Evaluating Web Pages
Information on the web needs to be evaluated for quality, accuracy, scholarship, and currency. This page offers some advise, a few tutorials and some links all to help with evaluating Web pages. If you have any questions regarding evaluating internet resources please feel free to "Ask a Librarian" or visit the reference desk in person.
Evaluating Internet Resources
1. Look at the URL to determine what type of organization produced the site.
.com is a commercial site.
.edu is an academic site.
.gov is a government site.
.org is usually a non-profit organization.
.net is a networked service provider.
.mil is a military site.
Country/Region Specific Domain names: A list of various domains such as .uk (United Kingdom) and .de (Germany) are available from NORID
- Remember that a page's country/region of origin does not imply that the page is about that country/region or that it is written in the native language(s) of that country/region.
2. Look at the URL to determine who produced the site (or who posted it, at least).
- name is usually someone's name, or part of their name. You can try to look them up by partial name and institution in WhoWhere?.
3. Consider the following questions. Weigh the answers for each carefully.
Is an author listed? Of the web page and/or the information? (check meta tags - show/view source)
What are the credentials of the author? (Professor, Doctor, Specialist, Member of an Organization.....)
Is there a bias or a commercial interest? (written about sneakers by the Nike corporation)
Who is the intended audience of the page? (Students, Experts, Brittany Spears fans.....)
When was the page last updated? How current is the information?
Are references, citations, or links to other pertinent resources included?
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Evaluation Criteria - These links are to pages that can help you evaluate web pages.
General
Subject specific
Tutorials - Offers 'how to' information on evaluation in form of a tutorial.
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