Information on the World Wide Web is expanding at an unbelievable
rate; some say a new Web Page is added every 3 seconds. Anyone can
create a professional looking Web Site for any purpose or hire
someone to do it for them. Often that information is not evaluated or
edited the way print media is scrutinized by editors, scholars, and
librarians. For these reasons it is important to evaluate information
located on the Web before deciding to use it for research.
To help you understand how Internet
sites vary in their accuracy, reliability, and value, consider this
analogy written by Dr. Robert Harris.
Dr. Harris has been a professor at the college and
university level for more than 25 years. He has written on the use of
computers and software in language and literature study, using the
Web as a research tool, and the prevention of plagiarism. His Web
Site, Virtual Salt,covers many aspects of Internet use in
research.
As is typical of many of our students, Zack, in the following
article, was very trusting of the information he located on the
Internet. The article, "The Web - Teaching Zack to Think" was written
by Alan November for publication in the September, 1998, High
School Principal magazine.
As noted in his resume linked from this page, Alan November is an
internationally known leader in educational technology. He was named
one of the nation's 15 most influential thinkers of the decade in
K-12 technology by Classroom Computer Learning magazine. His
writings include the best selling textbook, Computer Literacy
Through Applications, and dozens of articles on the emerging
roles of teachers and students and restructuring with technology.
You have probably noticed that some Web Sites end in .com while
others end in .gov or .org. It is very important to know if you are
accessing a personal Web Site where the author may have a bias or
personal agenda. It can also be helpful to know if a site belongs to
an organization or governmental agency.
This Web Site linked below was written by Kim Granath, Pharmacy and
Health Sciences Librarian at the University of Montana Library, to
instruct students at her library in using the Internet for research.
The chart on her site demonstrates how the URL
of a Web Site is our first clue to its dependability.
Six Criteria for Evaluating Web Sites
The staff of the Ohio State University Library has developed net.TUTOR, an interactive tutorial on basic techniques for becoming an effective Internet researcher. One of these tutorials explores six basic criteria for evaluating Web Sites: purpose, author, content, coverage, currency, and recognition.
Summing It All Up
Pam Berger in www.infosearcher.com says that according to USA Today, 94% of teens use the Internet for school research and 71% used the Internet as the major source for their most recent school project. How many of these teens do you think are evaluating the information they are using? She asks teachers in workshops she conducts around the country, "Do you know that anyone can publish on the Web?" "Of Course", they respond. "Well then," she asks, "do you require students to demonstrate that they have evaluated the sites they are using for their projects and reports?" Then there is silence. Very often students and their teachers have no idea who is responsible for the information on the Web Site, what the author's credentials are, or whether the information is accurate, reliable, or biased. She has these suggestions: