FINDING & EVALUATING WEBSITES

Adapted from http://www.slideshare.net/saguaro5/finding-and-evaluating-websites-2283483

PROBLEM?

Cause: Over 85% of first year college students only use common search engines for finding information. Baidu, Wikipedia, etc.

Effect: They don’t get the best information.

CRITERIA FOR EVALUATING A WEBSITE

AuthorityCurrencyAccuracyObjectivityContent

AUTHORITY

Is the author named? Does the author have the necessary

education or experience? Is the page part of an individual's

site or part of an organization's?  Who is the sponsor?  Is contact information available for

the author or the sponsor?

ACCURACY

Is the site free of noticeable errors?

Are the facts valid compared to other reliable sources?

Does the author give proper attribution to borrowed information or knowledge?

OBJECTIVITY

Does the author have a bias, taking a position on an issue, or giving only one side of the story?

Is the site designed to promote or sell a service or product?

What's the purpose of the site? 

CURRENCY

Does the web page show when it was last updated?

Is the information up-to-date?

How current are the links?  Have some expired or moved?

CONTENT

Does the site offer something unique that is not found elsewhere?

Is the subject well-researched and covered comprehensively? Is information cited properly?

Is the information well organized?

ALTERNATIVES TO GOOGLE

There are many search engines that students should use.Some curate information.

DIRECTORIES/INDICES

Librarian’s Index to the Internetwww.ipl.org

Yahoo directory dir.yahoo.com

www.dmoz.org

SUBJECT SPECIFIC SEARCH ENGINES

Healthline-health informationhttp://www.healthline.com(Not sure I’d call it a search engine.)

MathSearch-mathhttp://www.math.niu.edu/~rusin/known-math/index/mathsearch.html

DOMAIN SPECIFIC SEARCH ENGINES

Searchedu.comSearches by .edu, .mil, .gov etc.

WANT MORE?

Try http://www.searchengineguide.com/searchengines.html

A search engine directory/guide

References

Cornell University Library. (2014). Evaluating Web Sites: Criteria and Tools. Retrieved from http://olinuris.library.cornell.edu/ref/research/webeval.html on April 8, 2014.

Carlock, D. (2014). Finding and Evaluating Websites. Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/saguaro5/finding-and-evaluating-websites-2283483 on April 8, 2014.