East Asian Information Literacy Project: Guidelines
From LibraryWiki
The aim of this page is to outline project Guidelines for the Japanese Studies wiki. In here you will find a set of small articles on How-to's.
Contents |
Images
Selecting
Before selecting an Image to include in your Wiki article. Please consider the following:
File types
You need to make sure your image is of the proper file type. The three most common file types used for the Web are:
Jpeg/Jpg
This is the most common and widely used file type for images. The extension is usually ".jpeg" or ".jpg". Jpeg files are compressed, thus allowing for smaller file sizes. The more compressed your image is the lower the quality. Thus, Jpegs allow for smaller file sizes at the cost of quality.
When selecting Jpgs, look at the image closely. Make sure it is devoid of pixelation, like the image to the right above. Low-quality images are hard to appreciate, detract the viewer from the Article, and don't look very professional.
Png
PNGs, like Jpegs, allow for 16 Million Colors. The main difference is that PNGs don't have any compression, so they most always certainly be of High-Quality. Bigger images in PNG-format tend to have huge file sizes so be on the look-out for that. The PNG extension is ".png".
Gif
GIFs are images that use only 256 colors (instead of the usual 16 Million). Gifs are common for cartoon images, animated images, etc. Gifs are almost always of a small file size. The GIF extension is ".gif"
File types to avoid
The following file types you cannot use on Websites and the Wiki: tif, psd, psp, bmp, among others. Further literature on file types can be found here: 1 & 2
Image size
Because of limitations with our Wiki software; at the moment we cannot create thumbnails. We selecting images, you need to select ones that are of a moderate size. So that we don't upload images that are too big for inclusion into the Articles.
Images are sized by pixels. A pixel is a small color square that composes the image. The bigger the image, the more pixels your Image will have. When reading Image size you will have a number such as "320 x 128". Where 320 is the width and 128 is the height of the image.
As a guide, we're going to establish that anything over 320x240 pixels is too big for Wiki use at the moment (with a small give and take of course). So keep your images under that size. A quick way to know your image size on Windows XP is to simply place your mouse over your image and a small dialog will appear outlining the image size. Like so:
Where it says "Dimensions: 420 x 331", that is your Image size.
Other things to consider
Borders & White Space
You might find images online that have distracting borders around them. Try to minimize the use of Borders on the Wiki. Another thing to consider when selecting images is whitespace. Images you find in websites such as Amazon.com tend to have this. Essentially, the image is surrounded by white pixels around it. Thus making the image larger than it needs to be. We might see it as simply white space but the Browser reads it as pixels and web page elements will not properly wrap around it.
Don't go to extremes!
Extremely small images or images of bad quality are distracting to viewers and don't look too good. Refrain from using images smaller than 150 x 150 pixels.
Logos & Watermarks
Some websites include Logos and Watermarks in their images. This is usually done to indicate the images belong to them and that they were probably taken without permission. Do not use images that have logos & watermarks, this is usually copyright infringement.
Copyrights
Be careful when selecting images that have a copyright attached to them. There is no clean-cut way to be able to identify what is copyrighted and what isn't over the internet. You're just going to have to use your common sense for this. Try browsing the website where you found the image, they might provide some info as to who created the image and who can use it. Don't be afraid to ask for permission if they require it.
Uploading
Once you have found the image you'd like to use, you need to save it to the computer. You do this by Right-clicking the image on your web browser, a small "Pop-up" menu will appear. Click on "Save Image As..." (Note that each browser and platform will say something different. But look for an Option to "Save the Image.")
Save it to a Folder in your computer, your My Documents or My Pictures folder should work fine. Remember where you have placed the Image. Once you do this, you can come back to the Wiki. On the left hand side of our Wiki, there's a Menu titled "toolbox", you want to click on the Link titled "Upload file".
You will be re-directed to a page in the Wiki where you can upload your Image, it will look like this:
Follow these steps when uploading an image:
- 1. First step is to click on "Browse..." and look for your image. The image should be in the Folder your saved it to.
- 2. "Destination filename": this will be the filename of your Image. It should be something short & easy to remember. Just like articles, all images you upload to the wiki are shared by the all of the Libraries. Keep the image name short but also keep it specific to the Japanese Studies wiki. One way to do is, is to include the article name. In the example shown above, the filename "buddah" is too broad, so naming it "articlename_buddah" makes it more specific. Remember to include the extension, these are the letters after the dot ("."), in the example ".jpg".
- 3. "Summary": This is where you can explain your image more in detail. You can cite sources and copyright in this space. This works just like a Wiki article and Wiki formatting is available here too.
- 4. Once you are done, click on "Upload file" to upload your file to the Wiki.
Once your image has been uploaded to the Wiki, you can add it to your article by including the following Wiki code:
Where Example.jpg is the filename you specified in Step 2 above. There's many things you can do to your image. You can align it to the center, or add a caption, or a frame. For more information, refer to the Wiki documentation: [1]
Online Resources
The following are selected Online resources on how to write better and create better images for your Articles. Please visit these websites and look at the information they provide.
CNN.com - I-Report Toolkit - Information on how to create your own Images, Video and Audio for Wiki, Blog and Online Reporting inclusion.
How To Become an Online Report | eHow.com - Quick information on writing for the Internet. Very basic and to the point.
