When I first started researching about how to evaluate a website’s credibility, I was getting very frustrated. I would find an equation on how to identify website’s based on web address, or pointing to an aspect of the website (author, publisher, date created, etc.) but, every time I thought I found the perfect key aspect, I would find a counter example. I finally realized that there is no one simple factor to point in judging authenticity. If there was, I’m sure it would be well-known information among all smart internet users. If there was just an “authentic” stamp that websites earned, this process of evaluating websites for false information would not be so challenging.
As a teacher, I’m going to stress to my students that critical thinking is the most important aspect of determining a web pages value. We must assume websites are false until they earn our trust. We can’t just take everything we read as truth just because it’s posted online. We need to ask ourselves some questions like, “Who is the author and do they have the authority to be knowledgeable in the subject?” “Do they list the bibliography or credit their resources?” “Is the information biased or opinionated and if so, does that take away from its authenticity?” “If I needed to site this information, are all the components there—date created, publisher, author?”
Just in general we need to be alert for any information we know is false. For example the “All About Explorers” website posted on D2L claimed at the top that it contained “everything you wanted to know about every explorer who ever lived…” We need to ask ourselves, “Is this possible?” If the bold heading is not true we definitely cannot trust the rest of the information.
While researching website credibility, my two favorite tricks are to look at the extentions, like k12, edu, and gov are generally better resources than com or org. Anyone can post on a page ending in com or org, but educational websites and government websites would be my first choice. Also, after the first / in an address, look out for names, “user” or %. Those indicate personal websites and should not be resources unless they have the authority to be credible.
Before we do anything involving online resources, I want to have my class go through a similar activity. I like the checklists on Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators Critical Evaluation Information and would like to use it to evaluate the fake websites given on D2L or others listed on the November Learning websites (all of which I saved to my Delicious account.) I hope they learn how important thinking critically is, not just for classroom research, but whenever using the internet to obtain information.
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