EVALUATION CRITERIA Authorship, Currency, Accuracy, Purpose

Evaluation Criteria #1: Authorship

What to look for:

Who is responsible for the site? Do the authors have authority on

the topic? Is it a commercial, governmental,

personal, or academic web site?

Evaluation Criteria #1: Authorship

.com – commercial (for profit) entities

.org – nonprofit entities

.edu – educational institutions

.gov – government agencies

.mil – US military

.int – international organizations

State or Country of origin .de - Germany .ca.us – California, US .ca - Canada

Evaluation Criteria #1: Authorship

http://www.stanford.edu/~ccarson/articles/am_left.htm

http:// is the protocol or access method

www.stanford.edu is the domain or host name

.edu is the top level domain

~ccarson/articles/am_left.htm is the directory path folder on the domain computer

Evaluation Criteria #2: Currency

Is the information on the site out-of date?

Can you determine when the site was last updated?

Do you need current information or is an older article acceptable?

Evaluation Criteria #3: Accuracy

Is there a “Works Cited” or “Bibliography” included?

Does the information agree with information you have obtained from other (reliable) sources?

Where did the Web site get its information?

Evaluation Criteria #4: Purpose

Why was the web page created?

To sell?

To inform?

To deceive?

Evaluation Criteria #4: Purpose

Always look at the domain and home page

Search for an “about us” page

Review Evaluation Criteria

Authorship Do the authors have authority on the topic? .com, .gov, .edu, .org site?

Currency Is the site out of date for your topic?

Accuracy Works cited or bibliography?

Purpose Why was the web site created? Is there an “about us” or “credits” section?

Practice Evaluating

www.martinlutherking.org