Abstract: Even good searching techniques can result in a list of pages from the Internet of questionable value.  How can you and your students tell the difference?  This presentation reviews evaluation criteria based on Susan Beck’s “The Good, The Bad & The Ugly: or, Why It’s a Good Idea to Evaluate Web Sources” and demonstrates a method of teaching people to apply the criteria to Internet search results. Experiences gained from teaching college students in this manner are shared as are tips for finding sites to use for demonstration purposes in teaching these concepts.  Handouts include this page of sources and web sites, Susan Beck’s Evaluation Criteria, and a blank Web Site Evaluation form which can be duplicated for student use.

• Why do search results require evaluation?
• Internet guidance
(Several of these site include explanations of the lack of quality control on the Internet.)
• The Evaluation Workshop
• Brainstorming
• Use Word, notepad, or a White Board to take down students' ideas
• compare those ideas to:

• Susan Beck's Evaluation Criteria   (Unauthorized print version)
• Students can be led through these criteria
• Point out the questions which they must answer to the best of their ability for each web site.
• Ask if there is anything that doesn't make sense.

 
• Practice Sites for students (hands-on component)

Some of these sites have been compiled for specific course-related needs while others were created as “general interest” comparisons.
• How to select your own sites for comparison:
• Include at least one site that is reputable and has clear information available.
• Make sure you include at least two or more domain names in a set.
• Look at the 20th or 45th screen of a search in any search engine for less reliable sites.
• Look for different perspectives on a topic.
• Find a few sites that have little or no easily observed information for certain criteria.
• Don't include artificially bogus sites except to illustrate something in a demonstration.
• Harness the knowledge of faculty you work with (see the example of Math Sites: Pi)
• Other sample sites (S. Beck)
• Why not let students find their own sites to evaluate?
• If they are too interested in the content students find it difficult to focus on the evaluation criteria.
• When the content is new to them, only vaguely interesting, or completely out of their range of knowledge, it is easier for students to pay attention to the criteria.
• When they finally search for their own topics, they will have a greater awareness of the criteria.
• The Session
• Divide the class into groups (pair up expert & novice students if possible)
• Assign sites A, B, or C to each group (or pair) so that everyone is not starting on the same site.
• Students can print out the pages themselves, or pages can be provided for them in class (I usually do this to save time and printer hassles...)
• In a 50 minute class students should cover at least two sites from the list.
• Encourage group work and brainstorming.
• Regroup for a summary and debriefing.  Be sure to point out perspectives if your students don't pick them up.  Review techniques for finding out about authors and sponsors.
• Follow up with a session on locating journal, magazine and newspaper articles.  Have students compare information they retrieved from the web with that they found using an index.

• Anecdotes
• "How do we know if its accurate?"
• compare, compare, compare
• bring up a few Reference Books on the subject
• run a search on a General coverage database such as Expanded Academic ASAP
• "This isn't biased--I agree with it!"
• use terms such as "perspective" instead
• look at definitions of "bias"
• Great Questions:
• "Is this for real?!?"
• "Who is this author anyway?"
• It helps to have faculty investment in this.  If professors follow through with discussion and observations, the one shot session will have much more meaning.

• Other Sources:
• ILI-L (sponsored by the Instruction Section of ACRL)

send email to listproc@ala.org with the following message:  SUBSCRIBE ILI-L  your name


Web Sites and Sources;

Searching the World Wide Web
http://www.lib.wsc.ma.edu/wwwtips.htm
Here you will find links to many resources including obviously bogus web pages, sites with other evaluation criteria, and tutorials about using the Internet.

Sources:
Beck, Susan E.  "Evaluation Criteria."   The Good, The Bad & The Ugly: or, Why It’s a Good Idea to Evaluate Web Sources.  October 10, 2002.  New Mexico State University. <http://lib.nmsu.edu/instruction/evalcrit.html>.

Jacobson, Trudi, ed. Critical Thinking and the Web: Teaching Users to Evaluate Internet Resources.  Pittsburgh:  Library Instruction Publications., 2000.

Auer, Nicole J.  Bibliography on Evaluating Web Information.  Virginia Tech University Libraries. <http://www.lib.vt.edu/research/evaluate/evalbiblio.html>.
This excellent bibliography includes a list of Internet resources, sample evaluation forms, example web sites, print resources, listservs, and books.  If you stop here, you won’t be missing much.
 

Comments related to conference evaluations:

Thanks to those of you who took the time to fill out the evaluations for this conference.  If I had the chance, a followup question I would have liked to ask was--how did my presentation match the abstract I submitted to the conference planning committee?

Recently I have been involved in revising policies on Plagiarism on our campus and so I am more conscious of the possibility of being accused of "stealing" someone's work than I might otherwise have been.  Thus the constant referrals to Susan Beck's and others' work.  I am aware of other sets of evaluation criteria but do not believe in recreating what already works.

Apologies for mentioning my chapters in Trudi Jacobson's book, Critical Thinking and the Web:  Teaching Users to Evaluate Internet Resources. I didn't want people to think "so that's why she referred us to this" after they looked at the book.  I really find it an invaluable resource for all the chapters included and would recommend it regardless of whether I had been included or not.

...and finally, I have no illusions as to what people are doing in their own instruction sessions.  Everyone is using evaluation techniques. For those of you to whom my talk was "nothing new," realize that there were many in the audience who found it useful to their particular settings and experiences. If I had more than a half hour, I would have preferred to spend time sharing the ideas on evaluation that each of the instruction librarians attending the conference brought with them.   A workshop or brainstorming format would have been more conducive to this and may be something to explore for a future conference.  

As a follow-up for the conference organizers, I have recommended that there be a series of concurrent sessions next time so that attendees have a choice of which session to attend.

Once again, thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on my talk.  It gave me the opportunity to look back and reflect on my presentation.  I invite those of you who attended to contact me with any further thoughts or constructive feedback you have.

Corinne Ebbs
cebbs@wisdom.wsc.ma.edu
(413) 572-5464

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