Week 6 - Evaluating Information strategies

The "ICYouSee Critical Thinking" page ( http://www.ithaca.edu/library/training/think.html ) discusses the tips for evaluating websites, enabling the reader to distinguish whether or not a website is of value.

The author firsty gives a number of questions which one should ask themselves when they view a website.

1) Make sure you are in the right place.
2) When in doubt, doubt.
3) Consider the source.
4) Know what's happening.
5) Look at details.
6) Distinguish Web pages from pages found on the Web.

Secondly, the author gives a criteria outline for evaluting sources, and how the questions above can be answered.

By analysing:
Authority: If the author of the source is credible
Accuracy: If the information is true/factual
Objectivity: If it is not biased
Currency: If it is a fairly new source and can be used to this day
Coverage: If the information is relevant to the topic and is detailed
Value: Is the information worth visiting

If it is a yes to all of these, then the website is a valuable and credible source which can be used for academic purposes.


In comparison to "ICYouSee Critical Thinking" page, the information found at "Evaluating Internet Sources", http://www.taftcollege.edu/newTC/Academic/INCO48/sec6-4.htm also discusses the method of evaluating a website though in more detail. "Evaluating Internet Sources" covers the importance of the domain of a website though "ICYouSee Critical Thinking" does not. For example, .com, .net, .edu, etc. The meaning of each of these can be explain, .edu as an educational site, which is seen to be more credible than .com, as .com is a commercial site which is usually made by anyone.


"Evaluating Internet Sources" continues by explaining the ten C's which can help to evaluate a website:
Content - This is discusses the type of information presented on a website, the currency, the purpose: satirical, serious, and if the website is 'juried'. This is similar to "ICYouSee Critical Thinking" currency, coverage and accuracy criteria areas.
Credibility - This is the similar to authority, the credibility of the author, though also the domain type of the website.
Critical Thinking - Think critically about the information, with a good criteria.
Copyright - If the author/creator of the website holds information without respecting the rights of copyright than it is usually created by the public. This holds little value as the reader as the information may have been copyrighted.
Citation - Resources for the information held on the website is important as this explains where the information (if valuable) originates from, eg: article, newspaper, government website, etc.
Continuity - It is more credible if the website continues to be updated, this helps to provide valuable information to the current date.
Censorship - If some words are excluded from a search engine's indexes than this may mean that the website has something to hide, and cannot be seen as not valuable from the point of a search engine.
Connectivity - Can the website be relied upon to be able to be connected to at all times.
Comparability - Does the website contain comparable information to other sites or stats.
Context - Relevance to the topic. Is the information valuable for the topic searched.

This is similar to that of "ICYouSee Critical Thinking" though adds more criteria levels and more detail.

The “Good, the Bad and the Ugly" website's criteria, found at http://lib.nmsu.edu/instruction/evalcrit.html and ICYouSee Critical Thinking page are fairly similar to each other. Both cover authority, accuracy, objectivity, currency and coverage, though this website does not cover value.