Guiding Students in Using the World Wide
Web for Research
Kristin Kubly
With the growth in popularity of the World Wide Web in the past few years,
many students see this new format as a one-stop-shopping place for information
and research. While there is some excellent information to be found on the
World Wide Web, there is also a great deal of material that would not be
suitable as a source for a college paper. It is important that educators
are able to guide students in using the World Wide Web appropriately by
teaching them to evaluate Internet resources using criteria designed to
weed out the authoritative sources.
The World Wide Web, with its ease of use and graphical savvy, has quickly
become a favored method of research for many college students. Using one
of the numerous Web resource guides or search engines available, it is fairly
easy to find at least some information on almost every conceivable subject
without a great deal of traditional library research. However, this accessibility
of information is not without its problems. One major issue for educators
is whether students are able to determine the quality of the information
they are accessing.
Much of the information available on the Web has not had the rigorous editing
and verification of facts through which traditional print or even commercial
electronic information sources must go. In general, information gets filtered
one of three ways. Sources published by authoritative sources such as the
federal government or a well-known organization are accepted at face value
to be valid. Information that has gone through some type of editorial or
peer review and published in a reputable journal is also widely considered
of good authority. Finally if it is evaluated by reviewers and/or librarians,
users tend to trust the information.1
Therefore, when students use their college library, they know that the information
contained within its walls has been evaluated by a librarian, and is considered
a reliable, informative source. When a database is searched for articles,
only journals that are considered professional or scholarly are usually
indexed. There are none of these filters on the World Wide Web. Libraries
may make the Web available to their patrons, but there is no way to control
the information that is accessed by it.
Because of this, it is crucial that students are able to evaluate the information
on the Web for its quality and veracity. Therefore, educators must be familiar
with the kind of sources out on the Web, and themselves be able to identify
which are legitimate so that they may guide students in using the Web for
research.
To be a critical World Wide Web user, one must first be aware of the strengths
and weaknesses of the the Internet. For example, the Web is a very good
place to find basic factual information such as financial statistics or
the address of a member of Congress. It also tends to be more current than
print sources, so it is an excellent place to go for very recent or even
breaking news stories. Its ability to expand a library's resources beyond
what it physically contains is another strength. For example, much of the
government information that smaller libraries did not have the room for
is now available for anyone to find.
For in-depth research, however, the Web generally offers little that would
be of value. Information on the Web often comes in bits and pieces, much
of which is of questionable authority. There is also a great deal of misconception
about just what type of information is available on the Internet. In general,
copyrighted material is not available. This includes the full-text of most
journals and copyrighted books or similar material. Some older books in
the public domain are available full-text, and some magazines and journals
do allow access to some of their articles. But the vast majority of information
on any given subject will not be found on the Internet for free. Students
just learning to do research need to realize that the Web is not a substitute
for the library.
However, knowing that many students will start their research with the World
Wide Web anyway, some librarians have attempted to guide students to authoritative
online documents by creating their own subject guides to Internet sources.
These guides contain lists of Web sites that have been examined and evaluated
by trained librarians, and are considered useful for student research. These
are often excellent places to start finding information on the Web. Many
also contain bibliographies of traditional print sources that should also
be consulted in order to remind students that not everything is available
online. Most academic library Web pages have some sort of subject guide
to the World Wide Web, or at least contain links to other sanctioned guides
that are academic in nature.
Yet not every student looking for information will begin with an academic
Internet resource guide. They must learn how to judge whether the sources
they find elsewhere are credible or objective. Especially when searching
for information on explosive issues such as abortion or racism, students
using documents on the Internet need to be aware of slanted viewpoints or
questionable statistics.
So how do we teach students to be critical users of the Internet? First,
it is important to know how most people go about looking for information
on the Web. One of the easiest and most popular ways to find information
on a subject is to use one of the many search engines now available. These
searchable databases of Web sites will scan the Internet for key words and
produce a list of sites that contain those words prominently on the page.
However, Internet novices (and even more experienced users), may have a
false assumption about search engines, thinking that results generated by
a search engine have undergone some type of filtering process. In general,
this is not the case. Most automated search engines look only for keywords
which is not the same as evaluating.
There are three separate components to a search engine: the selecting function
which identifies and gathers Web sources, the compiling function which stores
and makes these sources accessible, and the searching function which determines
the access points for retrieving Web pages.2 The selecting function may
have some evaluative components. On some search engines, people must register
their sites and have someone else decide whether to include them. Yahoo!
(http://www.yahoo.com) uses this method to decide which sites to include
in its index. This is a much more selective process than that used by many
search engines such as Lycos (http://lycos11.lycos.cs.cmu.edu/) which is
more comprehensive in its coverage, but does no evaluation of what it has
included.
