Is the Internet making the world a better place or is it simply remaking the world – peacefully transferring capital from 20th century corporations to 21st century ones? If the digital space is becoming primary, then who is tending to the systems of self-government, defined so articulately in the age of Enlightenment?

This Web research elective asks students to design tools that further the public's interest online. Can the Web – designed as an open and free medium – reinvigorate our investment in public space and the public good? Students will work together to engage politicians, non-profits, and fellow citizens in the pursuit of these questions.

Assignments will range from Web tools that serve democracy to civic fundraising to information dissemination. Class deliverables will be a combination of prototypes, presentations and coded mini-sites. Students will develop the parameters for the final project and work in teams. Outside collaborators and readings will enrich the conversation and the work. No previous web experience required, but Web Programming workshop strongly encouraged.

• Fall 2017, Mondays, 8am—1pm, D.C. # 404
• Instructor: John Caserta, jcaserta@risd.edu
• Office hours, Tue/Thur 9:30a-12p, D.C. # 704
• GRAPH 3173, 3 credit elective
• wd.risd.gd -- https://github.com/risd-gd/wd

• To put the Web in service of the common good instead of the marketplace
• To gain skills in Sketch, HTML/CSS and user-centered design methods
• To encourage better citizenry
• To better understand how organizations work and who they serve
• Be empowered to participate in the the web and in public

• Ryan Laughlin on Open Data APIs, Sep 18
• Danny Chapman on accessibility and the Web, Sep 25
• Councilwomen Nirva LaFortune (Prov) and Meghan Kallman (Pawtucket), Oct. 16
• Prof. Ethan Zuckerman on democratic Web platforms, TBD

• Cynthia Smith, CooperHewitt Curator, at Better World By Design
• Thursday, October 5, City Council Meeting at 7pm, City Hall
• City Tree plantings, Saturdays in October, TBD

• Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody
• By The People, Building a Better America, CooperHewitt
• Jean-Jacques Rosseau, The Social Contract
• Bonnie Honig, Public Things: Democracy in Disrepair

• Introduce ourselves
• Activity: "To what groups do you belong, and how do those groups organize themselves?" Add to this Doc

Each of you will contribute a presentation, in web form, to the rest of the class.

• Choose an organization from the below list (or add your own) and research how the group organizes itself. Each of the following makes use of various democratic principles: representatives, voting, decentralized labor, etc. Create a single serve website that you can present to the class that communicates how the group organizes itself. Who does the work? What are the benefits and drawbacks to its structure? What are the rules? Who has a stake? What makes it special? How can we learn from it?

• Quaker Community

• The Dirt Palace

• The Boy Scouts

• Burning Man Festival

• The Green Bay Packers

• The w3c

• Fugazi

• Wikipedia

• Vanguard

• Park Slope Food Coop

• Linux

• How might the class structure itself support, reinforce or play with the central ideas of the course. Do we form a constitution? How much of what we do is public/online? Let's use arena, yes? What do we want in our GitHub repo? As a browsable site? Does majority rule?

Every group shares objects, space, etc — a resource is called 'public' when it refers to something state-owned. How the group manages its resources and tends to what is common is critical to the vitality of the group. Democracy is an ideal system of government, but it is rarely justly applied. Who occupies public space in the U.S. has always been contentious. This unit seeks to understand the state of our public possessions, in Providence specifically, and a desire to invest everyone within them. An abandonment of what is public is an abandonment of what holds the group together.

We will take a walking tour and seek out public sites, noting the differences between public and private spaces. I want each of you to choose a public space, thing or institution to work with. What should everyone know about these sites? What and who is there? What is valuable or noteworthy? Who can you meet? How is the web currently a service or disservice to that space?

What is the difference between public and private? Make a list in small groups. What public institutions exist? Work together to expand the list of "Public ..." phrases. As a group, we will make a list of what is public. And where should this go? Put here for now. #thingsthatarepublic

Choose one of the following directions.

• Pick a public entity from our tour or the list being created, and create a website for it that will communicate to everyone (residents, predominantly) the value of that public possession. How might you translate what you value about the public site to the web? What can the medium of the web (and by extension the Internet) do to help bring awareness to its value.
• The Providence government website takes a fairly expected approach. It organizes what it knows fairly efficiently so that its citizens (and potential citizens), may find information produced by the government. But this seems limiting. The essence of a city is that which changes, is mutable, changeable by the citizens themselves. There is the playground, but it's those playing on the playground that define it as well. Using the city as inspiration, how might the web become more effected by its citizens? Something more dynamic, varied, dense. Clay Shirky's view of Github comes to mind, a system for managing changes. This asks you to imagine a website that would make use of the media and stories created by citizens in a less hierarchical way. Not government pushed out.... but citizens bubbling up. We are in "the largest period of human expressive capability."
• Make a project that is sited in the public space and would bring people together there

Next week, communicate what you have learned about your site. Communicate early concepts of your site.

