of graphics to be presented on the TVs in Simpson Library and the Hurley Convergence Center. Additionally, we will get a banner printed to be put up in the CRUC. To promote the site to residents outside of UMW’s campus, we will design flyers that will be posted around the downtown Fredericksburg area on community boards and reach out to the Fredericksburg tourism blog to potentially get our site mentioned. UMW Alumni will be reached through their outreach platforms (newsletter, website, social media). The project will be preserved through the download of a file of the website on a Google Drive to be shared with Professor McClurken. The website and all of the other aspects of the project will be stored in a downloaded folder and can be uploaded to a new WordPress site if needed.

Tools

  • WordPress as a website hosting on Domain of One’s Own
    • https://mwcwwii.umwhistory.org/
    • Theme: Inspiro
    • Content Areas:
      • Homepage: An introduction to the project with a timeline of international, national, and local WWII events [Week 7]
      • About: About the team, why we did the project, etc. [Week 6]
      • Assisting in the War Effort: MWC students and how they helped in the war. Essentially the college’s projects and thoughts on the war (images, histories, newspapers). [Week 9]
      • Student Life: Everyday life of MWC and its students. Getting an idea of what life was like (Images, newspapers, college magazines). [Week 9]
      • Items: Digital repository/archive of all the images, newspapers, etc we use along with its metadata and citations. [Week 10]
  • Timeline JS
    • This timeline will be included to give a visual understanding of when events occurred. The inclusion of national and international events allows to broaden the audience to those who might be not extremely familiar with the events of the war. 
  • Juxtapose
    • The inclusion of a juxtaposition would give another visual aspect to the project in which a comparison of the current campus and old campus looked like. This would involve the use of old images of campus in comparison to photos we would take of campus today. The current images would be taken to mirror how the old images look for a proper comparison. This comparison allows those who might be alumni of UMW but have not visited campus recently to get a visual understanding. Additionally, we may use overhead map photographs to compare as well. 
  • Canva
    • To create graphics for advertising the project and gain traction for the site.
  • Simpson Library Collections
    • The Simpson Library Collections holds a good portion of the materials we’re going to display on the project website. Their website will be used to find and add specific items to the project.
    • Physical items from the collections will be digitized by scanning or by putting in a digitization request and uploaded to the website.
  • Google Drive (Google Alphabet)
    • We will create a Google account specifically for the project to store files and images. as well as hold all project and website files when the project is finished which will be handed off to Professor McClurken.

Schedule of Milestones

Week 6 (February 20/22):

  • Start material collection and website display 
    • Combing through UMW Simpson Library Special Collection archives to find appropriate material related to the project
  • Begin national and international WWII timeline
  • Revised contract due February 23rd

Week 7 (February 27/29):

    • Outline and make the presentation
    • Finish WWII international and national timeline sections 
    • Begin putting together images and stories of war efforts from MWC students for the war efforts page.
    • With materials from archives:
      • Digitizing material in preparation for the website display 
  • 8 Minute Presentation February 29

Week 9 (March 12/14): 

    • Finish about page
    • Adding materials & citations to the website
    • Begin adding local and MWC events to the timeline
    • Start working to advertise the website as an up-and-coming project
      • Create Canva graphics 
    • Finish both student life and about the war effort pages 
    • Finish homepage and UMW aspect of timeline
  • 3 Minute Presentation March 14

Week 10 (March 26/28)

    • Troubleshooting, revision, testing
    • Finish items page
    • Make sure all aspects are finished and ready to be edited 
  • 8 Minute Presentation March 26

Week 11 (April 2/4): 

    • Begin project report
    • Finish finalities of the website and edit 
  • 10 minute group project reports April 4

Week 12 (April 9/11): 

  • Project due April 11, 9:30 AM 
  • Project report
  • Symposium preparation

Week 13 (April 16/18): 

  • Meeting with McClurken April 16
  • Present 1 page summary about revisions April 18
  • Revisions 

Week 14 (April 23/25/26):

  • Final version of project due April 23
  • Reflection paper and blog post due April 25
  • Symposium on April 26 
  • Brief paper/blog post due April 26 
    • reflecting on the process and defending your project as contracted. 

Division of Labor

Group Member Overarching Role
Eliza Vegas Advertising/Visuals, secondary help with website (checking accessibility)
Haley Gosman Website Design/Page Organization, secondary digital repository design that houses the files and metadata for all the items we use for the project
Neonya Garner Material Collection/Research 
Savannah Alexander Timeline Organization and Homepage 
John McDowell Citations, write ‘About Us’ section draft, writing up the document that will preserve the website (describing website with words in case it’s lost)

Miscellaneous

  1. Accessibility (Using plug-ins like “Accessibility Checker and Monsido on WordPress to access the accessibility of the website, ex-WP Accessibility)
    1. Color contrast – for the benefit of the hard of sight
    2. Decent font size – also for the benefit of the hard of sight
    3. Alt text – for the hard of sight/those with poor wifi connection
    4. Transcriptions for oral histories – for the benefit of the hard-of-hearing
    5. Headers – for ease of access
    6. Appropriate reading level – also for ease of access
    7. Easy navigation – also for ease of access
  2. Prof. McClurken will preserve our website by keeping the Google Drive that houses the files for the website. The website will also be kept simple with minimal embellishments in order to keep it as easy to keep and maintain as possible.
  3. There will be no use of AI because it is unnecessary for our project. 

Digital Signatures

Savannah Alexander 

Neonya Garner

Haley Gosman

John McDowell

Eliza Vegas