Website Evaluation Workshop Ms. Janek, MLIS International Academy 2012

Evaluating Websites The ability to critically evaluate information on a web site is an important skill. Simply finding information from a web site on a given topic is not sufficient. You must read the article and information critically. You need to decide if that website is a good source for ACADEMIC research.

What is academic research?  Academic research is what you do for school. If your teacher assigns you a project, essay, or research paper they are expecting ACADEMIC research.  Example?

What other kind of research is there? FUN research Fun research is something you do in your own spare time. NOT related to school work. Just randomly surfing the internet and not caring where your information comes from. Example?

Free vs. things you pay for Can you go to the mall and get good, high quality stuff for free? Which games are higher quality: the free Yahoo! Games or ones you buy for your gaming consoles? Is the information on Britannica.com the same information you get when you spend $1000 for the on-line encyclopedia (by subscription)?

Easy vs. effort Easy does not = high quality ACADEMIC research Google or Wikipedia may save you time, but it will not save your grade No effort into your research = lower grade Research entails finding credible websites (which is not always easy), finding books, finding magazine articles, using database articles.

You must be very careful when you do research for school work! The following websites will show you how and what to look for….

Evaluating Websites: Questions to Consider…  Who is the author?  What is the publication date?  Who is the audience?  What is the article’s purpose?  Is there a Works Cited  Is the author an expert?

Research Videos

Going to Google is usually not an acceptable way to start doing academic research. Once you learn how to use Library Databases, you will be expected to use those as your starting point for Internet research.

It can pay to think like a detective Look for clues Ask questions Consider the motives of people publishing on the Internet Trust nobody until you have good cause to do so

Another site used for French Culture class… Trace back the URL to find your answer You must learn how to read and understand a URL

Major points to consider  Authority (author or organization)  Accuracy (is there a Works Cited)  Format & Presentation  Currency (what is the date of the website. Could the information be outdated?

Advanced Web Searching Who sponsors the website? Go to the "about us" link or the "root URL" to find this out. You can also find out information about who owns a website by going to "whois.net".

Advanced Web Searching Try these in Google Advanced searches to find higher quality sources: Search by site: example - site:.gov invasive plant species (.edu an.mil are also good domains for quality information) Search by file type: example - filetype:PDF invasive plant species (This will give you reports, documents etc. You can also search for documents (doc) and presentations (ppt )

Evaluating Web Resources Before you decide to use that web page as a source for research, keep in mind that ……. ANYONE can publish on the web!!! The information you find may not be screened or verified, so it is up to you to critically evaluate the material you find.

From this point on --  Your best sources to use for school research are  BOOKS  Databases (we’ll teach you how to use these)  Magazines  Academic Journals (we’ll explain these later)  Credible websites

You should never rely only on websites for projects or papers. Good research will include a variety of sources. (like 1 book, 1 database article, 1 magazine article, 1 credible website).