Evaluation Criteria to employ when searching for resources

When searching for information, either through traditional media or through the World Wide Web (WWW), we need to know how to evaluate what we find.Why? Because, as users of information ourselves and facilitators of information retrieval for others, we know how important it is to get the right information.

What is the right information? How do we know it is the right information? We can be more certain if we employ some evaluation criteria to the resources we find. As Pratt (1996)¹ mentions, we can still use the evaluation criteria we use for evaluating books, but use them in new ways. There are also a number of evaluation criteria which are relevant to the WWW alone (Tate and Alexander, 1996)2.

Here are 5 evaluation criteria which can be used when searching the WWW resources. Each criteria is listed with examples of web pages that rate highly , or poorly .

1. What is the purpose or intended audience of this resource? Is this stated? This is connected to the next criteria below.

• http://www.rsnz.govt.nz/ has a stated purpose for their web site.
• http://guardian.thecore.com/~efinn/aroma/ is this a personal homepage or a resource site for aromatherapy? No real defined purpose.

2. What authority does the resource hold? Is it a credible source of information, uninformed opinion or just advertising?

• http://www.canoe.ca/ReutersNews/ is credible and used by thousands of people - reliable and well-known.
• http://www.gwh.net/is/tamagotchi.html has no information about who did this page.

3. Is the information easily accessible? How easy is it to connect to a web site? Is the URL stable?

• http://www.massey.ac.nz/ easy to find and very unlikely to change it's URL as would be the same for other university sites etc.
• http://plaza.interport.net/kids_space/ has change of address, which is better than leaving a dead end, but no matter which page you requested from the original site, the change of address sends you back to the top level index/home page.
• http://www.canoe.ca/ReutersNews/AMEX.html found by search engine, just wasn't there!!

4. What does the resource contain? Is it original information or simply links?

• http://www.maido.to/tamahome.html has links to both indexes and original information.
• http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/index.html has links that mainly link to more indexes. Does not contain original information.

5. What graphics does the resource have?Are they pertinent to the purpose of the resource or a distraction?

• http://nzcom.co.nz/NZ/Culture/Music/NatAnthem.html pertinant to resource.
• http://cnn.passagen.se/ has so many graphics it takes ages to download. And are these really pertinant to a news index (compare Reuters - http://www.canoe.ca/ReutersNews/

1. Pratt, Gregory F. Guidelines for internet resource selection College and Research Libraries News 57, no. 3 (March 1996): 134-35.

2. Tate, Marsha and Jan Alexander. Teaching critical evaluation skills for World Wide Web resources Computers in Libraries 16, no. 10 (November/December 1996): 49-55.

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