--- Bob Rehak <zencat@indiana.edu> wrote: <snip>
Meanwhile, I wonder in the face of the coming semester: what's the best way to sensitize my 20 and 21-year-old students to the alarm that I feel in the face of Wikipedia? How do I get them involved? And how do I assign credit for it?
Bob
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Bob Rehak
Department of Communication and Culture Mottier Hall, 1790 East Tenth St. Indiana University Bloomington, IN 47405-9700
<snip> This, on verifying online sources, is taken from an initial project proposal worked up some years ago. But it didn't develop anywhere. Maybe it should now, but I think some of the suggested approaches worth highlighting: Resource Credibility: Teaching Critical Thinking and On-Line Media Literacy Skills Cable, radio, satellite and television news programming costs are in the millions of pounds/dollars etc. Add to these the costs of newspapers, magazines and other printed news publications, and the risks in some countries of libel or slander prosecutions, most publishers and journalists carefully check the veracity of the stories they investigate and write, and their facts, and will often take legal advice before publishing high risk stories. Other organisations, such as academic journals and universities use peer-review methods to make sure that what is published is well-founded. That does not stop dubious, error-ridden, or wholly false stories being reported, nor government (and other organisations) propaganda being printed. Academic journals, despite heavey weight co-authors, and peer review, are not immune from plagiarism (although not necessarily false information) and papers based on falsified data. <snip> How can we verify or be assured that what we see, hear, and read is accurate and credible, when the problem is magnified many fold on-line, as anyone can publish a website, in a few hours, and say anything they want - often without a credible basis for it. (I often claim online to be tall, thin, blonde, and gorgeous. But no one ever said wishful thinking wasn't allowed online.) <snip> Here are a few things that users should be checking when they visit a site to read news, review articles and features, read opinion and editorial columns, or conduct research: # Who's the author or website creator, and what's their authority, or claimed authority? Is it written by known journalists (but note that not even Pulitzer prize winners have always been what they seem)? While many won't tell you that they are unqualified to make the statements they make at the site, they leave clues. What are the credentials offered at the site for the site authors. If the person states that he is a professor at Outer Siberia University, you should check for links to the university. Has the person listed awards? If so, are there links to the entities that gave the awards so you can check? Is this person a published author? If so, does Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, or Borders have his book listed online? Search for other sites that reference this person. Not everyone is an award-winning professor and published author, but most good sources are cited elsewhere online. # What's the bias of the site? Whose points of view aren't covered? Bias isn't necessarily bad, as long as it is clear to the site viewer. Remember that everyone has their bias, but some are more significant than others. Is this a site that performs "unbiased" reviews of advertisers? If so, have they disclosed that fact to the readers? Are they a nonprofit entity with a particular mission or purpose? Where was the site created? Is it from an international group that might have a country or culture bias? Is it a U.S. site which might have a U.S. bias? Often, you can detect bias by reading closely. The good sites will identify their mission. Think about who is creating the content, whose points of view are included, and whose are excluded. Students should try to achieve balance by including different biases and points of view when they do their research. # How current is this information? Does the page, report, or feature have a publication date - or perhaps a "last updated" date notation? Archive news materials should be clearly dated for the point at which they were published, and NOT be changed. Any changes such as annotations, links, or addendums subsequent to that date should be clearly identified. A current news site can expected to be updated regularly, with new stories or further enhancements appearing at least daily. It will depend on the nature of the site. For example, if it is largely a clone of a printed (daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc.) publication it may not change at all between publication dates. If it claims to be electronic or special on-line edition, you'd expect to see hourly or perhaps more frequent changes with 'breaking' news. If the site doesn't contain a "last updated" date, look to see if there's a "recent additions" or "what's new" section of the site, and see how often it is changed. You want to make sure the content is updated often, since it tells you two things: that the site gets regular attention, and that it contains recent information. A good news site site is updated regularly. If you can't tell when a site was last updated, send an e-mail to the webmaster at "webmaster @[the name of the site]." Ask how often the site is updated and the date it was last updated. # Are the news stories well-written and, if a feature, well and consistently argued? Depending on the explicit or known bias of the organisation or site, there may well be consistency in the stories carried, and the general political 'look and feel'. More 'objective' news organisations may carry articles and features that are apparently contradictory, and encourage readers to contribute to a debate - both on and off line. Look for the themes of a site and the stories and articles acrreied. Are they presenting alternate and opposing views? Are there links to additional resources, or related stories. Have you compared it to the same story or topic carried by other news sites? If, for example during the Iraq War, stories are pooled (i.e. one report is made by one reporter and then shared by either news services such as AP, Reuters, or UPI, or by several newspapers, this should be clear. If a report appears subject to censorship, this should also be made clear. # What have they linked to? Do the links work? Do they link to credible sites, and do credible sites link to them? Are the links correctly described? Are they current? Who else links to them? Again, is the link information updated and accurate, or do the links not work anymore? There may be real experts in judging the credibility of resources, but it does not have to be a well designed or elaborate hoax or con to fool some of the brightest brains around - cf. the Sunday Times, AJP Taylor, and the Hitker Diaries. Using your own critical faculties anjd common sense may be the best test, using some of these commonsense approaches. Dominic Pinto BA MIEEE MCMI MRi FRSA Independent Advisor 36 Bedfordbury Flat 29 Covent Garden London WC2N 4DQ e-m: dominic.pinto@ieee.org M: +44 780 302-8268 Ph: +44 207 379-8341