Blog for week 6

Lecture Summary:

Today's lecture was about how authentic the world wide web is and how anyone can put anything on the internet. Sources found on the internet should always be evaluated to check that they are credible sources to get information from, even with sites that you have to pay to see the information it could still be very bias or incorrect. Just because a site free to view does not mean it is not trustworthy or bad. A very good website with references and that relates to what you are looking for can sometimes be like trying to find a needle in a hay stack.

Tutorial Summary:

In the tutorial today we were asked to evaluate two of the following websites. http://www.ithaca.edu/library/training/think.html, http://www.taftcollege.edu/newTC/Academic/INCO48/sec6-4.htm, and http://lib.nmsu.edu/instruction/eval.html.

When evaluating two of these websites the criteria that should be used to base whether these sites are authentic were accuracy, authorship, purpose, detail/design and the website's overall worth to the user. During the tutorial we were also placed into groups of three to four for our group assignment and begin discussing how we would approach the group assignment.

List and compare strategies for evaluating information found on websites using the following webpages: http://www.ithaca.edu/library/training/think.html http://www.taftcollege.edu/newTC/Academic/INCO48/sec6-4.htm
http://lib.nmsu.edu/instruction/eval.html

The first website offers general information about evaluating and criticalling reviewing sources found on the web but does not give an in depth look on tips evaluating web sources. The site is a good beginners guide on the fundamentals on what to look for on a web page in terms of authenticity.

Website two focuses more on the content, copyright laws, citations and the domain names. Different domain names mean the website is affliated with different groups or organizations. For example a URL with the ending .gov means a nonmilitary government entity website and a URL with .edu means it is an educational institution website.

Website three covers five main points on what to look for and evaluate for an online website. The list is authority, accuracy, objectivity, currency, and coverage. Under these headings the webpage has a few dot points on what the heading means. With this in mind I think that this site offers little information on evaluating web sources but is still useful. If all three websites were to be published into one website then this one website would offer the most information on how to evaluate a website.