History Trek: A Canadian History Site is a

bilingual Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. When the languages are just two, it is usually called bilingualism. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolin ...

(

French French may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France ** French people, a nation and ethnic group ** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices Arts and media * The French (band), ...

and

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

)

web portal A web portal is a specially designed website that brings information from diverse sources, like emails, online forums and search engines, together in a uniform way. Usually, each information source gets its dedicated area on the page for displayin ...

made for children, containing reliable sources about

Canadian history The history of Canada covers the period from the arrival of the Paleo-Indians to North America thousands of years ago to the present day. The lands encompassing present-day Canada have been inhabited for millennia by Indigenous peoples, with di ...

. It was developed by researchers at

McGill University McGill University (French: Université McGill) is an English-language public research university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill University, Vol. I. For the Advancement of Learning, ...

with the help of students who ranged from 9 to 12 years of age. This is an example of an intergenerational design team, directly involving a sample of their user population within their team. As such, History Trek was designed "by children for children".

Development

The development of History Trek was funded by the

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC; , CRSH), often colloquially pronounced 'shirk' (), is a Canadian federal research-funding agency that promotes and supports post-secondary research and training in the humani ...

and took place between 2002 and 2007.Large & Beheshti, 2007. The intergenerational design team, called the "Web Wonders", consisted of McGill researchers and a sample of student users. This design "team was led by Andrew Large and Jamshid Beheshti" whose primary goal was to make an informational portal website that children would both want to use and know how to use. Potential users were included in the History Trek development process to determine the visual design, use of terminology, and methods of information retrieval.Large, A., Beheshti, J., Nesset, V., & Bowler, L., 2006.

Methods of information retrieval

Based on the research done during development, and in order to support both information retrieval and browsing, History Trek incorporated four methods to retrieve information: * Keyword search * Advanced search * Topic search * Alphabetical search

Notes

References

Bibliography

* Beheshti, J., Large, A., & Tam, M. (2010)
"Search patterns on a children’s portal."
''Canadian Association for Information Science Conference Proceedings.'' Retrieved April 11, 2013. * Beheshti, J., Large, A., & Tam, M. (2010). "Transaction logs and search patterns on a children's portal / Journaux de transaction et modes de recherche sur un portail web destiné aux enfants." ''Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science'', 34(4). 391-402. University of Toronto Press. Retrieved April 11, 2013, from Project MUSE database. * Beheshti, J., & Large, A. (2012).
The information behavior of a new generation: Children and teens in the 21st century.
' Scarecrow Press. * Large, A., & Beheshti, J. (2007).
History Trek: A Canadian history.
' Retrieved April 11, 2013. * Large, A., Beheshti, J., Nesset, V., & Bowler, L. (2005).
Web portal characteristics: Children as Designers and Evaluaters.
''Canadian Association for Information Science Conference Proceedings.'' Retrieved April 11, 2013. * Large, A., Beheshti, J., Nesset, V., & Bowler, L. (2006).
Web portal design guidelines as identified by children through the processes of design and evaluation.
69th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIST). Retrieved April 11, 2013.

External links

History Trek (Official site)
{{History of Canada navbox , state=expanded Canadian educational websites History websites of Canada Studies of Canadian history