Don’s 632 Blog

Today in class we looked at a website that gives techniques to apply and questions to ask when evaluating web pages. The information contained here will be of great help when we are searching for resources on the web. It will help us to avoid some web sites that can not be trusted to give factual information.

We also divided into our three groups and looked at rubric development sites. These sites had examples of rubrics that were already made up and could be modified for one’s own particular use. The tools were there to also make up one’s own rubric. My group looked at the teachnology.com web site. We felt that it was of limited use since there were not many rubrics offered unless one became a member and paid a fee. The class concensus was that the rubistar site was the best one. Everyone seemed to think that they will probably use this site at some point in time if they had not already done so.

I read the article on evaluating we pages from the UC Berkeley site. This article gave many very useful techniques and questions to ask when trying to determine whether or not to use a particular web site as a resource. The first thing to look at is the URL which can give one much information. It can tell you if it is a personal page and what type of domain it comes from. Personal pages are not necessarily bad to use as a resource but there is no publisher or domain owner vouching for the information.

One wants to find out who wrote the page. Sometimes that can be easily found in given links, but sometimes it may be necessary to truncate back the URL. The researcher should also be asking why the web page was written in the first place. Maybe the reason was not just to provide factual information, but it could be an attempt to mislead. One should check out the date of the web page and determine if the information is current enough to use. Another very important aspect to consider are the credentials of the web page author.

The researcher should also look for indicators of quality information.  He should look for links.  Sources of information should be documented with footnotes or links.  If the web page author has taken information from other sources one must make sure that the information has not been altered and proper credit has been given.

The credibility of a web page can also be determined by what others say about it.  You can find out what other web pages link to this page by using a tool like alexa.com.  Make sure the links are from other sites and not just from other parts of  its own site.

Although the World Wide Web is a great free source of much information, not all of the information is reliable.  One must be discriminating in one’s use of web resources.  Web sites should be evaluated so that the  best ones are used.

I also read part of an article about understanding rubrics.  Since I have used a rubric in one circumstance I do have some understanding about what they are.  I have never made up an entire rubric, but I have modified an existing one.  A rubric is a scoring tool which must contain two main parts.  The criteria for the work to be evaluated must be listed, and also gives the gradations of quality for each criterion, from poor to excellent, or vice versa.  The number of criteria will vary with the project.  There are usually 3 or 4 gradations of quality.