Learn 7 ways they can ensure site quality.

The lack of uniform standards and the ease of access have made the Internet a powerful but uncertain medium. Substantial effort is required to adequately evaluate its information, and this may not always be apparent to users. This is particularly challenging for students…[1]

Web sites can change over night, and students must develop the information literacy skills that will enable them to evaluate sites quickly and accurately. iSEEK™ Education Searchblade™ is a great place for students to discover trustworthy reference materials. Read on to learn what else students can do to ensure the resources they cite are reliable.

1. Every site has a purpose, and you must discover what it is. Advertisements, propaganda, and intentional misinformation can be designed to look reliable. Remember that all commercial sites, even popular names like Microsoft® and Crayola®, carry some kind of bias – they want to sell you something!

2. Find out more about the author of a site. If there is no “About Us” or “Biography” page available for the author, go to iSEEK™ Web and search against the name. In your iViews (left-hand categories), look for institutions the author may be associated with. Dig deeper! The author should be an expert in the field in which he/she is writing.

3. Find out more about the institution or organization behind the site. Is it a valid entity? How can you double check? Remember that universities often have .edu URLs and government organizations often have .gov URLs, but these extensions have been abused. Internet users can no longer rely on them as an absolute assurance of authority.

4. Check for the timeliness of the information. Authoritative sites will display the publication date as well as the date that the page was last updated. The timeliness of a given topic will vary. For example, an article about AIDS research from 1997 wouldn’t be timely, but an essay on reflection versus action in Hamlet from the same year would not have lost its luster.

5. Verify all facts in at least two places before including them in your paper. Sometimes called the “triangulation method,” this is a commonly accepted way to assure that the facts you have included in your paper are verifiable and not merely the bias of a single author.

6. Think about your citation as you conduct your research. Even Internet sites must be cited in a research paper. On an authoritative site, you will be able to easily find most or all of the information required for a proper MLA or APA citation. For more information on citing Internet sources, visit the Library of Congress’ How to Cite Electronic Sources.

7. Discover a site’s authority by looking at the quality of sites that link to it. To uncover such associative information, go to http://www.alexa.com/, type in the URL of the resource you have found, choose “Site Ranking,” and click “Go.” You will find information about site traffic as well as a list of sites that link to your resource; it’s authority by association, and it’s not a perfect art, but it’s a good trick to know.

iSEEK™ in Action

Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL) has opened its virtual doors to iSEEK™ Education. What does that mean for you? Users can now access over 1,200 free McREL resources in the areas of research-based education standards, subject-area lesson plans, curriculum development, school reform, and more! McREL is dedicated to producing research-driven education solutions, and iSEEK is proud to welcome them as an education partner!

Get Involved

Does your school have what it takes to be an iSEEK™ Authoritative Resource? Do your teachers deserve recognition for the quality materials they’ve produced? Would you like to share your knowledge with educators around the globe? For more information on becoming an iSEEK™ partner in education, email education@iseek.com.

Want to learn more?

Receive an introduction to hundreds of thousands of FREE tools and resources to support research, instruction, and student progress. Join us for a free webinar on Thursday, October 16 at 4 p.m. EDT. Email education@iseek.com for details.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 25th, 2008 at 4:03 pm and is filed under iSEEK Education Newsletter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.