Week 8, Evaluating & Authentication, 25-09-2007

LECTURE

The week eight lecture was all about searching for quality information on the internet. One of the biggest problems that Justine says, is that it is hard to find information on the Internet that is good quality. One of the phrases that she uses is ‘fit-for-use’. In other words, making sure that the information that is given is very good in the way of fitting to YOUR purpose. There is a vast amount of information on the internet. The Internet could be accessed by anyone, who is entitled to place any information they wish on various websites. This means that the Internet includes numerous sites that may contain information that could be misleading, racist etc.

When looking for information on the www, remember to keep in mind who authored the information within?, why it is there?, and what is published?. Justine reinforces this many times to make sure that she has emphasized that the information presented on a computer screen is not always correct. When looking for information it is important that you have some kind of criteria that will help you search for relevant and valuable information. The best one in my opinion and also my peers is Accuracy, Objectivity, Currency and Coverage by Beck 1997. My peers and I found that this form of information quality check, covered most of the basis of looking for information. Just remembering that the information on the www could not all be trusted. There is a large quantity of information available, yet not all of it fits to your purpose.

TUTE

ICYouSee

There are six simple strategies that can be put in place to help any users of the Internet in valuating a website. The most important strategy is making sure that you are in the right place. Don’t be distracted by a web page’s glitz and glamour, as the information may not even be close to what you want. See if the information that is presented to you is good and ideal for YOU and your purpose.

Don’t believe everything you see. The information that is given to you may include ambiguity, manipulative reasoning and bias. Finding out whether the information is accurate or not can be a hard task unless you compare the information with another source. Checking if the information that is given has some sort of reference will go a long way in helping the user finding out what sort of information they are looking at.

The first thing that everyone should do is look up who wrote the information. Are the details of the author there? Do they have some sort of expertise in the area of the information that was written up? Some sites provide links to the author but that’s not always the case. Looking for the author in Google may give the user a helping hand. Also considering the source is a big help as you can tell if it is an organization, government, education etc.

When you first see the site, ask yourself, ‘what is the purpose of this site?’ Usually most sites have some sort of reasoning for being there. Sometimes it could throw you off track. The information could be there to sell you something or to persuade you, diverting you from gaining the information that you really want. Seeing if the information is a document will be a very handy tool, because you see if the information is good or not.

Seeing if the site is well organised and contains no spelling mistakes goes a long way in proving if the site is a good one or not. Having the links working and whether the links contain information that is useful and dependable just proves that the information is more than reliable. Comparing it to encyclopaedia can be helpful. Why look on the net when you can easily find the information in an encyclopaedia? Having the graphics there only to guide you is another thing. If the graphics distract you, the information becomes harder to believe.

Having an idea if the information is designed for the web is a good one. Ask yourself, ‘is the information originally put here for the purpose of the website or was it gained from somewhere else?’ If it was for something else, what was it? That something could be easily found somewhere else, or that the information may have been misinterpreted.


http://www.hippy.com/php/sitetopics.php?topic=1
Accuracy- the information is not documented thus I don’t think the information is accurate. Take this for example, I would find it hard a president would say this about their own country.


Authority- from the site I cannot find anything that is related to who wrote and what there credentials are. Thus the information to me is useless and unworthy.

Purpose- the point of view was about stopping people from going to Vietnam War so the point of view was against the Vietnam War.


Detail and design- the information that is given is very large. It provides a large amount of links to other sites and also within itself. The site is set up semi professional but has signs up asking for sponsors.


Overall- I find it hard with this task. The information that is given seems to be reliable. Just some aspects of it I find hard to believe. I think that the information can not be that reliable as there is no referencing.

http://www.lib.virginia.edu/small/exhibits/sixties/index.html

Accuracy- the information that is given seems to be very accurate. The reason why I say this is because it seems to be believable and also it states who wrote it at the bottom.


Authority- as I said previously the author is given which is the University of Virginia, making the information more believable.

Purpose- the purpose of the site is to inform the user about the 60’s. It doesn’t seem to be in a harsh way, just to give general information.

Detail and design- the detail and design seem to be very good. To me, it was set out by a uni student. It is easy to read.

Overall- I think that this information is reasonable. What gives it away the most to me would have to be the URL, which has EDU in it, hinting that its an educational source.



READINGS

The readings did not need to be recorded. In a general overview, the readings were about Evaluating Internet information and finding out if the information that is presented to you is quality or not.