Week Six - Evaluation & Authentication -4th April 2008

Lecturer:


Dr Helen Cripps went through the context of wordl wide web
• Open protocols
• Open architecture


The context of the world –wide web, who publishes on the WWW that relates to autorship, authority and authenticity why publish on the WWW that relates to bias, accuracy and trustworthiness what is published on the WWW.

We went through if the Websites is trustworthy,what are you measuring? example the content, visual feel, navigation and ease-of-use.

When evaluating IQ on the WWW anyone can publish anything on the WebIt's often hard to determine a web page's authorship Even if a page is signed, qualifications aren't usually given sponsorship isn't usually indicated .



Tutorial:

in tut we had to look at a website

http://www.ithaca.edu/library/training/think.html

in my own words i was asked to briefly describe these stategies;


The question i asked myself was "why do i need the net" and would i be able to use reference books that are specific to the topic,than wasting hours to find the appropriate material. The second thing is don't believe every thing that you found on the web. any person can publish what ever they can. therefore its best to try to validate the authors argument by looking for links or references. The third thing is to have some knowledge about the author. what lead him to have this opinion. Lasty its good to try to ask your self the purpose of the site,why was this site created? knowing the answer to that question will give you some ideas about the content of the site.Its good to View the details given on the website, how well are they written.

The second part of the activity there is two website and i choosed to look at The good , The bad, and the ugly http://lib.nmsu.edu/instruction/eval.html.
This site explains how to evaluate a web-site. the discussion made by the author is based on the Authority, Rationality, Accuracy, Objectivity, Currency and its Coverage.


Thirdly we were to complete a website Evaluation Assignment on the Reliving the Sixties. i choosed american culture history, it talks about how to help the user gain a broad understanding and appreciation for the culture and history of the 1960s.


And lastly is to evaluate two sites using headings as follows.


Accuracy
Information provided here is highly accurate.
the reference list provided is well linked..and highly accurate in my opinion.

Authorship.
It was written by the Divisions of HIV/AIDS Prevention. National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention.

purpose.
The purpose is to give the user's information on the effect of AIDS on different ages, sex groups and issues involved with people that got AIDS such as Ethics, racial and economics.

Details & design
The details provided are many on different issues involving AIDS. It was designed very well. Extensive details are provided on this site.

Over-all worth.
The web-site is highly effective as it provides many information and is highly accurate.

(http://lib.nmsu.edu/instruction/eval.html)



Readings: URL

http://www.library.cornell.edu/olinuris/ref/webcrit.html .
This site is a guide for teaching under-graduate on how to evaluate information found on a web-site. The author covers five points which are
Accuracy. If your page lists the author and institution that published the page and provides a way of contacting him/her and . . .
Authority. If your page lists the author credentials and its domain is preferred (.edu, .gov, .org, or .net).
Objectivity. If your page provides accurate information with limited advertising and it is objective in presenting the information..
Currency. If your page is current and updated regularly (as stated on the page) and the links (if any) are also up-to-date.
Coverage. If you can view the information properly--not limited to fees, browser technology, or software requirement