M.E. LaZerte High School Library

Assessing the Authority and Validity of Internet Information

Use the checklist to help assess your sites.

Hint 1: How to Start

Use the Advanced Search feature of the search engine.

Hint 2: URL Info

Looking at the uniform resource locator, or web address, may help you assess the validity of the web site, as the domain gives you some information.

.com - Commercial site

.edu - American educational or research web site. Warning: A site found on a university or college server does not guarantee its validity. Many universities host student and faculty personal Web pages.

.ca - Canadian site

.uk - British site

.gov - Government site (Canadian federal government sites are .gc.ca, Alberta government is gov.ab.ca, etc.)

.org - Organization - may or may not be non-profit

Tilde (~) - Often (not always) a tilde in an address indicates a personal page.

If you are not sure about the origin of the site, try truncating (shortening) the URL to check the home page.

Sample Evaluation Activity

Your assignment is to find a timeline of the events of September 11, 2001. Using the checklist above, evaluate the pages found at http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/11/chronology.attack/ or BBC News: America's Day of Terror - Timeline and at http://www.patriotresource.com/wtc/timeline/sept11.html.

Which page do you think is the most trustworthy? Why? Find another good web resource for this assignment, and another bad one. Be prepared to justify your choices.

Remember, the easiest way to find excellent electronic resources is to use not the Internet, but the subscription databases available to you through your school or public library! See the Online Databases page (in school only) for more information.

Choosing a Search Engine/Strategy

http://www.library.ualberta.ca/guides/criticalevaluation/index.cfm This is a comprehensive and concise site at the University of Alberta library, which includes a list of evaluation criteria and links to other evaluation sites.

Senior High Source at 2Learn.ca - great resources related to your studies. Click on Web How-to's for Internet searching tutorials, information on search engines as well as on plagiarism, citing sites, and email and media literacy

Noodle Tools - A suite of tools for Internet research, assisting researchers with developing a search strategy and creating an MLA-style bibliography online.

	NoodleQuest - Assists researchers in selecting the best search tool for the job.
	Choose the Best Search for Your Information Needs - Offers suggestions on how and where to search for what you need.

Search Tools

Search Engines	Search Directories	Metasearch Engines	Clustering Engines
Google AlltheWeb	Yahoo Librarians' Internet Index	Dogpile Metacrawler	Clusty Kartoo

Web Evaluation

George C. Gordon Library Evaluating Web Resources Checklist

Here is a checklist to use while you are searching for valid information.
http://www.wpi.edu/Academics/Library/Help/PDF/evalchecklist.pdf

Evaluating Internet Research Sources

Robert Harris developed the CARS approach to determine quality of information (material applies not only to information found on the Internet)

	Credibility – authoritative
	Accuracy – correct, current, gives the whole truth
	Reasonableness – fair, balanced, objective
	Support – supplies documentation

Taken from Harris, Robert. "Evaluating Internet Research Sources." VirtualSalt. 17 Nov. 1997. 02 April 2002. Used with permission. http://www.virtualsalt.com/evalu8it.htm

This site is the property of M.E. LaZerte High School, Edmonton Public Schools. While you are most welcome to use this site, its organization, all annotations, and most activities are copyrighted, and permission must be sought for their reproduction. E-mail questions to C. Peterson, M.E. LaZerte High School Teacher Librarian, at cynthia dot peterson at epsb dot ca (replace the word "at" with the @ symbol; "dot" with a period). Last updated Oct. 2/06