Anne Manuel
Introduction – What do we mean by ‘quality’ ? What’s wrong with using Google? Havens of academic quality on the Internet Searching for quality in the visible and invisible web How to recognise a quality resource Hands-On
A resource fit for purpose –in academic settings that might mean peer-reviewed, but might just mean credible – e.g. information found on the British Library website In some circumstances could be informal sites, news sites or sites expressing an opinion Still some criteria which can be universally adopted to evaluate whether sites are worth using
Google Searches are often just what is needed E.g. British Library website Not always helpful for academic research Too many hits, too unfocussed, sorting is by ‘popularity’ some types of site e.g. news sites are favoured Also, websites are not evaluated, results compiled by robots, what is being searched? Web is big! Important to use a portfolio of methods as nothing is or can be comprehensive
An example : You want to compare the ways that governments of different countries address the issue of ‘music piracy’ i.e. illegal uploading and downloading of music on the Internet Music Piracy Google Google Gateway Specialist search engines
Ring-fenced field of web resources that are selected and catalogued by subject and also often by resource-type – often using controlled vocabulary. Makes browsing particularly useful. Pros – Hand-picked by experts, transparent selection procedure, browsability, searching using thesaurus, can potentially reach invisible web Cons – labour intensive, expensive, relatively small pool of resources.
Intute is a free online service created by a consortia of 7 universities in the UK Subject specialists (academics and librarians) review and evaluate thousands of resources and add them to the Intute database, annotated, classified and indexed
Similar setup to Intute but US based Compiled by librarians, specialists etc Fairly small database
Dmoz Open Directory Project Ipl2 Edited by selected volunteers and self-policed but abides by policies and procedures for inclusion of sites Some useful sites, well organised but not necessarily of academic quality – though should conform to evaluation criteria – i.e. current, reliable source, verifiable information etc
Visible web – that which can be reached by ‘spider’ robots crawling and indexing websites. E.g. Conventional search engines including Google Scholar Google scholar Pros ▪ Useful, focussing on academic websites ▪ May often pick up book chapters which can be hard to find ▪ Has been researched and shown to find a high proportion of the items that bibliographic databases find ▪ Can download to reference manager software ▪ Can link in though Find it in Oxford Google Scholar Cons ▪ Can be inaccurate (picks up items from bibliographies) ▪ Often randomness about results ▪ Won’t go into all institutions/databases/repositories ▪ Older items often listed first as more often linked to
Invisible web – items that are not found by conventional search engines because: Within sites that have been blocked by owners Spiders cannot penetrate them Created dynamically by the searcher Are not linked to by other sites so not found by spider Examples – institutional repositories, databases, many commercial sites
OAIster Solo (though only searching Oxford University resources)
Virtual Training Suite 60 subject specific guides E.g. ‘Internet For American Studies’ Key sites, what to look for and how to use what you find Libguides (Oxford University)
Many sites that will teach you about this : e.g. Internet Detective Dmoz – website evaluation Key considerations: Authority – who has written it? What are their credentials? What institution are they affiliated to (if any)? Is it peer reviewed? Who else thinks this is good? Currency – when was this written? When updated? Are the links live? Reliability/Verifiability – Are there references to other credible sites/publications? Are statements backed up? Who is allowed to edit/add to the site? Standpoint – what’s the purpose of the site? Why has the author written it? Are there obviously unbalanced arguments? Fit for purpose – Is the information of an appropriate breadth and depth for your purposes? Who is the intended audience? Does the information add to information obtained from other sources?
Things to look out for: Authority URL –.edu.ac.gov address? ‘About ‘ section Other publications/references by the author Institution home page Link: feature in Google to find out who links to it
Currency – things to look for Updated date (often small print at the bottom) Test a few links Dates of any references References to current events
Reliability/verifiability - things to look for Sponsoring site (check URL stem)? Adverts? Links to the page Typos/ mistakes/inaccuracies/popular myths Contact details – where? Who?
Standpoint – things to check Google author Google URL Read content!
Fit for Purpose – things to look for Original content? Statement of intention/intended audience Title/author/ date – minimum needed for citation Site map – to give an overview
Before searching the Internet consider Purpose – why use the Internet? Would Solo be better? Or a bibliogrpahic database? Strategy – think through what sort of information you want and where you might expect to find it. Make sure you are clear and focussed about your research area – time wasting is very easy on the Internet To0ls – Use a range of Internet tools (gateways and specialist search engines) and consider them as starting points to find journals/authors/research centres that you can then browse more systematically