Week Six

Lecture Summary

Evaluation and Authentication was the main theme of this weeks lecture, the reason being that as university students it is essential that the sources we gather from the world wide web are of scholary standard since it reflects the work that we produce. In order to find quality information on the web, we need to be able to differentiate between what is quality and what isn't. Once we have done that, we need to decide whether the information is appropriate for, and in the right context, of what we're specifically after, and whether or not it's useful. The Lecture then went through the various reasons why the web can't be fully trusted: Practiccally anybody can make a website or create content on an existing page without any credentials in the topic they are writing about (a good example of which is http://en.wikipedia.org/ in which editing of the web pages is open to anybody); There is no governing system for the WWW, meaning that the web's expandability is not controlled by anyone, therefore it is full of false information put up by unqualified people and liars. So, the basis' on which we would evaluate web pages are: Accuracy, authenticity, objectivity, currency, coverage, credibility, reason, support, bias, referral to other sources, vertifiability.

Tutorial Tasks

Review of the ICYouSee and ICO48 Web Pages

On the ICYouSee critical thinking page, the tips on strategies for evaluating web pages really are all about thinking critically with the main theme seeming to be on 'being careful'. The page provides us with a list of 6 suggestions on what to have in mind when we're on a suspicious website/page or simply examining a page that seems promising, but can't be assured until it passes all authenticating criteria. The list consists of the following points: 'Make sure you are in the right place', for your purpose, because if it's too difficult to find what you want on the web, it might be because it's not there and probably easier to just get a reference book and look there instead; 'When in doubt, doubt', and don't stop doubting until you have cleared the site of any signs of ambiguity, manipulative reasoning, and bias, as well as checked the information against other sources to compare and see if there are any variances; 'Consider the source' because not all web authors are experts, and much of the time their purpose for writing on a topic and posting it on a web page, may only be to express their own personal opinion. So we should look around for links on the author, or on extra sources/ readings/ and bibliographies to assure us that the information was not simply invented. We should also check the purpose, i.e. Is it commercial, governmental, personal, or academic?; 'Know what's happening' because much of the time the persuasiveness of a text can be hidden, or the aim of the site may be to advertise; 'Look at details', is the presentation of the site good, clean and fit for purpose? Are there any minor errors?

The INCO48 web page contains similar points to ICYouSee, but an extra ones that i found useful are: 'Continuity' to be quetioned as, Will the internet site be maintained and updated?, the rest of the points, however, were not effectively worded as in ICYouSee.

Web Site Evaluation Assignment :http://kclibrary.nhmccd.edu/decade60.html

ACCURACY: After reading through the site, I found that much of what was said about the sixties was already quite familiar to me, but to double check i looked up some of the dates mentioned in the site on events to see if the information was the same, and i found no differences.

AUTHORSHIP: The copyright of the site belongs to Kingwood College Library, and the content of the web page was written by Susan Goodwin, on which there are no links to provide information on her, except for a link to email her.

PURPOSE: This is outlined in the first bit of the text, which says in very simple terms, that its purpose is "...to help the user gain a broad understanding and appreciation for the culture and history of the 1960s". Upon reading the content of the page and looking at detail, there is no sign of any alternative aim, so the site's claim on purpose is quite fairly justified.

DETAIL AND DESIGN: The design of the page is quite simple, much like a report in the sense that it contains many headings and sub-headings, and a few pictures to illustrate some of the mentioned content. The design is clean enough to allow viewers of the page to skim through and find what they're after, with no obstructive advertisements or annoying unrelated images.

OVERALL WORTH: The Overell impression i get from this page is that it's not harmful, just an informative piece of writing, that is not exactly high in its use of vocabulary and academic writing standard, but at least it doesn't stray from it's purpose of providing accurate and interesting information on the sixties.