Education

Evaluating Web Results: A Contextual Approach

A contextual approach uses information found in a variety of sources to evaluate the information found in single source. A contextual approach promotes critical thinking by encouraging the researcher to question a source and make “reasoned judgements of information quality” informed by multiple sources.

Comparison

"Comparison is the examination of the similarities and differences between two or more items. When applied to the evaluation of web sites, comparing means analyzing the similarities and differences in the content of two or more web sites to each other or comparing the content from web sites to other information formats such as newspaper or magazine articles, peer-reviewed journal articles, or scholarly books."

Corroboration

"To corroborate information is to verify it against one or more different sources...Since more information is available and accessible [on the web], this information can be used to verify individual Web sites that may be questionable. The more sources that can be found to corroborate the information, there is a greater probability that the information is reliable.”

Excerpts from:

Meola, M. (2004). Chucking the checklist: A contextual approach to teaching undergraduates web-site evaluation. Libraries and the Academy, 4(3), 331-344.

What are the characteristics of a scholarly publication in the digital age?

Web publishing has complicated the identification of scholarly communications. Traditional cues such as publisher, press, and durability are no longer constant in the world of digital, scholarly communications. Findings from Leah Halliday’s work with scholars, librarians, and researchers has identified three characteristics:

Trustworthiness

• Scholarly Publications, such as articles and books, should not be changed after digital distribution.  
• Different versions should be clearly identified so as to alert the community to changes.
• To satisfy all potential interest, trustworthiness should be based on 'institutionalised' measures such as peer review and this process should be evident to the community.
• Each publication should have at least one identifiable author.

Publicity

• The potential audience must be made aware that the publication exists. Libraries are great partners for publicity.
• The publication should have metadata containing a minimum set of information, preferably including information about all versions. Metadata will enable others to find it.

Accessibility

• The author must intend that the publication be made publicly available in a durable form over the long term.
• The publication must be durably recorded on some medium.
• The publication must be reliably accessible and retrievable over time. Supporting institutions have a responsibility to support long-term accessibility.
• There should be a commitment not to withdraw the publication by the author(s).
• The publication must be publicly available, i.e. available to any member of the public on demand as of right, whether for payment of a fee or not.
• The publication should have stable identifiers.

Works Cited

Halliday, L. (2001). Scholarly communication, scholarly publication and the status of emerging formats.Information Research, 6(4). Retrieved from: http://InformationR.net/ir/paper111.html