Week 6-Evaluation and Authentication

Lecture summary

This lecture talks about the evaluation and authentication of web materials. Firstly, it stated that data that is "fit for use", can be appropriate for one person but completely inappropriate for another. Further, it states that the web is an open protocol which mean that anyone with a computer can access it in the comfort of their own home. Furthermore, the information on the web bypass filters which ensure the quality and validity of materials. There are a few key problems associated with the web, these include: No control of who and what is published on the web, currency and reliabilityof materials. The web was developed from ARPANET with it's purpose being connectivity, access, retrieval and sending of data. back then, there was little concern about the network security. Quality of web materials are not always assured. When evaluating a source, consider the following: Credibility; Accuracy; Reasonableness; Support. Finally when evaluating a web, you need to consider whether, it is "a personal page or site", "Domain name appropriate for the content "?"Published by an entity that makes sense"

Tutorial

Week six's tute session involved, evaluation and authentication of web resources. Our first task was to review the ICYouSee Critical Thinking page which can be found at http://www.ithaca.edu/library/training/think.html. We were then required to describe a number of strategies they stated, in our own words. In addition, we were required to compare these strategies to what we found on INCO 48 webpage
http://www.taftcollege.edu/newTC/Academic/INCO48/sec6-4.htm, or the
Good, the Bad and the Ugly webpage
http://lib.nmsu.edu/instruction/eval.html. After visiting ICYouSee Critical Thinking page, the list of strategies which i derived on evaluating information on webpages include:

• Ensure you are in the correct location:
• When unsure:
• Think about the source:
• Take into account what is taking place:
• View the content:
• "Distinguish web pages from pages found on the web"
  

I have decided to compare these strategies to that found on the INCO 48 webpage. Inco 48 webpage had a number of strategies. Firstly, it stated that you must look closely at the domain name to discover the publishing body. Some examples of domain are:

.com :a commercial business, organization, or company
.edu :an educational institution
.int :an international organization
.gov :a nonmilitary government entity
.mil :a military organization
.net :other organizations: nonprofit, nonacademic
.uk, .au, ca, jp, etc. :country codes denoting servers found in other countries

The webpage also state that you must consider the purpose of the webpage, i.e. was it to sell products or does the the author present an agenda. In addition, you must check for currency of the page, as regularly updated pages have high reputation. Finally, when evaluating web resources, you must consider the "Ten C's". These include:

Content:
The purpose of the article e.g. is it serious or is it of a comedic nature.
Credibility:
Does the author have any qualification or life experience on the topic in which he/she wrote the article?
Critical Thinking:
Can you identify the author, publisher or edition, as you would with other "traditional" resources.
Copyright:
You must recognize that someone created it even if it's not stated.
Citation:
The resources must be cited thus; identifying source used and give author credibility.
Continuity:
Is the site regularly updated?
Censorship:
Do you have a "moderated discussion list?"
Connectivity:
What sort of connection does the user require and also can multi-user connect to it at busy times.
Comparability:
Does the source have a comparable print?
Context:
Does your research require you to find opinion and narrative or does it require statistics.

More, after visiting the ICYouSee website, i was required to complete the "Reliving the Sixties: a Web Site Evaluation Assignment". I must evaluate two websites under these evaluatuion criteria: ACCURACY ~ AUTHORSHIP ~PURPOSE ~ DETAIL AND DESIGN ~ OVERALL WORTH.

Website 1: American cultural history 1960-1969

Accuracy: The content within this website, appear relatively accurate. To ensure that the content were in fact accurate, i visited various other websites to see any similarities to this website.

Authorship: Lone star college Kingswood library appear as a credible source. After looking at the entented references list, it is true to say that this is a credible source.

Purpose: The main purpose of this website is to inform users about the hsitory of America in particular, from 1960 to 1969.

Detail and design: The website shows extensive coverage of the history of American culture, ranging from fashion to arts. In addition, it is designed in a manner that visual aid is used to give a clearer view. Also, heading and subheadings are used to guide the readers.

Overall worth: Overall, i think that the content is relatively extensive and meets it's purpose. More, it was designed in a manner that, its productive rather than distractive.

Website 2:The Sixties Project

ACCURACY: Once again, this is another website which appear to be very accurate. After reading the information, I found that there are no contradiction between what I already knew about the sixties and, what is said on this website.

AUTHORSHIP: As meantioned before, this source appear very accurate but on the contrary, the author's credibility is questionable as he is not very well known. Likewise, I tried to look up for information under his name but without seccess.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this website is mainly to present topic related to the sixties. It contain both scholar journals and peoples view and stories about the sixties. Above all, they aim to provide routes of collaboration and make available primary and secondary sources for researchers, students, teachers, writers and librarians interested in the Sixties.

DETAIL AND DESIGN: This website has a very wide coverage of the sixties ranging from history to political science. In addition, it is designed in a very logical manner. There is constant use of headings and subheadings to guide the readers. Moreover , there is a usage of simple colours and not animations which can overshadow the main purpose of the website.

OVERALL WORTH: I think that this site is relatively good as the there was extensive coverage and also, good design which is conductive to it's purpose. Nevertheless, this website was last updated in 1999 which make's me question both the accuracy and the reliability of this source.

