Many thanks to all those who contacted me on list and off about this question. I now have some excellent starting points for beginning research on this topic from several different angles, and I will be sure to post back with any significant findings. regards, Fiona 2008/9/12 Fiona Bradley <blisspix@gmail.com>:
Is anyone aware of recent research on criteria to evaluate online information, especially if aimed at resarchers and students?
For many years, libraries have been providing guides to evaluating information on the Internet that asks students to look at the URL (is it .com or .gov? is it a personal or organiation site?), the published date, the existance of an author byline etc as critiera to evalute online information. These criteria are perhaps becoming a little too simplistic now to really evaluate a site and in many cases can be misleading – especially with the rise of academic blogging, online datasets, preprint archives, association sites etc which fall out of these boxes.
I'm having difficulty finding critiera that goes beyond looking at the URL, authorship and page design and which looks at appraising all types of information whether printed or online, and evaluating the quality of peer review, accuracy of datasets and statistics and so on. Is anyone aware of work in defining evaluation criteria that can be used by researchers, academics and students? I am aware of some studies of critiera for consumer health sites but I'm more interested in appraisal for the purposes of citing information in research or student papers.
thanks, Fiona Bradley
Information Services Librarian University of Technology, Sydney