WebliminalBlog

“There are numerous guides and checklists available on the subject of evaluating Internet resources. The present bibliography makes no attempt to be comprehensive, but rather to describe a number of such guides representing a variety of approaches, which together provide an overview of major issues to be considered when evaluating Internet resources.”

“Scholars, scientists, journalists, and business people know it. So do librarians. Information is important. But even more important is knowing that the information you have is valid, reliable, authoritative, and pertinent. When information is filtered — reviewed, authenticated, and evaluated — end users come to trust the source and accept an expert’s assessment that it is valid and authoritative. When it isn’t, end users must assess and evaluate the information themselves. And because the Internet is a vast network of ever-growing, unfiltered information sources, this is particularly true in this medium.”

“With the advent of the World Wide Web and the huge amount of information that is contained there, students need to be able to critically evaluate a Web page for authenticity, applicability, authorship, bias, and usability. The ability to critically evaluate information is an important skill in this information age.

To help you get started with this process with your students, I have designed a series of evaluation surveys, one each at the elementary, middle, and secondary school levels. The elementary, middle, and secondary surveys have been re-designed and updated in February of 2009. The virtual tour, blog, podcast, and teacher site evaluations have been added since 2005 and updated in 2009.”

“This is a “toolbox” of criteria that enable Internet information sources to be evaluated for use in libraries, e.g. for inclusion in resource guides, and helping users evaluate information found”

“The World Wide Web has a lot to offer, but not all sources are equally valuable or reliable. Here are some points to consider. For specific points regarding social networking and other sites that offer user-initiated options, see Thinking Critically About Web 2.0 and Beyond.”

“The World Wide Web offers information and data from all over the world. Because so much information is available, and because that information can appear to be fairly “anonymous”, it is necessary to develop skills to evaluate what you find. When you use a research or academic library, the … resources have already been evaluated… Every resource you find has been evaluated in one way or another before you ever see it. When you are using the World Wide Web, none of this applies. There are no filters. Because anyone can write a Web page, documents of the widest range of quality, written by authors of the widest range of authority, are available on an even playing field. Excellent resources reside along side the most dubious. The Internet epitomizes the concept of Caveat lector: Let the reader beware. This document discusses the criteria by which scholars in most fields evaluate print information, and shows how the same criteria can be used to assess information found on the Internet.”

ubMed indexes thousands of academic medical journals from all around the world. The database indexes the articles but doesn’t usually contain the full text of these articles. If you found an article you wanted to read, you may have to contact your local library to see if it subscribes to the journal, or pay for the article from the publisher’s Web site.

the La Montanita Co-op Supermarket is a store in California that sells organic foods

Wikipedia page for the Hudson Institute. A revealing resource

The Hudson Institute is a private, non-profit policy research organization that makes recommendations to government and business leaders on several issues, including global food and the environment.

claims that organic food is much better for us than food grown in more conventional ways

quite negative about the nutritional advantages of organic food

the Web page Alternatives to Methyl Bromide: Research Needs for California is more appropriate for a specialized audience.

The Web page Strategic Planning and Resource Assessment by the United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, might be useful for a general overview of the issues and principles involved in forest management.

..Looking at that Web page, we can see that the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) has made it available. There are hyperlinks from that Web page to the home page for CDT. You can follow the hyperlinks to find out more about the CDT

… doesn’t give information about the authors and doesn’t give a link to the organization that sponsored the information, but with some
sleuthing we can find out more about the document and possibly use it to support our research.

“Fact Checker for the Internet.” A useful and reliable directory for research.