Quiz #4

1. Quiz #4 • Login to take the quiz. http://quizstar.4teachers.org/indexs.jsp

2. Journal article confusion • When you find a book, an article, or other type of resource, you must list ALL the authors. Even if there are 15! • You must also write out the ENTIRE article title even if it is long. Only abbreviate if the article title is abbreviated. Copy down exactly what you see. • You must list the volume and issue number of the journal if it is listed. • http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=58458753&site=ehost-live&scope=site

3. Quick refresher: • The Dewey Decimal System and the Library of Congress classification system arranges books on the shelves by: • Harrison College uses which type of classification to arrange books on the shelves:

4. Evaluating Websites The Five Criteria Week 7

5. Why evaluate websites? • Anyone can publish anything on the web! • It is often hard to determine who the true author is of a particular website. • There are NO web standards to ensure accuracy, currency, or truthfulness of information. • You could be dealing with a real crackpot. Remember the incident we looked at on Wikipedia? http://youtu.be/J_qR5lpnXBE

6. Let’s take a look at this website • http://www.rythospital.com/2008/ • Is this for real? • How can you tell? • By learning how to evaluate websites, we will not fall victim to scams or using false information.

7. The Top Five Criteria • Accuracy • Authority • Objectivity/Content • Currency • Coverage/Overall Quality Now let’s take a look at each of these individually.

8. Accuracy When determining website accuracy, ask yourself the following questions: 1. Are there grammar and spelling mistakes? 2. What is the subject of this website? Is it consistent with the title of the document or resource? 3. Are facts and statements justified and supported with sound research? 4. Can the references listed be verified? 5. Do the statements agree with what is generally accepted as being true? **Ideally, you want to compare resources against one another to make sure you are getting REAL information.

9. Authority To establish authority, ask yourself the following questions: 1. Who is the author? 2. What are the author’s credentials related to the topic? 3 Can you contact the author? 5. Is the author well-known in the field? **You want to make sure that the author provides contact information. Go out and the “Google” the author to see what you find! Remember anybody and their brother can create a site and claim to be an expert! Like this guy…..

10. Site extensions • What about site extensions? • .edu • .com • .gov • .mil • .org • .net Which ones would be MOST reliable? Which one would be LEAST reliable?

11. Objectivity/Content When establishing objectivity, ask yourself the following questions: 1. How detailed is the information? 2. What opinions (if any) are expressed by the author? 3. Does the information show a hint of bias? 4. Is there a lot of advertisement on the page? 5. Who is the intended audience? 6. In what language is the piece written? Is it difficult to understand? Too technical? 7. What is the scope of the information? The overall theme? Pay attention to the “voice” of the page. Do you feel like someone is trying to sell you an idea?

12. Currency When establishing currency, ask yourself the following questions: 1. How current is the information on the site? 2. When was the webpage created? 3. Can you determine how often the site is updated and when the last update was completed? 4. Can you determine the currency of the original source of the information by looking at the references? (Think Wikipedia and the “notes and references” section at the bottom of the entry.) **A lot of broken links is a bad sign! It means that the author or owner of the site is not updating it regularly so information is outdated.

13. Need Help? • You might have trouble finding the creation date of a webpage or even the last time it was updated. If so, go here: http://www.domaintools.com/

14. Coverage/Overall Quality When establishing coverage, ask yourself the following questions: 1. Is it all images or is there a balance between text and graphics? 2. Is the information presented cited correctly? 3. What topics are covered? 4. What does this page offer that you can not find elsewhere? 5. How in-depth is the material? **Web coverage often differs from print coverage. (Think newspapers) **Some web pages are written for fun or for a hoax. **If the page requires certain software to view all the material, how much are you missing if you can’t see it?

15. Putting it all together!

16. A good website to use! • http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/Evaluate.html This will help you when evaluating your own websites for your annotated bibliography.

17. In-class activities: website evaluation • For the first in-class assignment, we will break up into groups and evaluate two websites. We will discuss our evaluations with the class. • Then you will work alone or with a partner to evaluate, summarize, and annotate an article that I give you.

18. For next week… • Read chapter 5 and take notes. • Be prepared to take the quiz next Wednesday in class. • Complete the “Research Assignment #7” which has you evaluating some of the resources you found for your topic. • Look at the handout on the class site to see how to evaluate all three of your resources. • Have a great weekend!! 

19. One minute write-up Please answer the following questions. • 1. What did you think of the in-class activity on evaluating websites? • 2. Does this change how you approach websites now? • 3. How do you like having your quizzes available online?