Other search sites such as Magellan (http://www.mckinley.com) have human
evaluators rate pages against a specific set of criteria to determine their
reliability and usefulness. These criteria include depth (is the site comprehensive
and up-to-date?), ease of exploration (is the site well-organized and easy
to navigate?), and "net appeal" (is the site innovative or thought-provoking?).3
Magellan then gives one to four rating points or "stars" to the
site, with four stars being the best. A similar rating organization is the
Point Corporation (http://www.pointcom.com/) which evaluates sites on a
scale from one to fifty points. Their criteria is content (how broad is
the information; is it accurate, complete and up-to-date?), presentation
(is the site attractive and easy-to-use?), and experience (is the site fun
and worthwhile?).4 Web site developers whose pages are given high scores
by these rating systems may put Magellan's or Point's "seal of approval"
on their home page, so that users may know that the site has been evaluated
and rated a high score.
Organizations such at Magellan and Point Corporation have made a good start
in evaluating Web sites. However, their approach is to rate sites for the
general public, not for those seeking to do serious research. As yet, there
is no real scholarly criteria for Web sites. So even though a site is considered
to be attractive and have "net appeal" by a rating system, it
does not mean that the information contained in the site is necessarily
appropriate for a college-level paper.
So how does one tell just by looking at a Web page whether it is an informative,
reliable site? In general, one can evaluate a Web site in the same way a
print source would be evaluated, with some minor adjustments.
Tate and Alexander5 have developed a lesson plan for teaching students critical
evaluation skills for World Wide Web resources. In it, they discuss the
five criteria used for evaluating traditional print sources and how these
criteria may be applied to Web sources. These traditional criteria are accuracy,
authority, objectivity, currency, and coverage.
Accuracy and authority are generally interrelated. If a Web site was produced
by an authoritative source, it is much more likely to be accurate. However,
determining the authority for Web sites is not always easy. Even if the
author's name is listed, there may be no more information about him or her.
Another important point to remember is that the person's name at the bottom
of a Web page may or may not be the author, but may simply be the Webmaster
who has only the responsibility for maintaining the site, not actually writing
the material. There should also be a way to contact the author, either through
email, a phone number or an address.
Preferably there should be biographical information about the author either
on the same page, or linked to the page so that one may ascertain what the
credentials of that person are. If there is no such biography, the user
can sometimes tell if the author seems credible through the knowledge of
pertinent theories or schools of thought discussed in the text, citations
to reliable sources, or if it is a controversial topic, the acknowledgement
of other opinions.6
The body that sponsors the site should also be clearly indicated. Again,
the site's domain name may simply be that of an Internet presence provider
which has no responsibility for the content of the site. There should be
a name of an organization clearly presented on the document, either in the
header or footer, with a link to that organization's home page. The relationship
between the sponsor of the site and the author should also be clear. Is
the author a representative of the organization, or is the document merely
residing on the group's Web site? If the author or sponsoring organization
is difficult to determine, the quality of information should be questioned.
Objectivity seems to be much more of a problem on the Web than in traditional
print sources. Because it is so much easier to publish on the Web, many
groups who previously had no publishing outlet now find it easy to use the
Web as a "virtual soapbox."7 If the sponsoring organization is
not well-known, one should look in a secondary source to find out what the
institution is. If the organization is known, the reader should think about
what type of group it is, and if it is an objective source. If there is
still a question, the information should be verified by looking in another
reliable source.
Currency is usually touted as one of the Web's strengths. It is much easier
to keep online information up-to-date than print sources. However, not all
Web pages have dates, so it is sometimes difficult to determine how current
the information is. And if a date is included it could be the date the page
was originally written, the last update, or the date when it was made available
on the Web. A good information source will always put a date, usually at
the bottom, and clearly define what the date indicates. If no date is given,
the directory in which it resides may be viewed in order to read the last
date of modification.
Finally, coverage is important to note as well. Does the site have the same
coverage as similar print sources? Are the topics covered by the Web source
noted on the site's main page? Many Web sources contain links to related
information or cited sources. Do these links work, and what types of sources
do they access?
Library Journal uses some additional criteria when evaluating Web sites
for their WebWatch and Infofilter projects.8 The Infofilter Project involves
a group of reference librarians who are attempting to apply time-tested
methods of reviewing information sources to the Web. (See the site: http://www.kcpl.lib.mo.us/infofilter.htm
for more information). WebWatch is a regular column in Library Journal,
which offers tips on useful Web sites. Some of the criteria used at these
projects include content, organization, accessibility and search capabilities.
Content is obviously the first thing one should look at when evaluating
a Web source, but surprisingly many sites are taken at face value. Users
should carefully examine the information to decide if it is useful and accurate
or if it seems to be doubtful or repetitious. A dead give-away to a questionable
source is poor spelling, grammar and literary composition. These are the
hallmarks of an amateurish Web page. The graphics should also be appropriate
for the content, and not over-used. Students may get distracted by cute
graphics rather than concentrating on what the actual content is saying.
