Evaluating Website content

The strength of criticism 
lies in the weakness 
of the thing criticized.
   Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
English

I. The Problem

The Internet is a relatively new and untested information and communication medium.  As such, we need to evaluate, expand, and adapt existing criteria for evaluating content, as well as develop new techniques. 

The Internet is a ubiquitous medium:  aside from questions of affordability, it is very pervasive in both authorship and audience.  A web address is now an international  information and persuasion medium

The Internet can very well be an unregulated and un-regulatable medium. As such, it is the visitor to a website who must have both tools and responsibility to discern quality websites.

Have you been to New Hartford, Minnesota?  (Probably only virtually...)

What do you think of the distinguished academic study "Feline Reactions to Bearded Men" by Catherine Maloney, Fairfield University, Fairfield, Connecticut, Sarah J. Lichtblau, University of Illinois, Champaign, Illinois Nadya Karpook,
University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida Carolyn Chou, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Anthony Arena-DeRosa, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts?

Will you be persuaded by http://www.kosovo.com/,   Amnesty International, the Yugoslavian government's official page on Albanian terrorism, or the U.S. Department of State's briefing on Kosovo.

1. personal with biographic data, often called "vanity pages"
2. promotional to sell a product
3. "current" to provide extremely up-to-date information, as for newspapers' sites
4. informational to share information on a particular topic or hobby
5. persuasive as propaganda to convert you to particular point of view
6. instructional to teach a unit or course of study;
7. registrational to register for courses, information, and/or products, accumulate a database of, and simplify communication with, registrants
8. entertainment!

Characteristics of 5 types (outside links):

• personal
• promotional
• current
• informational
• persuasive

Jan Alexander and Marsha Tate,
Wolfgram Memorial Library,
Widener University

IV. Contexts of website evaluation:
header * body  *   footer * navigation

V. Five evaluative guidelines from the School of Journalism & Library Science:

Authority  Who is responsible for the page?
What are their qualifications and associations, and can you verify them?

Check the footer
for name of the web page author, his/her credentials and title, organizational affiliation. Is the information verifiable?

Currency Are dates clear when the website was first created and edited?

Check the footer
for when the website was created, and when last edited.

Check the content
for news items, indications that the site is actively maintained, acknowledgements/responses to visitors

Coverage  What is the focus of the site? Are there clear headings to illustrate an outline of the content?  Is the navigation within the website clear?

Check the header
for a clear title and web site description

Check the content
for headings and keywords

Check the navigation
to reflect content outline within the web site

Objectivity  Are biases clearly stated?  Are affiliations clear?

Check the content
for statement of purpose,
to determine the type of web site and potential audience
for outside links for information external to the website
for graphics and cues for affiliations

Check the header/footer and URL/domain (.gov .com .edu)
to determine organizational source of website and how this reflects on content type

Accuracy Are sources of information and factual data listed, and available for cross-checking

Check the content
for accuracy of spelling, grammar, facts(!), and consistency within website

Check content for a bibliographic
variety of websites (external links), of electronic media (electronic databases of references, established (print & on-line) journals, of electronic indexes (ERIC), and of books for comparative/evaluative purposes

Check external web site rating services e.g. Britannica

VI. Bibliography (Author, web site, date last visited) related to evaluation:

(University of California at Los Angeles/UCLA) Esther Grassian's Thinking Critically about World Wide Web Resources http://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/college/instruct/web/critical.htm " Questions" are divided into topics as Content & Evaluation, Source & Date, Structure, and "Other".   (10 April, 2002)

(University of California at Los Angeles/UCLA) Esther Grassian's Thinking Critically about Discipline-Based World Wide Web Resources http://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/college/instruct/web/discp.htm,   is adapted from Thinking Critically about World Wide Web Resources.  (10 April, 2002)

(Utah State University) John H. Curry's Evaluation of web-based instruction http://english.usu.edu/jcurry/wbi.html#evaluation.  A compilation of web pages by subject areas:  theory, evaluation, design. (10 April, 2002)

(Johns Hopkins University) Elizabeth E. Kirk Evaluating Information found on the Internet  http://milton.mse.jhu.edu:8001/research/education/net.html (10 April, 2002)

(Western Illinois University) Bruce Leland  Evaluating Web Sites: A Guide for Writers http://www.wiu.edu/users/mfbhl/evaluate.htm (10 April, 2002)

(Babson College) Hope Tillman Evaluating Quality on the Net http://www.hopetillman.com/findqual.html (10 April, 2002)

(Saint Louis University) Craig Branham Evaluating Web pages for relevance http://english.ttu.edu/kairos/2.2/news/youcanuse/craig/page01.html   Well developed website with sections on Anatomy of a page, Page types, Web search strategies, and Glossary.  (10 April, 2002)

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The Study Guides and Strategies web site was created and is maintained by Joe Landsberger,
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