Website Evaluation
When you find information on the Internet, how do you know it is true? This lesson will give you the skills to answer that question. Consider the following scenario...
Introduction - A Tree Octopus!
Your science teacher has assigned you a research paper on a marine animal of your choice. Naturally, you choose your favorite -- An octopus! After searching the internet for a while, you come across a fascinating creature, The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus.
But wait... don't octopi live in the ocean, not trees? The web site seems to be well designed and seems full of valid scientific information though.
How Do You Decide if a Web Site Can Be Trusted?
For a small amount of money (or even for FREE), anyone can create a great web page on the Internet. There are people that publish legitimate information, and there are those that produce elaborate lies. It's often hard to tell them apart, but this lesson will tell you exactly how to do that. Then you can decide if there really is such a thing as a tree octopus!
The following are four ways to critically look at and evaluate the content of a web page.
1. Who is the author and/ or publisher of the web page?
When investigating a web page, an obvious start is to find out who wrote the information on the page. The author could be publishing on his own or be writing for an organization.
The name of the author and the organization publishing the page is usually somewhere at the top or bottom of the web page, usually with the copyright information. The author's name may not be listed, but there should at least be information about the publisher. If this information is not on the web page, look for a link to a home page and search on that page. If there is no home page link, use the URL trimming technique (see #2 below.) Valid sources of information do not hide the author and publisher.
2. What does the URL say about the author and/or publisher?
Lets look at the following URL:
http://www.mywebsite.com/agreatsite/volcanoes.htm
(This is not a real web address. It is used just as an example.)
www in the URL stands for World Wide Web
As part of your investigation of the author and publisher, look at the three letter ending of the domain name in a URL (the part between http:// and the first single slash).
mywebsite is the name of the actual site. Often, this part is the name of the company that hosts the site. It might even be your name like www.johnjones.net, .com, .org, etc.
The name between the slashes (agreatsite) is a folder in which the website or webpage is housed. There can be folders within folders, such as: www.mywebsite.com/2ndgrade/science/geography/landforms.htm
Now let’s look at domain names. They really tell alot about the website.
.edu is a college or university - The information probably would be more useful for reports on certain subjects.
.org is an organization. The organization could be Boy or Girl Scouts of America or the National Cancer Society.
.gov is a government site. If you were writing a report on a president or something about our country this probably would be a great kind of site to find factual information.
.com is site is commercial and generally wants to sell you something or charge you for using the site. A good example is www.harcourtschool.com. This website requires you to buy their textbook before you can use it.
.net is a network and almost always is a person’s personal website. You must be careful when using one of these sites and there is no way to really know how good the information is.
The URL can often show if a web page is published by an individual rather than an organization. Signs to look for are personal names following a tilde (~) or the words "users", "members", or "people."
To verify the host/publisher, trim back the address to the domain name and press the Enter key.
Example: https://www.msu.edu/~maurusja/index.html
This URL would then be trimmed down to https://www.msu.edu
3. How current is the information?
How do you find out when a website was made? Look for a date on the site. You might find a date at the bottom of the home page. You might also want to see if the website was revised or changed after it was first made. You should look for a date and the word "updated." That means the person who updated it made changes, but sometimes it might have been to just fix a spelling mistake.
Facts or information based on statistics is pretty useless if undated. For example, if you want to find statistics (facts, numbers) about the animals of the rain forest that are having their habitat destroyed, you want to use current information. You should use a site that has a recent date to get your facts.
Sometimes though, it doesn't matter when a site was created. Websites about Harriet Tubman or Anne Frank from 1996 might be just as good or better than websites about Tubman or Frank that were created in 2010. They both lived a long time ago so the information in the new sites might not be any different than the information in the older sites.
Do the links on the webpage work? Do you get a lot of error or broken link messages when you click on the links or does nothing happen when you click on a link? This shows that people have not worked on the site for a long time so the information might not be current.
4. How reliable is the information?
Before you judge the quality of the information, consider why you are looking at the web page in the first place. If you are writing a research paper for your science class, you want data that is dependable, objective and up-to-date. If you are writing an essay for a creative writing class, you are able to welcome subjective opinions and quotes, perhaps from people who have died a long time ago. Keep your goal in mind as you investigate the quality of the information.
Look for the author's credentials at the top, bottom and/or side of the page. Do they seem appropriate to the content of the page? Is the author an "expert"? Other places to search for credentials are links that say "About," "Background," "Biography," and "Philosophy." And whether you found the author or not, go to the home page of the publisher. All web pages are influenced by the beliefs of their author or publisher. You need to know what these beliefs are and look for bias in the information. Also look up the author and publisher in a search engine such as Google. Be sure to also consider the source when "Googling" someone.
If you see links that refer to other sources and documentation, take the time to explore them. If these links do not work, do not present opposing viewpoints, or do not lead to reliable sites, be wary of extreme bias and questionable validity of the information.
5. What is the Purpose of this Website?
Why was the webpage put on the web?
Was the website's purpose to:
· Inform (facts, data)?
· Explain?
· Persude?
· Sell?
· Entice (attract or lure you in)?
· Share or disclose?
· Entertain (comedy, satire, trickery)?
Step back and look at everything you have learned. Ask yourself if this page feels right. Be careful that your hopes do not bias your interpretation of the material. Beware if the views seem extreme or the information sounds too good to be true.
Test Yourself:
Click on the URLs for the following web pages. Do you think these web pages are reliable? Why or Why not?
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/pyramid/explore/age.html
http://www.fulkerson.org/ancestors/buyanancestor.html
Evaluating Websites
Objective:
· Students will be able to evaluate given websites.
METS:
· RI.1- Use a variety of digital resources to locate information.
· RI.2- Evaluate information from online resources for accuracy and bias.
· RI.3- Understand that using information from a single internet source might result in the reporting of erroneous facts and that multiple sources should always be researched.
· RI.4- Identify types of websites based on their domain names (e.g., edu, com, org, gov, net)
Assignment:
1. Download the Webpage Evaluation Form below and evaluate the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus webpage. **MAKE SURE YOU SAVE YOUR WEB PAGE EVALUATION FORM TO YOUR MY DOCUMENTS FOLDER**
2. Choose 2 other websites from below to evaluate using the Web Page Evaluation Form (download below).
3. Print and staple ALL 3 forms and hand them in when you are finished.
** You will be printing and handing in 3 Evaluation Forms together**
Which of These Sites Are Reliable?
(choose 2 websites below to evaluate)
Feline Reactions to Bearded Men
Dihydrogen Monoxide Research
Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanies
Compensation and Working Conditions Online
Year-round Education: Is Summer Vacation Over Forever?
Conclusion: What have you learned?
By studying how to investigate a web page, you now know if there is such a creature as a tree octopus and how to evaluate websites :).
Grading Scale
Questions 1-19 are worth 1 point each. Question 12 is worth 6 points for a total of 25 points. You will be printing and handing in 3 evaluation forms, therefore this assignment is worth a total of 75 points.
25-23 Points A
22-20 Points B
19-18 Points C
17-15 Points D