PowerPoint Presentation

Knowledge isEmpowerment

EVALUATING WEBSITES AND SOURCES

Tutorial 45

Knowledge isEmpowerment

Today’s objective is that you learn how to be critical inselecting the sites you are getting information from.

The web is full of academic information;you only need to learn how to find it.

It is important to know how to evaluate theinformation you want to cite.

•We will start with the evaluation of webpages/ sites and continue with evaluationof sources.

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Evaluation of web pages/ sites:

Start with looking at the URL domain,(between http:// and the first /)http://usuniversity.edu/

Is it a personal page?

Does it have a personal name followed by atilde, a percent sign, or words like “people”,“users” or “members”?

Is the server a commercial ISP like aol.comor geocities.com?

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Important issues while lookingat the domain:

•Is the domain educational? “.edu” or anonprofit organization? “.org”

•Is the domain commercial? “.com”

•Is the domain a government site? “.gov”,“.mil”

•Is the country code from the country youare looking for? “.us”, “.ca”, “.uk”

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Determining who is the “publisher”, agency, or personoperating the “server”, (between http:// and the first /):

•http://circuit.sdsu.edu/ = Circuit. San DiegoState University

•http://www.ala.org/acrl/sites/ala.org.acrl/files/content/standards/standards.pdf = AmericanLibrary Association

•http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED430564.pdf= Educational Resource Information Center

•https://www.ffa.org/programs/grantsandscholarships/Scholarships/ = FFA

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You also need to learn how toidentify the University acronym

•usuniversity.edu (United States University)

•ucsd.edu (University of California in San Diego)

•You will find that with a URL within UnitedStates, the Country is not mentioned:

–digitalcommons.calpoly.edu

–minds.wisconsin.edu

–docs.lib.purdue.edu

–deepblue.lib.umich.edu

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For the rest of the world, you need tolearn the acronyms for each country

• “ca” for Canada, “mx” for Mexico, “es” forSpain, “au” for Australia or “uk” for UnitedKingdom.

–usir.salford.ac.uk

–discovery.ucl.ac.uk

–eprints.qut.edu.au

–fcm.ens.uabc.mx

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Narrow your results by domain:

•If searching Google – Advanced Search,http://www.google.com/advanced_search youcan also narrow your results by Site ordomain.

•For example search google advanced search“web site evaluation” and limit the domain tosite:.edu

•Or limit your results to a domain like .org or.gov

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Look for the background of thesite, truncate back the URL

•i.e. delete the end characters of the URLstopping just before each /. Press enter andcheck, you will find interesting information ornone.

–www.gatesfoundation.org/topics/pages/scholarships.aspx

–www.gatesfoundation.org/topics/

–www.gatesfoundation.org/

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Find out who is the author or the responsiblebody. Google is a good source.

•Search Google Blog Search and learn whatthey say about the web site.

•Caution: do not use the information if there is noconfirmation about the author or a page update.

•You need to critically question everything youfind on the web. Where did the author retrievethe information? Are they reliable sources?

• Well-developed pages include links to otherpages with the opposite point of view

•Do the links work?

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Check in alexa.com what are the webpages thatlink to this particular page

Copy and paste or type the URL you areevaluating, click search and click on the “getdetails” button:

–Find out the traffic of the webpage

–Ownership information

–Related links to other sites who visited thepage

–Sites linking to the webpage

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Evaluating Information Sources

•You will need to ask these questions, whetheryour source is printed or online, if it is a book,an image or article from a journal, newspaper,a website or any source you want to cite:

–Authority

–Timeliness

–Accuracy

–Coverage

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Authority:

•Is there an author? What is the author’saffiliation? Has the author produced moreworks? Are these works cited? Can youcontact the author?

•Is the domain in the URL “.edu”(education), “.com” (commercial) or “.gov(Government)?”

•Is there a tilde (~) in the URL? This mayindicate a personal web directory

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Timeliness:

•Is there a date when the research startedor the document was created?

•Has the document been revised, edited orupdated?

•If it is a website, when was the last timethe site was updated?

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Accuracy:

•Is the source in a peer-reviewedpublication or journal? If not, can youverify the factual information or who isresponsible for the information?

•If it contains graphs, charts or images, arethe sources clear?

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Coverage:

•For online sources from a website, is thedocument complete?

•Make sure citations and quotations arecorrect.

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For more information see:

•http://library.sdsu.edu/reference/research/evaluating-information from San Diego State University

•http://help.library.ubc.ca/evaluating-and-citing-sources/evaluating-information-sources/ from University of British Columbia.

•http://library.albany.edu/usered/eval/evalweb/ fromUniversity at Albany Libraries

•http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/Evaluate.html from Berkeley Libraries

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How are we taking you on this journey ofknowledge?

•Do you have somequestions?

Do you havesuggestions?

Are you familiar withURL

Are you evaluatingyour sources beforeciting them?

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For more information

•Please contact

•M.L.S Catalina Lopez

•clopez@usuniversity.edu

•(619) 477 6310 Ext 2017