Web Page Evaluation

“You can find anything and everything on the Web!” is probably a true statement. But it is also equally true that if you are trying to do research on the Web, you will find a lot of ‘stuff” on the Web that won’t be very helpful for your research project. Because the Web is so vast and because virtually anyone can publish virtually anything they want on the Web, web evaluation is necessary.

The following guidelines have been developed to help you evaluate the Web sites you want to use for research projects. To help you with understanding of the guidelines, a worksheet is also included.

Source or Affiliation

A comparison can be made here between publishers of print materials such as books and magazines and publishers of Web pages. Book publishers that want to establish a reputation for integrity must adhere to ethical and editorial guidelines. For example, a University Press must adhere to strict standards of scholarship to earn a reputation for producing books well regarded in the world of scholarship. Likewise, a university web site may produce web pages with high standards of scholarship.

Hints for determining Source or Affiliation:

To answer the above questions, you can look near the top of the web page or at the end of the page. There may also a link to the “Home page” for the site. You might also want to truncate (erasing the last part of the URL backwards until you come to a slash mark) the URL until you find a statement of responsibility. Remember that the designated ‘webmaster” may only be responsible for the technology behind the page and not responsible for the content of the page.

Another clue might be to examine the URL (address of the web page). The URL gives the domain name for the sponsor of the page. The top-level domain can show the type of organization that published the site and the country where it was published. The top-level domain name assignments are no longer as narrowly defined as they once were so even this will not give you definitive information.

Authority

A strength and/or a weakness of the Web is that anyone can become and authors without the benefit of an editor or the reputation of a publisher behind their work. Traditionally, authority is judged by the author’s background, experience and education and credentials.

· Does the author list his/her credentials, position, education, and/or experience?

· Is the author an expert on the topic he/she is writing about? Or is the person a hobbyist or merely stating a personal opinion?

· Can you contact the author or institution with the information given? Is the e-mail address or street address given? Is telephone or fax information supplied?

· If a non-profit organization is the author, is the organization known as a source of reliable information on the particular topic?

To answer the above questions, you can again look at the top and bottom of the page. There is often a hyperlink to more information about the person or institution. There is often a link “About Us” that usually presents the mission statement for the organization. There may also be a link to other information published by the author or organization. Again you can try truncation to go back to the home page for the web site. A URL with a tilde (~) in it usually indicates a personal page instead of official pages of a site.

If you cannot find information about the author or organization from the particular web page, you could use a search engine to try to find additional information from other sites. You could also check library book catalogs and periodical indexes to see if the author has published any other works on this or related topics.

IF YOU CANNOT VERIFY THE AUTHORITY OF THE INFORMATION, DO NOT USE IT AS A SOURCE IN YOUR RESEARCH PROJECT.

In books the author states his purpose in the preface, and the reader can get an idea of the specific topics to be covered in the table of contents. Sometimes in web pages there is a mission statement for the web page, but often the purpose will have to be surmised. A “site map” is comparable to a table of contents.

· Is there a mission statement indicating the purpose and intended audience? And if so, how well does this page fulfill its goal?

· Is the author trying to sell, persuade, inform, explain or to present research for other professional or to vent a particular point of view?

Again you should look for an “About Us” link. If the top-level domain is .com it may be a commercial site with the purpose of selling a service or product so be sure to use critical thinking skills when reading the claims and information on the page.

Objectivity of a source means that it is not influenced by emotions or personal prejudices. Objectivity refers to the absence of bias.

· Does the author or the institutional affiliation of the author have an obvious bias? For example, a pro-choice page or a pro-life page will present very different views of abortion.

· Is the institution well-known for a particular point of view? For example, The National Rifle Association.

· If the topic of the page is very controversial such as abortion, gun control, legalization of marijuana, are both sides of the issues presented and at the same level of coverage?

· Is advertising included on the page or is the page partially sponsored by a commercial entity?

· Is the page truly informational or is it really an advertisement pretending to be informational?

If there is advertising or corporate sponsorship, you should look for a link explaining the policy and guidelines for acceptance of funding. There should also be a link to the corporate sponsors explaining their mission and policies and extent of funding.

There should be a clear differentiation between the advertisement and the informational content of the site.

Sometimes, but not always, the type of top-level domain will be helpful, for example, an .edu site indicating an institution of higher education.