This week's session has allowed me to put into practice, the procedures which one may take to evaluate a website. As a result, future research will be conducted with a high level of awareness about credible and non credible informations found on the web.

Week 5-Using searchengines

Lecture summary

Today's lecture concentrated on the topic of "search engine". It stated that a search engine is a "web-based program that crawls the internet, creating indices of websites from the texural information contained on them". Some examples of search engines include:

• Google http://www.google.com/
• Yahoo! http://www.yahoo.com/
• AltaVista http://www.altavista.com/
• Alltheweb http://www.alltheweb.com/
  
  

Furthermore, it stated that there are problems associated with search engines. The problems ranged from too many results with irrelevent content, to out of date and erroneous result. The lecture also briefly touched on Directories. It stated that directories are human edited. Moreover, it stated that the presence of directories ensure quality and prevents pages being submitted automatically which can lead to other problems. Some exmaple of Directories are:

• DMOZ http://dmoz.org/
• Google Directory http://directory.google.com/
• Yahoo Directory http:// dir.yahoo.com
• Look Smart http://www.looksmart.com/
• About http://www.about.com/

Tutorial summary

This tute session involved reviewing website such as http://www.monash.com/spidap.html, to generate a list of four strategies that will help structure a good search. We then completed an internet quiz which can be found by clicking on the following links: http://www.siteseen.co.uk/questions/historytrivia/. Moreover, we were required to use the four search strategies to help us find the answers on various search engine. After visiting http://www.monash.com/spidap.html, some of the four search strategies are as follow:

1. Know where to look first
2. Fine-tune your keywords
3. Be refined
4. Query by example

During the course of the online quiz, i experienced some difficulties answering some question. To help me find the answer to those questions, i visted google. Furthermore, i used three out of the four search strategies to ensure my search was as effective as i can possibly make it. First of all, i knew where to look first. i started off by going to google as it's a widely used search engine. Second, i fine-tuned my keywords and used some search tips which i learned earlier in this course. I used double quotation marks and the plus and minus sign to ensure it's suched as it is, and to also force the inclusion and exclusion of various words. Thirdly, i refined my search. These, three strategies combined, were very effective as it didn't take me long to find the answer to the quiz. So far in this module, i have learned a number of things. First of all, i have learned that alot of information on the web can be from a non credible source. Furthermore, the information can be out of date. Secondly, there are human edited source known as directories. This ensure that information presented are current and valid. Thirdly, i haved learned that there are alot of problems associated with search engines. There are often too many result with irrelevant content or the contents are usually out of date or erroneous. On the other hand, there are strategies which can be applied to reduce such problems. These include, fine-tuning your keyword, query by example, knowing where to look first and be refined. To add to this, i have learned some very important information in this tutorial session. Since i now know the four search strategies, i will be able to take on the upcooo2 research assignment.

Reading 1: Robert Harris-Web Search Strategies

On the web, informations are placed into 3 categories. These categories are, Free, Visible Web, Free, Invisible Web and finally, Paid Databases over the Web. When searching on a particular topic, be sure to include variants of the word used or try to find alternative words instead of the original word in the phrase. Moreover, puting your phrase in a quotation mark ensure it's searched actly as it is. Using more than one search engine will give you more hits. Typing only one keyword will have too many hits of which many are irrelevant. On the other hand, using several keywords will minimise the hits to the most relevant. You will also need to decide whether you are looking for anyone's opinon on the topic or an expert's view. moreover, you can guess the website by puting the name in the middle. e.g. for information on harvey fresh, you can try look it up at http://www.harveyfresh.com/. Finally, if you forgot to write down the url of the page in which you retrieved certain document, simply look for the most unusual phrase in the document and type it into a search engine. This way, you are most likely to find the site of retrival.

Reading 2: The History Of The Internet (Chap4- Search Engine)

Directories are electronic library catalogue which organise articles in their order of relevance to your search. Moreover, it does all within a minute. Apart from directories, there are many different search engines but some of the most common and most flexible are: Google, Altavista, and Northern light.

Google: It's a misspelling of Googol which sounded cool. It was established in 1998 by two Stanford graduate. It has the largest coverage of any search engine and also has numerous useable references. Furthermore, it highlight your keywords within a document.

Alta Vista: opened in 1995 as an offshoot of digital computers. It has upto 24,000 categories. More, it's the first to have a translation service, image and sound file search.

Northern light: It's a private company consisting of 40 researcher. It was established in 1995 and now have upto 350 million indexs. Further, it has journal articles which bypass the search-engine spiders. Furthermore, journal articles can be ordered at a small charge.

Reading 3: Search engine optimisation for companies

"WebSight Australia" is a company which aim to increase the popularity of small business and companies through the optimisation of their search engine. Firstly, they analyse your website and provide recommendations for any changes. Secondly, they will provide you with a list of popular keywords that are relevant to your website. Furthermore they also require a list of 2-3 phrases used to find your website. Thirdly, the popularity of your link on various websites will be improved. Finally, they provide you with the progress of your campaign search engine optimisation campaign.