Project 3 -- WebGrid


1. Exploration

Creating My own WebGrid

While exploring WedGrid I decided to try one for myself. I have been having trouble with women lately and I though WebGrid might be able to help me out. I began by entering seven girls (elements) with whom I am associated with. Then with the help of WebGrid I began to determine similarities and differences between them by entering four or five constructs such as:

With these constructs WebGrid was able to distinguish between each girl and group girls with similar attributes together. I found this fascinating. It was so cool!! According to the Focus chart Neila comes out on top followed closely by Cindy and Mary. I think I'll ask Neila to marry me tomorrow.

It is really interesting to see the groupings of the girls on the PrinCom chart. For example Barbra and Jody, never seem all that similar to me but, after seeing their personalities graphed against the other girls its quite obvious they are not the girl I'm looking for.

First Impressions

Well I have to admit I was not looking forward to this project, it all seemed like Greek to me. After browsing through the examples it start to make more sense. It became clear when I got the idea that there are elements and then constructs to distinguish between elements. It was difficult to get a handle on the terminology at first and I ended up putting constructs where the elements should be and vise-versa. The Focus and PrinCom charts where explained well in the "Comparing Constructions through the Web" paper found on-line written by Mildred L G Shaw and Brian R Gaines.

To My Grid


2. Elicitation of constructs on Cpsc 547 topics

Construct Development

I found creating constructs for the elements was difficult. The elements which consisted of topics discussed in our Advanced Information Systems class were very broad. It was difficult to find constructs which were broad enough to apply to all elements. Although they were hard to come up with I was able to find 5 or so constructs to differentiate between the elements.

Grid Outcome

The constructs which I created where able to adequately differentiate between the topics of your class. The PrinCom and Focus charts of the elements had well formed groupings and accurately represented the elements specified.

Comparison of Grid

When comparing my grid with Dr. Gaines' grid it is easy to see that many of our constructs are equivalent differing only in our terminology. Many of my constructs are closely related to each other thus one construct used by Dr. Gaines is used to describe two of my constructs. Through my lack of terminology my view of the grid is some what distorted but all in all is very similar.

To My Grid


3. Elicitation of constructs on Broadband Network Applications

Creation of Grid

To create my last grid I wanted to determine the differences between Broadband network applications. My elements where:

Using these elements I then created a number of constructs to distinguish between these elements. For example, educational vs. entertainment, one medium vs. multimedia and established vs. novel.

The constructs were able to create an adequate picture of the differences between each element. Although all elements seem to be quite unrelated, through the use of the WebGrid the differences and similarities show up quite will on the Focus and PrinCom charts.

To My Grid


By Mike McCarthy - E-Mail: mccarthy@cpsc.ucalgary.ca