Last week I began unfolding the syllabus for our 7th grade Digital Literacy course.  The first lesson, OneNote, focused on using Microsoft’s OneNote 2007 as an electronic notebook/three-ring binder.  This week’s topic, Website Evaluation, examines some basic principles for determining the usefulness of online information:

Despite having access to high-quality databases, periodicals, and print materials, students typically rely on the web when conducting research…and there is no shortage of available “information”.  A few months ago, Google announced that it had identified 1 trillion unique URLs on the web and that individual pages were being added at the rate of several billion per day.  How then, with an over-abundance of resources and a over-reliance on the validity of electronic information, can students learn to discern credible sources?

There are a number of excellent guides to website evaluation, including those created by Kathy Schrock and Joyce Valenza.  To guide our students, we utilized elements of New Mexico State University’s “Evaluation Criteria” as outlined by Susan Beck:

• Authority
• Accuracy
• Objectivity
• Currency
• Coverage

Although written for a collegiate audience, these five points are also applicable and appropriate for middle and upper school students.

Authority

Given that anyone can publish anything to the web, the issue of authority is paramount for today’s students.  At a minimum, a website should include the author and/or sponsoring organization, and this information should in turn be researched.  If authorship is not provided, the URL, domain, and Whois can provide clues to the site’s origin.  As rule of thumb, however, students should not utilize sources that cannot be properly attributed to a credible individual or organization.

Accuracy

It can be very challenging for students to determine the accuracy of information; after all, they are not content-area experts.  However, students should be encouraged to validate/corroborate information using multiple sources, and be wary of any site that does not include proper citations.  Wikipedia can be useful in teaching/reinforcing this valuable lesson (it clearly marks pages that lack reliable references) but students must be reminded that in general there is very little quality control on the web.

Objectivity

The Internet is unquestionably the world’s largest soapbox, and students often have difficulty differentiating fact from opinion.  While sites like PETA and the NRA clearly offer a slanted point of view, others are more subtle in their subjectivity.  Resources like StudentNewsDaily can help students learn to identify bias; each Wednesday they feature an example of biased reporting and questions about the excerpt, along with definitions of the types of media bias.

Currency

Perhaps the greatest strength of digital media is that it can be updated quickly and easily.  As new information comes forth, pages devoted to timely topics should change to reflect current thinking.  Many webpages, however, are static, dated, and consequently erroneous.  Good sites are updated regularly and indicate when they were last modified.  The Wayback Machine can be useful for viewing a site’s changes over time if update information is not provided.

Coverage

Coverage concerns the intrinsic value, breadth and depth of the topic(s) being addressed on a page.  Electronic coverage often differs from print coverage, and as The New York Times noted this summer, students read differently online.  As with accuracy, students should utilize multiple sources to ensure that they are getting a sufficiently comprehensive yet detailed overview of their reserach topic.

Into the Classroom

Although we explored and discussed sites that illustrated each of the five criteria, a “one-time” lesson will not make students competent at web evaluation.  To guide their efforts and connect the Digital Literacy Course to the broader curriculum, students were asked to use this rubric to evaluate one website related to their New Boy Cultural Research Project.  I encouage you to use and tweak it at will; with a trillion-plus pages to choose from, there are plenty of opportunities for students to practice.

Posted: 09|11|08 at 8:54 am. Filed under: Digital Literacy.
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