How do you know a website is valid, appropriate and dependable? For educators, students, professionals and anyone else using the web to gather information or research, it is important to accurately evaluate the websites you read. Websites can be tremendous sources of knowledge but, on some occasions, can be misleading, out-of-date or even dangerous. How can you (or your students) accurately evaluate a website?
Three quick tips:
First, check the author/sponsor of the site. Is it clearly shown and stated? Is the author qualified to write on the topic? Are you familiar with the organization? Can you check its reputation?
Second, check for references and links. Serious academic work has references included or attached. Attached references will give you a good idea about the amount of time, effort and research that was poured into the source you are using.
Last, check your source for bias and/or lack of updates. The web contains oceans of resources-- there is little need to use sites that have substantial bias in the form of advertisement or tone. In addition, you should seek out sites with recent updates or publication.
Keep these tips in mind when you search and surf!
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John-
ReplyDeleteI think your "3 Quick Tips" are incredibly useful for searching the internet for valid sources. Those are the three things I look for myself when I am trying to evaluate a website or source.
Your quote, "For educators, students, professionals and anyone else using the web to gather information or research, it is important to accurately evaluate the websites you read." is extremely important. While we are educators who have learned how to evaluate websites, our students are growing up in an age where the web is a part of life, and they may not necessarily know the importance of evaluating the accuracy of what the read. I think that we must help to teach them how important checking for accuracy is, and how to evaluate themselves.
John, it’s great the way you compiled a checklist into 3 concise steps. In fact, there are three steps that I will always remember. If you happen to come across my original post on this topic, I wrote about how one of my daughters came upon a bogus website while researching information on the White House for a school project. Could you believe that chaos and vulgarity could be the end result just from the difference in typing the extension .com rather than the correct extension which is .org.
ReplyDeleteJohn your three tips are very effective to determine if a site is credible or not. Anybody can create a website, therefore evrything that is available is not always going to be accurate. It is dangerous especially for our students. When they are assigned research projects their first source is the internet. Our students need to be taught how to determine if a website is accurate. If their not taught then they will believe anything that they read on the internet. For example the site that we viewed in class regarding Dr. Martin Luther King; if a small child comes accross that site they may believe the false information they gather for their project. It is essential that everyone especially students know how to determine if a site is credible. Your tips will be very useful fo them. Pass those tips on to them. I will definitely tell my students.
ReplyDeleteGreat summary. It really condenses the chapter effectively and thoroughly explains what to look for when checking for validity of a website.
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