HomeThings to Consider

Things to Consider

  • What are the primary goals of the website?
    • Course site — Professors can use Omeka to develop their entire course online. "Simple Pages" allows you to create standalone pages—ideal for posting a course syllabus, reading/HW list, or other class information. Each page will become a menu item on the homepage. Then, you can create a collection or build an exhibit with sections and subsections. These sections could be themes, units, or any other form of organization for the course. Images and other files can be attached for student use.
    • Online repository — Mirroring the work of museum Omeka projects, faculty and students can work together to digitally preserve materials or use already existing digital materials. Historical maps, video collections, and other sources can be archived so that students and faculty are aware of the resources available for their courses. Depending on the topic of the course, students are also able to bring in valuable primary sources from home which can be photographed and added to an Omeka site.
  • Who is the primary audience of the website? Are there secondary audiences? What do you want those audiences to accomplish or take-away after viewing your website?
  • What sections will this website include? Typical top level navigation and sections for an Omeka site include:
    • Items: links to browseable list of items, sortable by type of item and tags.
    • Collections: groups of items that public can dig through to find items.
    • Exhibits: contain interpretative text and rely on items/sources/objects as their building blocks.
    • About: a simple page good for publishing project descriptions, credits, rights, et al
    • Keyword search box: option to link to advanced search page
  • What will you do with the items in this website?
    • What types of items/sources/objects do you plan to use on this site?
    • Do the standard Dublin Core property fields fit your needs or do you need additional fields installed through the Dublin Core Extended plugin?
    • Will you use a controlled vocabulary? Some relevant vocabularies are:
      • Library of Congress Subject Headings
      • Library of Congress Name Authority
      • Art & Architecture Thesaurus
    • Will you use a controlled tagging schema? Establishing vocabulary and spelling for metadata and tags helps with consistency and searchability.