This is a continuation of your lesson in determining the basic elements of academic information seeking.


In the first part of the lesson (week 1), you were able to:

1. Follow guidelines on how to clarify the information needed

2. Explore different techniques in gathering information using online search engines
   
   

For this week, you will

• Determine a source’s level of credibility 

LESSON: Determining A Source’s Level of Credibility

The internet provides countless number of valuable sources of information - but also a richer source of misinformation at the same time. Determining credible from worthless ones could be tricky, since at initial glance, a Website written by an expert has no difference like the ones written by someone from the neighbourhood.  

An essential part of online research is the ability to critically evaluate information. This includes the ability to assess its level of relevance, currency and timeliness, authority and credibility, accuracy and reliability, and objectivity and bias.

Relevance

Once you click on a link and land on a site, how do you know if it offers the information you need?

First, you should be able to determine the purpose of the source.

For example, does the source aim to:

• • To provide information (e.g., newspaper articles)

  • To persuade or advocate (e.g., editorials or opinion pieces)

  • To entertain (e.g., a viral video)

  • To sell a product or service (e.g., advertising or marketing materials on a company website)

Another conisderation is to determine who is the intended audience. 

For example:

• • Scholars and academic researchers with specialized knowledge

  • The general public (without specialized knowledge)

  • Students in high school, college or university (e.g., textbooks for students learning a new subject).

Understanding how these considerations are fitted to the kind of information you are looking for will help you find the most relevant source for your research writing.

Currency & Timeliness

Determining when an online source was published or produced is an aspect of evaluating information. When you use current sources you show your readers that you are up-to-date with your topic. Of course, there are times when an older source may help you, especially when you want to establish historical context, but in many writing situations you want to find the most recent information. It can be tricky sometimes to determine the date of publication on online sources, and occasionally you may not be able to determine a date. Keep in mind that better sources will contain a date because the creators are concerned with giving their audience as much information as possible. 

For example, online publications will almost always contain a date. Many websites will also contain dates, even if it is just the year of publication. If you don’t see a date at the beginning of the material you are examining, scroll to the absolute bottom of the page where you will often find copyright information. Here you will normally find a year of publication and/or update, too. 

Key indicators of the currency of the information are:

• date of copyright

• date of publication

• date of last update

• dates of sources cited

• date of patent or trademark

Authority & Credibility

A source’s authority often depends on who its author is. This is usually easy to determine with books and magazine articles. Some nonfiction books are written under a pseudonym, or pen name, but most print authors take responsibility for their work right on the cover or in the byline.

On the Internet, authorship can be more difficult to determine. Some sites have only one author. Others have many authors, who may or may not use their real names. Some sites have no obvious author – their content may be written by a number of people who do not get authorship credit.

It’s generally best not to trust any information you find on the Internet until you can at least determine who wrote it. Many Web sites have an “about” section. If this doesn’t answer your question, check for contact information. Sometimes an FAQ (frequently asked questions) list will answer questions about authorship.

You may check on the following questions to determine authority and credibility of the information from a source:

1. Who is the author?

   • • Is it a person?

     • Is it an organization such as a government agency, nonprofit organization, or a corporation?

2. What are the qualifications of the author?

   • • What is the author's occupation, experience, or educational background?

     • Does the author have any subject matter expertise?

     • Is the author affiliated with an organization such as a university, government agency, nonprofit organization, or a corporation?

3. Who is the publisher?

   • • For books, is it a university press or a commercial publisher? These types of publishers use editors in order to ensure a quality publication.

     • For journals or magazines, can you tell if it is popular or scholarly in nature? 

     • For websites, is it an organizational website, or a personal blog?

For sites based in the U.S., these will usually be one of the following: .com, .org, .net, .mil, .gov, .edu.

Non-U.S. sites will often have a domain denoting their country of origin, for instance .au for Australia, .ph for Philippines

                     *although people from any country can purchase .com, .org and .net domain names.

    .com denotes a commercial entity,

            .org means a nonprofit organization,

.net is a network (for instance, an Internet service provider)

                 Many nonprofit organizations will avoid .com domains so as to    avoid implying that they have a commercial component. It’s also true   that, while not all .coms are commercial, all large commercial  organizations will have .com addresses.

    The .gov, .mil and .edu domains can only go to government, military and educational sites respectively, so they reflect a different order of   authority from a .com or a .org.

                 Students and faculty can both have personal Web sites with     .edu    domains, so be aware of whether the site is an official school  Web site, a research site or a personal site. Personal sites will often  have the user’s name in the URL.

                 Information on a .gov or .mil site has the backing of the (local,   state or federal) government or the military. It may be difficult to find a single author for these sites, but you can assume that the information has a certain amount of authority because of this association.

                 Some domains, such as wordpress.org and blogspot.com,  exist to give free platforms to anyone with something to say. Web sites hosted on one of these domains are less credible than other sites, because they are available to anyone (unlike, for instance, a  page on NYTimes.com). Their information is not necessarily false, but should be approached with more caution.

Accuracy & Reliability

Check to see if the author supports knowledge claims with the proper forms of public evidence, both empirical (based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation) and logical, and if the author cites other research that is relevant to his or her claims.

Is the information well researched?

• Are there references (e.g., citations, footnotes, or a bibliography) to sources that will provide evidence for the claims made?

• If the source includes facts or statistical data, can this information be verified in another source?

• If the data was gathered using original research (such as polling or surveys), what was the method of data collection? Has the author disclosed the validity or reliability of the data?
  
  
  

Watch the video below to help you identify accuracy and reliability of a source.     

Objectivity & Bias

Questions to ask:

• Does the source contain opinions or facts? ✅

• Is the information presented in the source objective (unbiased) ✅   or subjective (biased) ❎ ? 

• Does the information promote a political, religious, or social agenda? ❎

• Is advertising content (usually found in business magazines or newspapers) clearly labelled? ✅ 

• Does the page use inflammatory language, images, or graphic styles (for example, huge red letters or lots of boldface type) to try to persuade you of the author's point of view? ❎

• Examine the URL to see where the web page comes from. Is it a commercial site (.com)? A non-profit organization (.org)? An educational institution (.edu)?

After reading through the different considerations in determining a source's level of credibility, proceed to Learning Tasks assigned in google classroom.