INTERNET: TEACHING: WEBSITE EVALUATION: Good, Bad and Worse - How can you tell?

[BradL...@aol.com]

Hi Everyone,

The below question was sent to David and I thought
the information could be useful to others.


>By the way, do you know of any good sites that will
>demonstrate to students how to recognize misinformation
>on the web?


There are some links below that should help.

From my own experience, based on genealogy research:

Know where you are getting the information from.  Is it a private
website?  A university or government website?  Is it an otherwise
reputable website?  If its someone's personal website, do they
list sources?

Does the website have contact information?  You need somewhere
to go if you have a complaint or want to make a comment.

Does the website have an "About Us" section?  That can help to
evaluate the website.

Is the website about facts?  If it is you can check the facts in
other places.  If it's an opinion website, that's exactly what it
is...someone elses opinion.  You have to make up your own
mind based on facts. 

Does the website have a bibliography or a webliography?  Is
there somewhere else you can go to verifiy what this website
says?

Does the website list sources?  If not, why not?  How about
their links section?  Quality of links?

NEVER take someone else's fact as your fact.  Go to the source
yourself and verify it.  The best place to do that?  Your Library.
If they don't have the book(s) you need, ask for an interlibrary
loan...and make sure you know where they can borrow the
book(s) from.  Ask your reference librarian for a list of area
libraries that carry that book.

Linda Bee
Temple Terrace, FL
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Candyman/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Genie-Angels/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Net-Gold/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RecipesBetweenFriends/
http://www.lifeofflorida.org/

If ****** is certain of his facts enough to make damaging
statements about companies on his web site, he should
be responsible enough to answer questions about his
methods and conclusions rather than refusing to discuss
his research any further because he is a "scientist" (as
he has done with ........ ...). Any true scientist will tell you
that peer review is an absolutely critical element of good
research.
- Anonymous
(Note:  I'm not including any names to prevent potential
problems.  This quote does, however, illustrate the problem
with "bad" websites. If anyone wants the website, let me
know and I'll send it to you privately.  LB)


Information Evaluation
http://www.accd.edu/pac/lrc/infoevaluation.htm


  Distance Learners Library Research:  Web Searchinghttp://www.wccnet.edu/resources/library/distancelearners/dist_websearch.php

Tiny URL = http://tinyurl.com/8zm2a


  You Can Find 5 Articles on Anything:  A Tutorial
http://www.lehigh.edu/library/infolit/tutorials/5articles.html


  Cyberculture and the Digitization of Knowledge
http://www.library.yale.edu/humanities/media/cyberculture.html


  Web Skills and Evaluation
http://edtech.tennessee.edu/~set8/facmod2.html


  High School Students and Their Use
  of the Web for Research
http://www.libraryinstruction.com/confusion.html


  Web Who?  Web What?
http://academics.sru.edu/library/Tutorials/Internet/webwho.htm


  Webquest on the Reliability of Informaton on the WWW
http://biologycorner.com/quests/reliability.html


  How Credible is the Source
http://newacci.homestead.com/files/archive/Jun04CNar.htm

 
  Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators -
  Critical Evaluation Surveys and Resources
http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide/eval.html


Evaluating Web Resources
http://www.classroom.com/community/connection/connectednewsletter/evaluating.jhtml

Tiny URL = http://tinyurl.com/8fxne


  Find the Phony:  Critical Internet Research Skills
http://www.learningathand.com/curriculum/view.php?v=all&c=12

[David P. Dillard]

Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2005 06:27:45 EDT
From: BradL...@aol.com
Reply-To: Net-...@yahoogroups.com
To: Net-...@yahoogroups.com
Cc: Net-...@listserv.temple.edu
Subject: [Net-Gold] INTERNET: TEACHING: WEBSITE EVALUATION: Good,
Bad and Worse - How can you tell?