Melissa
Kaplan's
Herp Care Collection
Last updated
April 19, 2007
Assessing and Validating Information Found on the Internet
©2000 Melissa Kaplan
Finding information on the Internet is only one part of your research: assessing the quality and timeliness of that information is the other. Not only can it be a waste of time to read through a site and implement the information and suggestions found there, only to later find that they were inaccurate, but such sites may pose a health or safety problem if that information directly affects your health and safety or that of your family, pets, employees, co-workers, or clients.
Developing A
Personal Assessment Framework
We all want something
when we access the web. We may be looking for entertainment, or information
on a specific subject, or just browsing, following interesting links as
they come our way. You may be sent a link by a friend or co-worker, find
one referenced in an article you read in a hardcopy newspaper, magazine,
or newsletter, or through email services you have signed up for, such
as BioMedNet or SciQuest's SciCentral
newsletters, or come across them as you read posts in online forums, newsgroups,
or email discussion lists. Depending on the source, you may feel there
is little or no reason to consciously assess the information, while other
sites you will perform some type of assessment.
Ultimately, you will probably develop your own assessment framework to use when assessing sites. The framework might include some or all of the following assessment categories:
Accessibility
Is the information
on the site accessible to visitors who are visually impaired? Hearing
impaired? Is it easily navigable by those who have limited physical movement
or use assistive devices?
Does the color scheme make it difficult to impossible for those with color-deficient vision impairments, or who have trouble discriminating certain color combinations to read the information at the site (examples of problematic text/backgrounds: dark gray on black, yellow on white, red on green)?
Design/Style
Is the site pleasing or comfortable to look at, allowing your
eyes to travel the page logically? Is there an overwhelming use of the
all the latest animated and streaming graphics, Flash and Java, to the
point where it is distracting or slows your access to the information
you are seeking?
Structure
Is the site easy to navigate? Are there links available to enable
you to move throughout the site? Can you move the frames around or are
they fixed?
Signal:Noise Ratio
Is the site crammed with cute (or annoying) graphics, banners,
buttons, webrings, and other things (noise) that are not information (signal)?
Relevance
Assuming you've actually found the information part of the site,
is the information actually useful to you?
Site Owner/Author
Who owns the site or is otherwise responsible for the content
of the site. Given the availability of inexpensive yet sophisticated web
authoring tools, anyone can design a good looking site, but appearances
are not necessarily indicative of the accuracy or timeliness of the information
found on the site. What information is given so that you can determine
who the owner is and what their experience is, the resources they used,
etc., that will help you evaluate the content of their site?
Things that keep me from revisiting sites, or even waiting for them to finish loading, are those that seem to use the latest gizmos just because they grabbed the code or designed something with it, busy backgrounds, excessive use of bars, banners, animated or things, tons of webrings, poorly organized content, rampant misspellings, links that haven't been updated in years, and the use of really tiny print and poorly contrasted text and background.
Assessment
Sites
The following
sites are ones I found interesting. They range from scholarly papers to
sites written for school children, by and for librarians, and general
web consumers. Note that the information on some of these sites will stand
you in good stead when evaluating any type of information source.
Generally Applies to All Types of Information Resources
Evaluating
Your Sources Virginia Commonweath Libraries
How
To Critically Analyze Information Resources Cornell University
Don't
Believe Everything You Read (PDF) Indiana University
Internet-Related Assessment
A
Student's Guide to Research with the WWW
BBC
Education: A Guide to Quality Information Research on the Internet
Evaluating
Web Resources
The
Good, The Bad and the Useless: Evaluating Internet Resources
U.C.
Berkeley's Evaluating Internet Resources: A Checklist
Kathy
Schrock's Guide for Educators: Critical Evaluation Information
Health Care-Related Assessment
Ten
Things to Know about Evaluating Medical Resources on the Web
Searching
the Internet for Drug Information: Strategies for Locating Accurate and
Scientifically Accepted Information
Additional sites may be found through:
Suggested Books
Assessment
Web Wisdom: How to
Evaluate and Create Information Quality on the Web
by Janet E. Alexander, Marsha
A. Tate
|
Hardcover |
|||||
|
Paperback |
Information Literacy
Student Learning in
the Information Age
by Patricia Senn Breivik
|
Hardcover |
Teaching Information
Literacy Skills
by Patricia Iannuzzi, Stephen
S. Strichart, Charles T., II Mangrum
|
Paperback |
Buy a book or any media using these links and you will be helping support this site, enabling it to continue to provide information to members and the general public.
