How to Evaluate Electronic Information on the Internet

10 General Questions To Ask 

·Who runs this site? 
·Who pays for the site? 
·What is the purpose of the site? 
·Where does the information come from? 
·What is the basis of the information? 
·How is the information selected? 
·How current is the information? 
·How does the site choose links to other sites? 
·What information about you does the site collect, and why? 
·How does the site manage interactions with visitors?

Authenticity

Authenticity refers to whether an item is genuine or a forgery; in particular, whether the producer of the work is really who it is porported to be. For example, money forgery occurs when the producer of the currency is not the US government. Questioning the authenticity of a da Vinci painting involves whether or not the painter was da Vinci, one of his students, or an art forger. For digital information (which could be text, a digital photograph, a movie file, a sound clip, a database of addresses, or any number of other things) authenticity involves whether the data is produced by the stated author, and whether the work is original and unaltered. Determining who the real author is challenging enough, ensuring that the original data has not been altered is even more difficult. Determining whether electronic data has been altered often requires special software and hardware.

Examples:

  • a photo forgery and a second one ( examples of inauthentic information)

  • an article by Bill Joy ( this would be inauthentic if the poster did not state that it is an excerpted article and provide the original source)

    Reliability

    Data reliability determines whether something is accurate and truthful. In the absence of first hand knowledge, data reliability is determined by the credibility of the source. Mainstream news sources endeavor to publish only reliable information through the use of editors and an oversight process that includes verifying sources. Journalists are held accountable for the reliability of a story. Even with these safeguards, the best way to guarantee the truthfulness of a news story is to confirm it with two independent sources.

    Blogs are not held to any degree of accountability. Nevertheless, a blog authored by a respected expert in a field or a trustworthy journalist could be considered reliable. Anonymous blogs should not be considered reliable. Blogs published by a mainstream news source are as reliable as the news source. Since an article may be linked from an unknown blog, it may be necessary to trace an article back to the original author and publishing source.

    Opinion pieces must be judged according to whether facts are used to back up the claims and the reliability of the facts used.

    Of particular interest is scientific research. Nonscientists find it hard to tell the difference between a publication based on true research and one based on a political agenda. The tendency is to conclude that if the publication has numbers and charts it must be science. It is imperative to use reliable sources for scientific research. Scientific truth must be determined by peer review, not by public opinion or politics.

    Examples:

  • Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) any publications by ACM are reliable

  • CNN CNN is an established mainstream news source

  • Fox News Fox News is an established mainstream news source.

  • an article from an online business This article is "an edited clinical paper published in Chiropractor Magazine." However, the original author is not listed nor is a link to the original source. Quotes from doctors are found in the article without references. Thus, this article is not reliable.

  • The Declaration of Independence Home Page At first glance, this site at Duke University appears reliable. Websites published under .edu are generally more credible. But until one cannot determine whether the author of the site, D.J. Mason, is a student or a faculty member the site should not be assumed reliable.

    Bias

    Biased information is more apt to present a particular ideological or political position. Bias becomes a problem if it causes the producer of the information to distort the truth, present only one position, or ignore the facts. In academia and journalism, where the goal is to present the truth in a fair and balanced fashion, a researcher or journalist tries to recognize one's biases and to mitigate their impact as much as possible. Journalists do this by presenting all sides (often only two) of an issue in a fair and balanced fashion. The scientist does this by making an experiment reproducible and available for scrutiny by other members of the scientific community.

    When evaluating a news source for bias, determine if articles supporting a particular ideological position are more heavily favored in the publication. The articles may be reliable, but the news source is biased if this is the case. Biases are difficult to uncover since one must be aware of one's own biases before recognizing a bias in something else.

    Examples:

  • Fox News Liberals accuse Fox News of a conservative bias.

  • New York Times Conservatives accuse The New York Times of a liberal bias.

  • slashdot.org slashdot admits to a techie bias, its slogan is "News for Nerds." Articles have a libertarian political leaning.

  • A link on a blog A link to this opinion piece is on the Druge Report blog. The author is the executive director of the Common Assets Defense Fund. The article is published in the Common Dreams, an online progressive news service. This news service is not mainstream but comes with good references (Bill Moyers is one). The article was also published in the San Francisco Chronicle, a well established news source. Thus, one can assume this opinion piece is reliable with a bias towards environmental issues.

    Scholarly

    Scholarly information is not only reliable and unbiased, but also considered to be an original and valuable contribution within a given field. This site provides ways to distinguish between scholarly and non-scholarly periodicals. Scholarly information is published by means of an academic review process. To be considered scholarly, a source must meet these criteria:

    1. It is reliable
    2. It includes a list of references
    3. It is published in a peer-reviewed journal, by an academic press, or by a mainstream and respected publisher

    A note about "peer-review." A student in a previous quarter was confused between "reviewed" and "peer-reviewed." Peer-review is the process of filtering articles for quality. It is sometimes referred to as "refereeing", which is probably a better term. Scholars submit their paper to such a journal, and the journal recruits one or more colleagues in the same field to read the paper and approve it. If it does not pass muster for that journal it is rejected. Some journals reject as much as 95% of all submissions.

    This isn't the same as having a book reviewed in the New York Times. :)

    Examples:

  • citeSeer (any articles on this site that have been published in a scholarly journal are scholarly)

  • Stiern Library Periodical Databases (any articles found in the online periodicals that meet the above criteria are scholarly)

  • BBC news article This news story is about the new laws in California to protect computer users from spyware. A great story, but not a scholarly work.