Welcome to the Web Site for Storytelling at East Tennessee University

Reviewed By: Kelly M. Hoppe

REVIEW

The way “storytelling” is prominently displayed in large, bold letters is deceptive, leading one to believe, upon first glance, that this is actually a website where one can learn about the art of storytelling. Instead, after inspecting the homepage, one discovers this is actually a site to gain information on the degrees and programs offered by the university relating to storytelling. Things such as course descriptions, enrollment information and degree programs are provided. The one picture provided shows three adult individuals smiling at the camera, but there is no caption to tell us who they are or why their picture is included. Additionally, the domain name of this website ends in .edu, which means it is a site sponsored by an educational institution. The fact that a university is creating and sponsoring this site automatically raises its credibility level. This site is actually pretty dry and plain looking with no graphics, variations in design or color schemes to break up or bring life to the monotony of the information included in the site. There is no indication as to who actually created the site although there are many e-mail addresses and phone numbers included on the site for a variety of reasons. As to the timeliness of the site, there is a wide discrepancy here. In regard to information that frequently needs to be updated, such as course descriptions and offerings, those are current showing which courses will be offered in summer of 2003. However, other items that should be kept current such as the storytelling links page, needs some updating since two out of the nine links on that page do not work. As a side note, the “Professor Page” showed inconsistencies in it’s timeliness with two of the four professors showing no updates at all, the third updated in 1998 and the fourth in 2000. While biographical information about professors may not be constantly changing, it would be nice to see that they kept with the times in regard to updates as a show of their support for technology and for the site itself. In this reviewer’s opinion, no updates or old updates indicate a lack of interest. If one is looking for an interesting, interactive site to learn about the art of storytelling, go elsewhere. However, if one is investigating the storytelling programs offered by various universities, add this to your list and check it out. The effectiveness of this site all depends on the needs of the user.