Website Evaluations Good stuff vs Bad stuff History 2d1

Question… Publishers of many great books include Penguin, HarperCollins, Bantam, etc. Name a publisher for Internet material.

Answer… Anyone can publish anything to the Internet. We can all be publishers. That’s a good thing…that’s a bad thing. Why? -good…you can find anything on the Internet -bad…people can publish falsehoods or unreliable information.

Your responsibility… To ensure that all the resources you use are reliable/reputable, including web resources To be critical about who is telling you what. To question. To think, think, think.

Question… -How do you search for material on the Internet? What search tool do you use? Answer: probably Google

Check this out… Sites on “women aids facts” Site #1Reliable?Reliable Site #2Reliable?Reliable Now plug in a Google search for “women aids facts”Google Look at the hits

Google ain’t God Although Google is a good search engine, it does NOT sift through the Internet and provide only “good” sites. That job is yours!

How to Evaluate Websites… How do I know if a website is reliable or not? Answer: it’s not easy. Many websites are made to look really good, and they do fool us. -Do the best you can using some or all of the following indicators…

Check the URL Is it someone’s personal page?personal page (look for ~ or % or “users” or “members”) domain.com(commercial).gov(government).net(network infrastructure).org(organization).edu(education) Is the domain appropriate for the content?

Who is responsible for the site? Is there an author?author –Can I contact the author with an address or phone number provided? Is the author an authority in the subject? What are his credentials? Is he controversial?controversial? Is there a sponsor for the site? Reputable?sponsorReputable? NOTE: you may have to truncate back to home page to find the author or check for an “about us” button (or something like that).“about us” You should look up the author in Google

Why is the site on the Net?? To give information, to instructgive information To sell us something (to make money)sell To persuade uspersuade - Is it free of bias??bias

Dated?? When was the page/site published or last updated? –Should be able to find this info. at top or bottom of page. –May have to truncate back to find it Is the date current enough? If no date is found, should you trust the site?

Links… Are the links on the page appropriate for the subject? Do they all work (are they up to date) or are they dead links? Who links to the page/site you are using (using Google, search “link: type the URL”Google

Is information altered? Is information a primary source available via PDF?primary source Is information summarized or re-typed by author? Is it reputable?re-typedreputable –If so, why? –Has it been altered? –Are there errors?

Quality of Information Is the information given useful, valuable, worth having?useful Is the info. Detailed and in-depthin-depth

What has been on the site in the past? What did it look like? Check the content of the site from months or years ago -Has it always been reliable? Has it changed recently…for the worse? Use “Way Back Machine” to investigateWay Back Machine example:tsn.ca (look at first pages) sportsnet.ca