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Instructions for Paper 2 on
CREATING CONTENT TO ACCOMPANY SETS OF QUICKTIME VR PANORAMAS FEATURING CLASSICAL GREEK ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES
Discussion: Initially, and briefly, in the X-Hour class on Tuesday, 6 February, but principally two weeks later (20 February, when progress on the assignment will be monitored); informally and, it is hoped, continuously at the discussion forum for this assignment intended for student use only.
Work Due: on or before Wednesday, 7 March (last class of term).
Length: variable, depending on specific assignments within each group of 3-4 students working on a particular site.
Session in Baker-Berry Library on Resources of Particular Value for This Assignment: [to be scheduled: Reinhart Sonnenburg.]
Session in Academic Computing Instruction Facility on Adobe Illustrator: [to be scheduled: Sarah Horton and/or Susan Simon.]
Introduction: A Brief History of the Dartmouth Classic Panos Project
One goal of Dartmouth's Greek Foreign Study Program [FSP] in the Spring of 1999 was to take photographs for as many potential "video panoramas" as possible of the Greek and Turkish archaeological sites being visited. Each one of these panoramas required taking 18-19 color slides at 20-degree intervals of arc from a single position. After the slides were developed (back in the U.S., since the film being used had been chosen for its high-resolution quality and suitability for outdoor use, and consequently required Kodak processing), they were scanned, and the individual images were then stitched together with the aid of special software. The resulting images, known as Quicktime VR panoramas, allow the viewer who scrolls through them to mimic the experience of standing at the location from which the slides were originally taken and to view the surrounding landscape in a complete circle. Such panoramas can be linked together by making the point from which any one was taken a "hot spot" in panoramas shot from one or more other locations. It is thus possible to use this technology to simulate the experience of walking through an entire archaeological site, around a single large building, over an ancient battlefield, etc.
Two student members of the 1999 Greek FSP [K. Chantry '01 and A. Gillard '01], working as Presidential Scholars after their return to Hanover, collaborated with Sarah Horton of Dartmouth's Academic Computing Group to create a pilot version of a Web site intended both to showcase the panoramas photographed in 1999 and to serve as a teaching vehicle for subsequent offerings of Greek archaeology courses on the Hanover campus [Greek and Roman Studies 20, 21, and 22]. The site of Orchomenos in Boeotia, occupied continuously from Neolithic until modern times, is currently the single site that is featured on this Web site, christened Classic Panos, although work is presently underway to add a couple of other locations [Pergamon in western Turkey, and the island of Delos in the middle of the Aegean]. The manner in which the archaeological site of Orchomenos is presented on Classic Panos will serve as the template, or model, for the assignment described below. But because most of the panoramas photographed by the Dartmouth FSP group in 1999 were of sites or buildings that fall chronologically outside of the Classical period, the panoramas to be used for this assignment will be a selection from the extraordinarily rich array of such images posted by Bruce Hartzler on the METIS site.
The Nature of the Assignment
Aside from three different panorama locations and a single still image, the display of Orchomenos on the Classic Panos site includes the following:
1. Introductory Text (displayed in right-hand portion of first screen accessed when "Orchomenos" is selected from the menu bar at the left).
2. Schematic Map of region on which site's location is highlighted, plus Schematic Plan of site on which are plotted the positions from which all panoramas and stills were shot.
3. Historical Essay (accessed by selecting the highlighted "More . . . " at the end of the Introductory Text section (see above).
4. Archaeological Essay (accessed in the same way as the preceding).
5. Listing of Selected Internet Links that provide additional historical or archaeological information of direct relevance to the site being visited, including additional images of the site itself, of individual buildings located there (whether architectural drawings such as plans, reconstructions, etc. or views of the surviving remains), and of significant artifacts found there (accessed in the same way as the preceding).
Teams of four students (or occasionally of just three) will each be assigned a single archaeological site at which the visible remains include a substantial number of Classical monuments and for which at least two (and usually several more) panoramas exist on Bruce Hartzler's METIS site. These include:
Argos, Theater and Agora [Argolid]
Brauron [Attica]
Eleusis [Attica]
Laurion [Attica]
Nemea, Temple [Corinthia]
Perachora [Corinthia]
Plataea [Boeotia]
Rhamnous [Attica]
Sounion [Attica]
Sparta [Laconia]
(The sites of Delphi [Phocis] and Olympia [Elis] are omitted because they are too complicated to be covered in the relatively short space of time available and because they will have been covered in some detail during course lectures. The same is true for the city center of Athens.)
