Help Received: Maj. Iten helped me come up with some ideas of conventions and contra-conventions that could be found from the VT Mechanical Engineering website.
Conventions for VT Dept. of Mechanical Engineering:
1. Very neat organization – lots of menus and submenus
2. News articles on recent/upcoming seminars and discussions from big names in the engineering community
3. Information on the latest research that is being conducted by VT and other affiliated institutions
Contra-conventions:
1. Not a lot of readily-available research data (graphs, charts, lab reports) on the website – possibly keeping it secret?