Developing a Website for the Centre for Indigenous
Conservation and Development Alternatives (CICADA)
By Mélanie Wittes, B.A. Honours in Anthropology
Supervised by Professor Colin Scott, Department of Anthropology
Question: How can we produce a website that encompasses the interdisciplinary work done by 63 academics
with 28 Indigenous partner groups throughout the Americas, the Circumpolar region, East Africa, and Oceania?
Steps
•
•
•
•
•
Challenges
Setting goals and
deadlines
Reaching out to
professors and Indigenous
group members
Gathering and organizing
information
Using various programs
(Wordpress, Mapbox,
Piktochart)
Having regular meetings
to discuss website
progress
•
•
•
•
Gathering appropriate
information to properly
express the magnitude of
CICADA
Organizing information
logically and coherently
while simultaneously
showing the complexity of
the material
Learning basic code
Reaching weekly
deadlines
Skills Learned
•
•
•
•
•
•
Basic HTML code
Corresponding professionally
with Indigenous group
members, academics, and
graduate students
Selecting pertinent
information
Organizing material in a
visually appealing way, and in
a way best suited to the
material
Balancing various tasks and
projects at once
Collaborating effectively with
colleagues
Result: A 90-page
website in three
different languages
(English, French,
and Spanish)
Many thanks to Professor Colin Scott, Dr. Leah Pope and Mr. Clayton Pope (ARIA award donors), Arts Internship Office, and
Robin Canuel (librarian). Special thanks to Margaret Forrest (project administrator), Dr. Steven Schnoor (postdoctoral fellow),
and Nicole Davies (summer intern).