OASIS: Evaluating Information from the World Wide Web

Evaluating Information from the World Wide Web

Anyone can publish anything on the Web.

The information you find on the web may not be screened or checked for accuracy! It is up to you to evaluate the quality of the material you find on the web.

Answering the following questions can help you judge the quality of a particular Web site:

Accuracy
- How reliable and error free is the information?
- If the information is presented as factual, what kind of documentation or references are provided?

Authority
- Is the author or source identified?
- What kind of qualifications does the author have?
- Is a credible sponsoring institution cited?
- Is there a link back to the sponsoring institution's home page?

Objectivity
- Is the site designed to inform, persuade, or sell?
- Is personal bias apparent?

Currency
- How recently was the site created or updated?

This kind of information can be located by checking the header, body, and footer of a web document.

Anyone can publish anything on the Web.