We tend to believe that everything on the Web is the latest information and is instantly updated, but that is not true for many Web pages.

· Was all the information on the page created at the same time or does some material pre-date the web page and how can you know?

· How important is it for your topic to have the latest information? For example, for a medical or legal research topic currency would be more important than for many topics in literature or history.

Either at the top or the bottom of the page there should be a copyright date given and a statement such as “Last Updated” “Latest Revision” , but the “last updated” date can be misleading because, depending on the software used to create the page, this date can be recent if only superficial changes were made to the page, for instance , a spelling correction and does not really reflect content currency.

If statistical data is cited on the page, look for information about the original source and publication date for the compilation of the statistics.

If the page cites reference sources such as books or journal articles in a bibliography, look to see that these sources are current.

It may be possible in the browser you are using to view source information that will show the date the page was created and update if it does not show on the page itself.

Coverage and completeness refer to the range of topics included and the depth that the topics are covered. Comparison means how does this information compare to other information you know from personal experience or from other research. You may find excellent information and data ,but it may not pertain to your topic.

· Has the information been copied from another page? If so, has the original source been cited?

· Has the information possibly been quoted out of context or is the full document provided?

· Is the coverage superficial? If so, are there links to additional information and do they work?

· How does this information compare with other research? If it totally disagrees with everything else you have discovered, more research is indicated or it may be a bogus, biased or hoax site.

· Does it apply to your research question? If the information is found to be creditable, it still may not apply to your thesis statement for your research project and you may have located the page because of the key words you used in your search strategy

· Are you being swayed by the design and presentation of the page rather than by the scope and depth of the information included?

· Is the page easy to navigate or might the same information be found more easily on another site or more quickly in a reference book?

The above criteria should be applied to each web page you decide to use as an information resource for any research project.

The following worksheet has been developed to help you understand and implement the web evaluation guidelines:

The purpose of this worksheet is to help you to apply the web evaluation guidelines using actual web sites.

You will be asked to access particular web sites and to answer questions about each site pertaining to the following criteria:

Source or Affiliation

Authority

Purpose and Intended Audience of the Source

1. What person or institution is responsible for publishing this web site? ___________________________

2. Is there an “About Us” link for this site? If so, what does it say? _______________________________

______________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________________

3. Choose the link: Treatment Options. Keep choosing links until you come to a specific document. Is an

author cited for this page? _______________ If so, is information given about the author’s credentials? _____

____________________________________. Is the author the creator of the information? ____________If

not, is the source of the information cited? ____________________________________________________

4. Does this web site have a mission statement? ______________If so, what is the mission? ____________

_____________________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________________

5. Who is the intended audience for this page? _______________________________________________

6. Is there a site map? ___________________________________________________________________

7. Are there corporate sponsors for this web page? _______________________ If so, how might they

      affect objectivity? ____________________________________________________________________

      ___________________________________________________________________________________

      ___________________________________________________________________________________

      ___________________________________________________________________________________

8.   When was this web page created? _______________________________________________________

9.   When was it last revised? _____________________________________________________________

10. Click on several links and notice what the date is for the individual documents or the dates for the cited

references in the document. Are they current enough for the topic? ____________________________

11. How would you rate this page as to completeness and coverage? ______________________________

        __________________________________________________________________________________

        __________________________________________________________________________________

        __________________________________________________________________________________

        _________________________________________________________________________________

12. Would you use this web site as a reference for a research paper? ________________ Why or why not?

        __________________________________________________________________________________

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PART II

Answer the following questions using this URL: http://www.fairus.org/index.html

1. What person or institution is responsible for publishing this web site? ________________________________

2. Is there an “About Us” link for this site? If so, what does it say? ____________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________________

3. Is there any contact information for the site? ___________________________________________________

4. Is the material presented original research? If not, are the sources of the information noted?

______________________________________________________________________________________

5. What is the purpose of this site? ___________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

6. Is this site biased? Why or why not? ______________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________

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7. Can you determine when this site was created? _____________________________________________

8. Can you determine when this site was last updated? __________________________________________

9. Is the factual information current or are the studies and/or statistics quoted out of date or not recent enough for the topic? ______________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________

10. Overall, do you think this site would be an appropriate source for a research paper?

Why or why not? _________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________________

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_______________________________________________________________________________________

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This page was last updated: November 13, 2006
For questions and comments, please mail to: ginah@cos.edu