Evaluating the Web

If you want to verify whether information from a website is relevant to what you are looking for, you can look for key information in an evaluation process.

Points to consider in the evaluation process.

• What is the nature of the website. For example, is it an educational domain, a news/magazine site or someone’s point of view in a blog.
  

• Who is the author, or person/organization that published the content. Are their credentials fitting to what they are publishing.
  

• Thinking of credentials, where does the source of the information come from.
  

• Does the information fulfil your search query or do you need to investigate further links/searches.
  

• When was the information published/reviewed. Do you require your information in any sort on timeline , or is it information where time doesn’t change the content eg History.
  

• Do other users find the information in this site useful. You can check the popularity of a site through bookmarks like del.ic.ious. How the site has been tagged by others can also indicate where it would be useful ie studies.
  

URL: http://www.sc.edu/beaufort/library/

AUTHOR: E. Chamberlain pages/bones/bones.shtml

INSTITUTION: The University of South Carolina Beaufort Library

The reliability and authority of the site / source / article

My first observation in regard to evaluating the above website was within the URL. edu is recognised as a top level domain, usually a university or college.

Secondly I noted the following information from the bottom on the home page:

"Bare Bones 101" was originally created in 2000 by Ellen Chamberlain, Library Director at the University of South Carolina Beaufort campus. She had previously co-authored BCK2SKOL, a tutorial on Internet basics that ran from 1995-2000. Although BCK2SKOL is no longer being updated, it is still available on the Web. In 2007 Ellen retired and "Bare Bones 101" is now being managed and updated by Melanie Hanes-Ramos, Assistant Director of the USC Beaufort South Campus Library." Chamberlain, E (2007)

When I conducted a further search into the name ‘Ellen Chamberlain’ I still came up with the same website. I did find a link to a new URL for the University of South Carolina Library. Exploring the new homepage I found a list of the Library staff.

I see that Ellen Chamberlain’s position of Library Director, is now held by Harvey Varnet D.A.

Melanie Hanes-Ramos is the Assistant Library Director.

I also searched del.ic.ious whether it had been bookmarked by other users.

As you can see by the above screenshot, the website I am evaluating has been bookmarked by 257 people.

The main ideas or subjects discussed in the article

The main subject of the ‘Bare Bones tutorial is based on how to improve websearch techniques. Extremely relevant to my initial search ‘Searching the web’.

The purpose for which the site was written (this might include any apparent external interest, intellectual motivation or contextual information)

The site was written as an educational tool into Internet Basics. Although the site is not being managed by the original author, Ellen Chamberlain (Library Director, University of South Carolina Beaufort campus), it is still being maintained by Melanie Hanes-Ramos (Assistant Director of the same campus library).

So at completion of the task I am quite happy that the Bare Bones tutorial was valid and fitting to my search result.

References:

Chamberlain, E (2007) Bare bones “Searching the Web “tutorial. Beaufort: University of South Carolina.Viewed 17 July 2008, http://www.sc.edu/beaufort/library/pages/bones/bones.shtml

WOW...... this post was a real challenge for me. Nothing to do with the actual task:)

GUESS WHAT?

Zoe has a brand new iMac !!

Soooo different to use than my little laptop. One disappointment though and I am sure Fiona has probably noticed what it may be. Yes, my screenshots, I tried to download Snagit but I can't get it for a mac:(

I may revert back to taking the screenshots on my laptop and saving them on USB, hopefully then able to get them on the Mac. I didn't have time to play tonight, my goal was to finish module 4 this week, screenshots took a backseat.

So if any Mac users out there have any hot tips for a newbie, I would love to hear:)