NEW! Thanks to Renee Agatsuma of Garfield High School for sharing her information on evaluating web pages, based on Kathy Schrock's work!

Powerpoint
Handout

There are many resources online for helping students learn how to evaluate information found on the Internet. One of the primary challenges of this material from the scientific standpoint is that very few pages are peer-reviewed or have gone through the traditional methods of receiving feedback from a publisher. Therefore, information found online should be subject to additional scrutiny. Listed below are a few select web sites that address this issue.

Evaluating Web Pages: A Web Quest
Valenza, J. (2001)
http://mciu.org/~spjvweb/evalwebteach.html
This site provides an excellent, easy to use lesson for 9-12 graders. Students break up into groups of four and evaluate a series of web sites with an eye to content, authority/credibility, bias/purpose, and usability/design. They then rank the web pages and record their observations. The whole class discusses results. Sample web sites to use are included.

Five Criteria for Evaluating Web Pages, Cornell University Library
Kapoun, J. (1998)
http://www.library.cornell.edu/okuref/webcrit.html
This site provides a straightforward checklist that would be easy for students to use. Includes separate columns for 'Evaluation of Web Documents' and 'How to Interpret the Basics' for the following categories: accuracy, authority, objectivity, currency, and coverage.

The Web-Teaching Zack to Think, Educational Renaissance Planners
November, A. (1998)
http://www.anovember.com/articles/zack.html
This article is worth reading just for the true example of a high school student who found a web site written by a Professor at Northwestern University denying the existence of the Holocaust. November discusses how to use multi-search engines such as profusion (http://www.profusion.com) and meta-web information such as a link command in order to evaluate pages. For example, typing "link:" and then the url (without quotations or space after the color) in AltaVista (http://www.altavista.com), followed by the Search button, brings up all the pages that link to a page in question. It may be necessary to truncate the url (cut off the end) in order for this to work.

Evaluating Web Resources, Widener University, Wolfgram Memorial Library
Alexander, J., and Tate, M. (1999)
http://www2.widener.edu/Wolfgram-Memorial-Library/webevaluation/webeval.htm
This site contains a teaching module with supporting materials (evaluation checklists, power point presentations, and web page examples). A suggested method for teaching the module is provided.

Kirk, E. (2002) Evaluating Information Found on the Internet
http://www.library.jhu.edu/elp/useit/evaluate/index.html
This Johns Hopkins page provides a comprehensive discussion of the basic criteria for evaluating all forms of information, including the Internet. It discusses authorship, publishing body, point of view, referral to and/or knowledge of the literature (context), accuracy or verifiability of details, currency, and the importance of understanding how search engines work.

Ormondroyd, J., Engle, M., and Cosgrave, T. (2001) How to Critically Analyze Information Sources, Cornell University Libraries
http://www.library.cornell.edu/okuref/research/skill26.htm
This resource is similar to the one above. Separates description into initial appraisal (author, date, edition, publisher, title) and content analysis (intended audience, objective reasoning, coverage, writing style, and evaluative reviews).