|
Evaluating Authority in
Web Resources
Questions to ask:
Does the site have a section about its purpose?
Is the site offered as a public service, an advertisement, education, or
opinion?
If advertising is present is it clearly labeled as such?
Whose site is this?
Who is sponsoring the creation and maintenance of the page?
Is the purpose of the sponsoring organization appropriate for your information needs?
Is there contact information to reach the author or sponsor for more information?
Who developed and wrote the material?
What is their perspective?
Can you verify his/her qualifications?
Resources to use:
Look for a link on the page to "about this
organization" information. It could tell you everything you want to know.
You just have to decide if they're painting an accurate picture!
Look for information on the sponsor outside of the
web. Use Encyclopedia of Associations [REF AS 22 .E5], or
go to the Lexis/Nexis
Academic Universe database.
To assess the author's credibility, use
Dissertation Abstracts Online,
Lexis/Nexis Academic Universe,
Who's Who [REF CT 120 .W5], or Biography and Geneology Master Index
[REF CT 213 .B56].
So what?
Anyone with an internet connection and some software can set up
a web page. There are clues that can help you recognize appropriate information.
A writer could have a PhD in biology, but put up a web page about local politics.
His
academic credentials do not translate to being an authority on government. So you
could rely on his information about genetics, but perhaps not on his information about
political events.
When you use Dissertation Abstracts
you may be able to find where and when a person
wrote
their disseration, and what their dissertation is about. The biographical
information to be found in
Lexis/Nexis,
and Who's Who can help you learn about what a people have done in
their career.
No one is totally objective. That doesn't mean
their information is useless to you. It is important to recognize a bias, in order
to know you need to research the other sides to an issue.
Example:
Work back up the hierarchy of directories that your
webpage is located within to find out who is hosting the page, eg.
http://www.augustana.edu/Users/Rewilliams/index.htm
backs up to
http://www.augustana.edu.
You'll notice that there is a disclaimer at the end of the original web site
stating that "The views and opinions expressed in this page are strictly those
of the page author. The contents have not been reviewed or approved by Augustana
College." An individual's web site is not necessarily approved by the
hosting institution.
The extension has clues about the origin of the site:
- .edu as an extension means an educational institution
- .com means a business
- .mil is a military site
- .gov is a government agency
- .net is a network
- .org is a non-profit organization
Return to Evaluating Web Resources
|
Augustana College