Each team's work will be subdivided as follows:
Team Member Herodotus/Thucydides/Theopompus [HTT]: Responsible for researching and composing the Historical Essay [text], for finding a suitable selection [ten or lessten or less] of Internet links to Web sites of particular value for fleshing out the archaeological site's history, and for compiling a summarily annotated bibliography of 10-20 conventional bibliographic sources [i.e. non-electronic] that s/he found especially useful in her/his research.
Team Member Curtius/Ashmole/Thompson [CAT]: Responsible for researching and composing the Archaeological Essay [text], for finding a suitable selection [ten or less] of Internet links to Web sites of particular value for fleshing out aspects of the archaeological site's topography and monuments not already covered by the maps, plans, and panoramas that will be included in the team's work, and for compiling a summarily annotated bibliography of 10-20 conventional bibliographic sources [i.e. non-electronic] that s/he found especially useful in her/his research.
Team Member Hippodamas/Eratosthenes/Pytheas [HEP]: Responsible for scanning a basic regional map and a basic site plan that s/he will simplify in Adobe Illustrator. S/he will label the map with site names, the site with the positions from which the various panoramas on METIS have been taken. Also to be plotted on this map are the shooting locations of whatever informative still photographs Team Member CAT succeeds in locating on the Internet. Team Member HEP is also responsible for locating as many sources as possible, on the Internet or in conventional print media, for architectural drawings [e.g. plans, sections, elevations, and reconstructions of single buildings or the site as a whole].
Team Member Homer/Stesichorus/Pindar [HSP]: Responsible for composing the Introductory Text about the archaeological site as a whole, for deciding in consultation with Team Member HTT where the site tour should begin (i.e. which panorama should appear first in the site's panorama window), and for serving as chief critic and editor of both the Historical and Archaeological summaries (of which HSP will have to read drafts in advance in order to be able to compose the most effective Introductory Text to all the rest).
All students should send their work in electronic form to the instructor by 4:30 PM on the specified due date (March 7). Every student should include with her/his work a short [ca. 500-600 words or 2 pages], personal (i.e. individually authored, not group-generated) assessment of how good our present understanding is of the site on which they have focussed their energies. In particular, what kinds of information resources (textual, visual, or other) relating to the history, topography, physical appearance in the Classical era, and overall significance of their site during this roughly one-and-a-half-century span of time are inadequate?
The Purpose of the Assignment
The goals of this assignment are to:
(a) familiarize students with as full a range of the existing, accessible source materials on a particular Greek archaeological site of the Classical period as possible. What kinds of information in which students are interested, whether for the purposes of this specific assignment or out of general curiosity, simply do not appear to be available, and why?
(b) encourage students to adopt a critical attitude to source material in general, and to evaluate the relative worths of text and illustrations of various kinds (charts and tables, photographs, and reconstructions, whether black-and-white or color). How are particular bodies of content best packaged?
(c) require students to explore the pros and cons of a team-based approach to a complex problem in what has become a multimedia research environment. How do individuals work best together when time is short, the questions being addressed seem almost limitless, and skill levels and prior knowledge of the subject are so highly variable wihin the team? What are appropriate boundaries between individual and corporate responsibility in such a setting?
As always, the instructor is available as a resource . . . if consulted at some reasonable time before the assignment is due. Potentially more helpful resources, in that they may be more readily available on campus at times inconvenient for the instructor, are your fellow students: a special forum area has been set up for you to consult with your classmates on any and all aspects of this project.
Grading
The work will be evaluated as follows:
Range and quality of scholarly resources identified in both electronic and regular print media (including brief critical assessment of these in the light of each individual's responsibilities for this assignment): 50%
Personal assessment of the current status of our understanding of your site: 25%
Quality of principal writing [HTT, CAT], illustrating [HEP], or writing/editorial work [HSP] undertaken for the assignment: 25%
Bibliography
See the various texts on reserve for this course listed on the Course Texts page and the large number of links listed by students in this course on the Course Links page.
To consult with your classmates on any and all aspects of this project, enter the Discussion Forum.
Copyright 1998, Trustees of Dartmouth College
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~grs22/forum/paper2/about.html
Last updated 02 Jan 2001