University of Central Florida Information Fluency Initiative

Evaluating Websites

Have you ever looked at one of your professors’ assignments and seen the dreaded phrase “please do not use Google as one of your research methods?” Now what are you going to do? Vital qualities for becoming information fluent include learning how to gather data and how to evaluate the data that you find, so where do you go to get beyond Google and into information fluency?

Surprisingly, one place to start is with Google and Wikipedia. You can’t use these sites as sources for scholarly research, but if you don’t know much about your topic, you can use them to gain a general knowledge about your subject and to narrow your research focus. The main problem is when students start their research with these sites and fail to critically evaluate the information they find or to go further and look for more focused sources of information.

But where can you go for more reliable information?

The first place you should start is the library. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to go to the library, since so many of the library’s sources are now online. They have scholarly journals, books online, and links to other libraries’ materials. Visit the library website for a tutorial on how to use the libraries resources. Visiting the library can be fun, however – they have a coffee shop in there, so you can browse the library website while getting your caffeine fix!

When working with online sources of information, you can ask yourself some questions about the material you find, to help you evaluate and think critically about your sources. When you find a website or a source of information, ask yourself some questions.

Who authors the site? Can you learn about the author or company that hosts the website? Does the site contain links to other sites? How reliable are these sites?

What are the author’s biases about your topic? How can you tell? Does the author use inflammatory language?

How accurate is the information on the site? While you may not always have enough knowledge about a topic to know right away if the information is correct, do some research on the author’s facts and claims. Does the author support claims with reliable sources? Can you verify their research through another source?

Is there advertising on the site? What can this say about the website and the people who created it?

How timely is the information on the site? If you are looking for current research, make sure that the site is updated regularly.

Read Christine’s blog for more information on how to use Google more effectively.

Wheels Falling Off with grad student Christine – September 13, 2007

Google

Google runs my desktop. Not literally because I don’t use the “desktop search” function anymore, not because it wasn’t good, but because it doesn’t fill a need I didn’t know I had. Not like Google Earth. I plot my runs each night, using the “ruler-path” function; getting rough approximations on a street by street level. No more driving to determine my running distance. Mapquesting is so 3 years ago, last stop Las Vegas and the great computer reformatting; I am a total Google Earth convert! I am drinking the kool-aid.

Google Earth brings out everyone’s inner cartographer. I just touch the outer fringes on what the platform can do, but I am getting more literate as I remain enthralled by the constantly updating program. The other day I found that Google lets me plot my photos (which I manage with Picasa) on Google, uploaded to some Google server if I want to go public. Or I can link my photos to Wikipedia if I want to leave a geographic description.

http://www.earth.google.com

Google can also be great for research. Google Scholar helps me look up books, articles, and various other academic papers. Some books are partially available as e-books and the meta-search often turns up the full article. If you are on campus, or have logged into the library from home, then many articles will display a SFX link: that will take you to the article through our library’s database subscriptions.

http://www.scholar.google.com

Do you use any Google products? Write me and tell me about how Google runs your computing experience.

Next week – Wikipedia: Why I have feelings for you but you just aren’t reputable enough to be on my work’s cited page.

-Salud
Christine

Test yourself:

Which URL might be considered to have the most reliable data? A .com, .org, .gov, or .edu? Why would that be? Click the extensions below to find out more.