Evaluating Information Found on the World Wide Web

Overall, information found on the Internet is not as reliable as information found in books, magazines, or other printed sources. Steep printing costs and editing or reviewing processes have kept printed sources largely limited to a relatively small group of people and organizations. On the other hand, literally anybody can publish anything they want on the Web for virtually no cost at all. A twelve-year old can pass himself off as a college professor, or a surgeon can make herself seem to be an expert archaeologist.

Before using information from a Web site, ask yourself what you know about:

• The Author,
• The Information on the Web page,
• The Sponsor of the Web site, and
• The Homepage itself.

AUTHOR

• Who is the author of the information?
• What is their background; where did they get their knowledge?
• Are they recognized by others as an authority on this subject?
• Have they published on this subject elsewhere (books, magazine articles, etc.)?
• What is the author's purpose in providing this information?
  • Do they or their affiliated organizations have a political or other bias?
  • Do they seem to have a hidden agenda that they're trying to push on others?

INFORMATION

• Is this is the original source of the information, or is this a (possibly misrepresented) quote from another source?
• Does the information seem to be accurate, reliable and valid?
• Is the information balanced and objective, or is it one-sided, incomplete, or biased towards a particular viewpoint?
• How does the information compare with other related sources?
• Who is the intended audience?

SPONSOR

• What person or organization sponsors the Web page or the entire Web site?
• Look for things like .../~johnson or .../users/jones in the address, which shows that this is just somebody's personal Web page.
• Be aware that you can easily "buy" Web site names like "www.thegreatest.com".
• Does the sponsor have a bias or other purpose for "pushing" this information?
• Paid subscription sites, like Encyclopedia Britannica or ProQuest, typically have paid money to verify the information on their site; that's why they charge to access them.

HOMEPAGE

• Currency
• When was the page last updated?
• How often is it updated?
• Stability
• Is the site sponsored by a long-standing organization that will be around for some time, or is it somebody's personal Web page?
• Awards
• Sometimes you can use Web page awards as an indication that other view the content as being reliable or trustworthy, but many "awards" are fairly meaningless.
• References
• Are links to other pages on the same topic provided?
• Are other printed or electronic references cited?
• Popularity
• Do they provide a counter to show how often this site has been accessed by others?
• How many other Web pages link to this page?
• Go to www.altavista.com and type "link:www.homepage.org" (use the correct address instead of www.homepage.org) in the search field.
• Contact
• Is an email address or link provided so you can contact the author?
• Organization
• Is the page well-organized, nicely formatted, showing care in its presentation?

Finally, a note about other online information sources. You need to be even more cautious when evaluating information found on Listservs, in email messages, and in Usenet newsgroup postings, largely because it's even more difficult to find information about the author's background and qualifications. Use the same questions that are listed above to evaluate these sources, but realize that there will be many questions that you won't be able to answer.

Information for this listing was gathered from Marcia Bair, Brooks Haderlie, Washington State University Libraries, Idaho State Library Teleconference (02/11/98), and the following Web sites:

http://www.isu.edu/library/internet/ineteval.htm 

thorplus.lib.purdue.edu/~techman/evaluate.htm  

http://campusgw.library.cornell.edu/

http://medstat.med.utah.edu/navigator/module3/evaluation.htm

www.clearinghouse.net/ratings.html

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