Organization of Web sites continues to be a problem as inexperienced Webmasters
create pages which are cluttered and difficult to use. The important information
should be easy to find, and near the top of the Web site. Pertinent information
should not be buried beneath several layers of links, and each page should
have some way to return to the home page.
Accessibility is also a constant problem on the Web. Sites should consistently
be available for verification and have a good response-time. If the pages
are heavy on graphics, a text-only alternative should be available. If a
Web document is used as a reference for a paper, the student should double-check
the page before citing it to make sure that the information still exists
in the same format, and that the link has not gone dead. The date that the
page was visited should be noted in the citation.
Large sites with a great deal of information should also have a search engine
available. It should instruct users how to use it, and have Boolean capabilities
with an output that is logical and easy-to-understand. While having a search
engine does not indicate whether the information is any better than a site
that does not have one, it does make it easier to go back and find specific
pieces of information for later verification.
So once a student has found some documents on the Internet that they feel
are good, authoritative sources, how do they then cite this information
in their paper? If a traditional paper version of the source is available,
it is usually best to cite that version because it cannot change the way
electronic sources can. If the source is only available online, it is important
to provide as much information as possible to accurately identify the source.
The format is generally the same as it is for printed publications, along
with some additional information to show in what medium the information
was accessed and its availability. There is not yet one definitive method
for citing Internet documents, but there has been some consensus on the
basic format. Janice R. Walker of the University of South Florida, has developed
some guides to citing many types of electronic resources such as Web sites,
FTP sites, Telnet sites, gopher sites, etc. These have been endorsed by
The Alliance for Computers and Writing and have gained wide acceptance.
The following is how to cite a Web page from her "MLA-Style Citations
of Electronic Sources":9
Author's Lastname, Author's Firstname. "Title of Document." Title
of Complete Work
(if applicable). Version or File Number, if applicable. Document date or
date of
last revision (if different from access date). Protocol and address, access
path or
directories (date of access).
For example, the citation to this author's Web site on finding company information
if accessed on February 20, 1997 is:
Kubly, Kristin. "Finding Company Information." The Business Page.
January 16, 1997.
http://frank.mtsu.edu/~kkubly/company.html (February 20, 1997).
The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association has not
yet addressed the issue of Internet sources. Walker has developed the following
guide based on the APA style which has also been endorsed by the Alliance
for Computers and Writing:10
Author's Last Name, Initial(s). (Date of work, if known). Title of work.
Title of
complete work. [protocol and address] [path] (date of message or visit).
The above citation in the APA style would read:
Kubly, K. (1997). Finding Company Information. The Business Page.
http://frank.mtsu.edu/~kkubly/company.html (February 20, 1997).
There are other guides to citing Internet sources available on the World
Wide Web. One useful source is the ISO 690-2 Standard for Bibliographic
References to Electronic Documents.11 Their format is slightly different
from the above styles, but it addresses other types of electronic information
such as online information databases and computer disks. The standard can
be found at http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/iso/tc46sc9/standard/690-2e.htm.
Other useful Web pages on this issue include:
Citation Style for Internet Sources: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/maw13/citation.html
Citing Electronic Information: http://www.pnl.gov/ag/refs/electron.html
How Do You Cite URL's in a Bibliography?: http://www.nrlssc.navy.mil/meta/bibliography.html
Endnotes
1 D. Scott Brandt, "Evaluating Information on the Internet," Computers
in Libraries 16.5 (1996): 44.
(Available http://www.infotoday.com/cilmag/may/techmans.htm)
2 Brandt.
3 T. Matthew Ciolek, "The Six Quests for The Electronic Grail: Current
Approaches to Information Quality in WWW Resources," Review Informatique
et Statistique dans les Sciences humaines (RISSH) 1-4 (1996): 45-71. (Available
http://coombs.anu.edu.au/SpecialProj/QLTY/TMC/Quest1.html)
4 Ciolek.
5 Marsha Tate and Jan Alexander, "Teaching Critical Evaluation Skills
for World Wide Web Resources," Computers in Libraries 6.10 (1996):
49-51.
6 Elizabeth E. Kirk, "Evaluating Information Found on the Internet,"
Milton's Web Home Page, December 18, 1996, http://milton.mse.jhu.edu:8001/research/education/net.html
(January 19, 1997).
7 Tate and Alexander, "Adapting Five Traditional Print Evaluation Criteria
to Web Resources," Teaching Students to Think Critically about Internet
Resources, November 6, 1996, http://weber.u.washington.edu/~libr560/NETEVAL/criteria.html
(January 16, 1997).
8 Boyd R. Collins, "Beyond Cruising: Reviewing," Library Journal
121.3 (1996): 124.
9 Janice R. Walker, "MLA-Style Citatons of Electronic Sources,"
ACW Style Sheet, 1996, http://www.cas.usf.edu/english/ww