• Excerpts from Public Things: Democracy in Disrepair, Bonnie Honig
• Clay Shirky on cooperatives
• What is Democracy For?
• Read: What People Really Want from News Organizations
• Protecting the Commons
• Have We Lost Sight of the Promise of Public School

• Review progress from week one
• Presentation on The Design Office; visit to The D.O.

• Ryan Laughlin on APIs. Presentation of his work with public data. Demo of APIs.

• Start in class: Assignment 1: Part Two: Either take some thing from Open Data and turn it into a form that people would understand. Or Collect data from your public site and imagine it on the site. Create your own data source that tells something about the community you live in.

• Review open data assignment; Progress on larger site
• Student Presentation 1

• Danny Chapman on accessibility. Design a voter information guide using Web Standards framework. How might it "continue" to inform after the election?

• Finish project one. Also potentially work with Web Standards Framework.

Capitalism and democracy are strange bedfellows. Capitalism collects wealth and power, with that power seeking growth at all costs. In this unit, we seek how to divert our consumptive and creative attention away from private interests to the common good – to public interests. What can be learned from the tremendous innovation being funded by the private sector? How might innovations meant for ease and commerce be diverted into the social good in the form of tools, systems, and the like?

• Here's my plan to save Twitter
• The Case for a Taxpayer-Supported Version of Facebook
• Zello tops US app store as the walkie-talkie for hurricane volunteers

• Review Project 1
• Discuss unit 2

Project Two: Visit the Providence City Council and propose a project based on the meeting. There are many things you could do (from augmented reality layers, to getting more people to attend, etc). Given the unit quesetion, consider how what the private sector has learned might work for the public.

• Share your findings from the Council meeting. Revise for next week.

• Generate questions for City Councilwomen Megan Kallman (Pawtucket) and Nirva LaFortune (Prov.)

Can the Web, a "fast" medium (low effort, high volume), lead to "slower" more meaningful interactions/investments from constituents? In other words, how might the Web get someone off their screen and put their body alongside of others? Can the Web encourage participation from communities that tend to not participate in governance?

140 characters plus the like button have destroyed debate on the Internet. Early blogging felt more like publishing. How do we of differing opinions discuss now? How do you change someone's mind? Can the Web facilitate this discussion, perhaps make the face-to-face discussion more palatable when it does happen. How do concerns over privacy affect free and open discussion?

The class will hone in on three to four projects. Discuss/vote and work in teams to scope and execute the project. The project should address the basic question: how can the web ameliorate democracy: to inform people, to encourage elevated discussion, participation... all the issues we've discussed over the semester. We will also discuss how to put together projects from the semester into a website for distribution.

Grades from A to F will be given at the end of the semester with the above criteria. This course is a required course that is seeking a certain level of competency with typography. The criteria above is meant to assess as objectively as possible a student’s proficiency in typography.

• Attendance (3rd absence fails the course)
• Participation to website and in class
• Motivation/Attitude
• Craftsmanship
• Depth of investigation
• Risk taking
• Teamwork and individual growth

No learning can truly occur without accepting each other’s differences — those that we inherit and those that we choose. This course, this Department and this College thrive on self-expression. Students and faculty should feel comfortable using art and design as a means to understand themselves and their work. It is everyone’s responsibility to create an atmosphere of civility.

Additionally, juniors are expected to work in Design Center. Contributing to studio culture is an important part of being part of a community. Figure out ways to show your work to your peers between classes, whether informally or at certain points. You will learn as much from each other as you will from your teachers — there are 15 of you after all!

All work is built upon other work; whether explicitly or not. In this course, there will be opportunities to work with your classmates to build something that is shared. Particularly with many deadlines and when learning a new skill, other people’s work may offer a pathway forward. What you do with what you see is important and can be the difference between riffing, appropriating, copying and stealing. As a general rule of thumb, if you see something you are excited about (in class or outside), understand the context in which it was made. What was the design responding to, communicating, and to whom. A deeper understanding of other people’s work generally produces additional ideas, realizations and starts to “fork” the idea (thank you, Github). It’s rare that your design problem is exactly like someone else’s. It is rare that you share the same values, interests, skills, as someone else. Referencing another person’s work can make sense (logo parodies, etc) if that fits your concept. In a school environment it’s best to check in with your teacher to see how to best make your own work truly your own.