When you're using the web for research, you need to evauluate the web sites that you find to make sure the information you find there is true and up-to-date. You need to make sure the information you find is trustworthy. But how can you be sure about the information when anyone can make a web page, post it on the Internet and also lie about who they are?!

Here are some questions to ask about a site that will help you judge whether or not the information found there is dependable and accurate:

• Who made it?
  Who created the site? Are the person(s) who contributed the information qualified to do so? What are their credentials? You can look up the author's name in a search engine like Google and see what background information may be available on that person.
  Credible sites have some things in common:
  • There is contact information for the source; usually an e-mail address, phone number and street address. Often the author's credentials will be listed.
  • Pages within the site look similar, with the same background design and possibly a logo on every page.
  • The site shows signs of being proofread; there are no spelling or grammar errors.
• What is the purpose of the site?
  Why was the site put on the web? Was it to sell, persuade, advertise, inform or teach? Many sites, especially .com sites are actually giant informercials.There are some clues you can look for:
  • What type of domain does it come from? The URLs (addresses) of government sites end in .gov, military sites in .mil, educational institutions in .edu and non-profit sites in .org. Is the domain appropriate to the type of information?
  • Is the page someone's personal page? If so, the URL will often contain a tilde (~), a percent sign (%), or the words "members" or "users."
  • What entity or organization has paid to put the material on the web? Is it a reputable and reliable source for the kind of information you are seeking? For example, www.nytimes.com would be a reliable source for news, as www.nih.gov, the National Institutes of Health would be a dependable source for health information.
  • Are there a lot of ads on the site? If there are lot of ads, you may want to think twice about whether the information found there is unbiased.
• Is the information found on the site current?
  There are many sites on the Internet that have been "abandoned;" after they were first published no on has ever updated them again. There should be a "last updated" date near the top or bottom of the site's home page. If there are many "dead" links (links that no longer work), it may be also indicate that no one is updating the site on a regular basis.
• Is the site well-organized and easily navigated?
  If it's difficult to find exactly what you are looking for and/or one part of the site contradicts another, it may be better to look for another site. Does the site provide well chosen links to other resources on the topic? Credible sites usually link to equally dependable and credible resouces.

For an excellent Online Tutorial on Evaluating Web Sites from the UC Berkeley Library, see http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/Evaluate.html.

For additional information on teaching students to validate information accessed via the Internet, see Alan November web pages on Internet Information Literacy for students. Alan November is an internationally recognized leader in the field of educational technology:
http://www.anovember.com/infolit/index.html

For November's interesting web evaulation case study article "The Web -- Teaching Zack to Think," click here.