The World Wide Web offers students, teachers and researchers the opportunity to find information and data from all over the world. The Web is easy to use, both for finding information and for publishing it electronically. Because so much information is available, and because that information can appear to be fairly ìanonymousî, it is necessary to develop skills to evaluate what you find. When you use a research or academic library, the books, journals and other resources have already been evaluated by scholars, publishers and librarians. 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 ìeven playing fieldî. 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. Before you use or copy any type of information...Information is intellectual property, and intellectual property is protected by the law. Do you know and understand the meaning of copyright? Go to Information on Copyright and Intellectual Property for explanations of fair use (educational and scholarly use of copyrighted information), safe use of Web-based information, protecting your rights and those of authors you quote in your dissertation, and other related questions.Basic criteria for evaluating all forms of information, and how they apply to the Internet:| Authorship | Publishing body | Point of view or bias | Referral to other sources | Verifiability | Currency |Other helpful documents: Show
There are certain criteria that should be applied when
evaluating all forms of information, be it in print, on film, or electronic. These criteria include the following... Authorship is perhaps the major criterion used in evaluating information. Who wrote this? When we look for information with some type of critical value, we want to know the basis of the authority with which the author speaks. Here are some possible filters:
The publishing body also helps evaluate any kind of document you may be reading. In the print universe, this generally means that the author's manuscript has undergone screening in order to verify that it meets the standards or aims of the organization that serves as publisher. This may include peer review. On the Internet, ask the following questions to assess the role and authority of the ìpublisherî, which in this case means the server (computer) where the document lives:
Steps for evaluating point of view are based on authorship or affiliation:
Referral to and/or knowledge of the literature refers to the context in which the author situates his or her work. This reveals what the author knows about his or her discipline and its practices. This allows you to evaluate the author's scholarship or knowledge of trends in the area under discussion. The following criteria serve as a filter for all formats of information:
Accuracy or verifiability of details is an important part of the evaluation process, especially when you are reading the work of an unfamiliar author presented by an unfamiliar organization, or presented in a non-traditional way. Criteria for evaluating accuracy include:
If you found information using one of the search engines available on the Internet, such as AltaVista or InfoSeek, a directory of the Internet such as Yahoo, or any of the services that rate World Wide Web pages, you need to know:
How to cite electronic information.What are the things that can be used for evaluating information?Common evaluation criteria include: purpose and intended audience, authority and credibility, accuracy and reliability, currency and timeliness, and objectivity or bias.
What are 3 ways to evaluate information?For this reason, it is especially important to evaluate information on the Internet.. Accuracy: The reliability, truthfulness, and correctness of the content. ... . Authority: The source of the information. ... . Relevance: The importance of the information for your needs. ... . Currency: The timeliness of the information.. What is the most common method of evaluating Internet sources?Evaluating Internet Resources. When using websites for research, use the following ABCs as criteria for website evaluation:. Is the information reliable and high in quality?. Who is responsible for the information and the website?. Is the information presented more or less objectively?. Is the topic adequately covered?. What are the 5 ways in evaluating information?Five Criteria for Evaluating Resources: AAOCC. With this brief introduction to evaluating sources, we will use a list of five critical criteria: AAOCC (Authority, Accuracy, Objectivity, Currency, and Coverage).
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