K J #4 6 Ñ M E D I A I N A S I A
Assessing Information Quality
Evaluating Internet
Research Sources
www.vanguard.edu/rharris/evalu8it.htm
Well written,
concise guide to criteria for determining the information quality of a
website. Harris, professor of English at Vanguard University, Southern
California, uses the CARS Checklist - Credibility (trustworthy authorship),
Accuracy (truthful and current), Reasonableness (fair, balanced and objective,
with no conflicts of interest) and Support (corroboration of information).
The site does not extend to examples, but the method itself is the highlight.
Think about the magazine section in your local grocery store. If you reach out with your eyes closed and grab the first magazine you touch, you are about as likely to get a supermarket tabloid as you are a respected journal (actually more likely, since many respected journals don't fare well in grocery stores). Now imagine that your grocer is so accommodating that he lets anyone in town print up a magazine and put it in the magazine section. Now if you reach out blindly, you might get the Elvis Lives with Aliens Gazette just as easily as Atlantic Monthly or Time.
The Internet DetectiveSource evaluation Ñ the determination of information quality Ñ is something of an art. That is, there is no single perfect indicator of reliability, truthfulness, or value. Instead, you must make an inference from a collection of clues or indicators, based on the use you plan to make of your source. If, for example, what you need is a reasoned argument, then a source with a clear, well-argued position can stand on its own, without the need for a prestigious author to support it. On the other hand, if you need a judgment to support (or rebut) some position, then that judgment will be strengthened if it comes from a respected source. If you want reliable facts, then using facts from a source that meets certain criteria of quality will help assure the probability that those facts are indeed reliable.
or this one:Worst case scenarios: Imagine citing an online physics paper by A. Einstein in your essay that was in fact written by ten year old Amy Einstein of Weston-super-Mare. Worse still, imagine believing in a site that claimed to be written by a political party but was in fact propaganda written by political activists from the other side. One of the problems with the Internet is that everything looks screen-shaped and screen-sized. None of the physical clues present in books, journals and newspapers about the nature and quality of the resource are available. At first glance it can be difficult to distinguish an electronic book from a database, from a mailarchive, from a journal, from a newspaper etc.
WWW Virtual Library Information Quality Links Page...... Picture the scene: You need some information and you need it fast. The Internet seems like a good place to start so you head for a search engine and start typing. You get a result - 20,000 resources come back at you. You start browsing ...
Resource Number 1 The title looks promising - but bang! When you try to connect you get an error message saying the server is down. The resource can't be accessed.Resource Number 2 Again the title looks good - however, when you get to the site you find that it is a project report from Class 2B at Hillside Junior School.
Resource Number 3 It leads to a big site, with lots of links and lots of files. The answer's got to be here somewhere. Half an hour later you're still looking. This site's so big you need a map to find your way around - but there is no map so all you see are blind alleys and dead ends. Give up.
Resource Number 4 Now we are getting somewhere - the contents page looks great: but wait - that's all there is! The site is "under construction" and the information isn't ready yet.
Resource Number 5 It's looking good - there is page after page of facts and figures. The only problem is that none of them are accurate. Either they've been typed in by someone who can't type, or someone out there is trying to deceive.
Resource Number 6 OK. There's a link to the exact report you need. You're within pitting distance. The only problem is that to download this report you need special software and guess what - you don't have that software on your machine.
Resource Number 7 It's written by a person you know and looks like it will have what you need. Then you spot the date in the corner - they haven't updated this site for two years. A lot has happened since then, things have changed. Forget it - this is old news.
Resource Number 8 Could be useful - someone has collected lots of information from all over the Internet and put it on their own site. Are they to be trusted? Did they copy it accurately? There is no indication about who created this site and why, so move on.
Resource Number 9 Amazing - it says it's an encyclopaedia but it turns out to be pictures of people with no clothes on. Only another 19,991 resources to go ... it's time for a coffee!
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