Project Introduction - The Process

This project relies primarily on the Wayback Machine, a digital archive of the World Wide Web established by the Internet Archive (Wayback Machine, 2024), to document the evolution of Polytechnic's website over time. The Wayback Machine could provide snapshots of archived websites at specific timestamps, offering a glimpse into how the website appeared in the past. As of May 8, 2024, there are 2,623 snapshots of poly.edu dating back to 1997, and 6,888 snapshots of engineering.nyu.edu from 2013. These extensive snapshots create a comprehensive record of Polytechnic's website evolution, allowing for analysis from various perspectives.

However, it's important to notice the limitations of the Wayback Machine. First, the availability of snapshots can vary depending on factors such as the popularity of the website and the frequency of archival updates. Additionally, the snapshots only capture static information from the frontend of the website, without the access to dynamic content and interactions. Moreover, errors within the Wayback Machine itself can result in incomplete or broken images/structure of the snapshots, further restricting the information available for analysis.

Despite these limitations, this project aims to utilize the resources available to reconstruct the history of Polytechnic's website and provide insights into its evolution over time.