Blog evaluation techniques

Distinguishing the good from the bad

After this session, you will be able to: Evaluate the accuracy of blogs and web documents

Identify the authority of blogs and web documents

Appraise the objectivity of blogs and web documents

Assess the currency of blogs and web documents

Estimate the coverage of blogs and web documents

acknowledgements

Material for this training session comes from the following sources:

“Evaluating Web Content,” User Education – Promoting Information Literacy, University Libraries SUNY, Albany http://library.albany.edu/usered/eval/evalweb/EvaluatingWebContent.pdf

“Five Criteria for evaluating Web pages,” Olin and Uris Libraries, Cornell University, Ask a Librarian “http://olinuris.library.cornell.edu/ref/research/webcrit.html

From Kapoun, Jim. “Teaching undergrads WEB evaluation: a guide for library instruction.” C&RL News (July/August 1998): 522-523

Procedure

Step by step, we will consider five evaluative criteria: accuracy, authority, objectivity, currency, and coverage (AAOCC).

But we will not go over these concepts in a vacuum.

We will examine each on a website example that you will have at your desktop and on your handout.

Please take notes on how we look at the concepts and the examples because you will have an opportunity to do an independent assessment.

Questions?

Accuracy

Who is the author of the page?

Can you contact him/her?

What is the blog’s purpose?

Is the purpose clearly stated?

Is the blogger qualified to write the blog?

http://www.jadaliyya.com/

Authority

Can you identify the publisher of the blog?

Is she separate from the webmaster?

Does an institution publish the blog?

Can you determine the institution from the domain?

Can we ascertain the publisher’s credentials/qualifications?

http://www.jadaliyya.com/

Objectivity

What are the goals/objectives of the blog?

Does the blog meet those objectives?

Is the information detailed?

Does the author express opinions?

What are the author’s opinions?

http://www.jadaliyya.com/

Currency

When was the blog produced?

Does it have “dead” links?

How recently was the page updated?

http://www.jadaliyya.com/

Coverage

Are there links and are those links evaluated? Do the links complement themes in the

document?

Does the site have a balance between images and text?

Is presented information cited correctly?

http://www.jadaliyya.com/

Wrap-up

Accuracy Authority

Objectivity Currency Coverage

Memory aid: AAOCC

Lab and homework assignment

We will walk through an evaluation of the first website.

Your homework assignment is to pick two additional blogs from among the four provided and evaluate using the criteria we have discussed.

For extra credit, you may evaluate all three of the provided sites, or you may evaluate one of your own choosing.

http://arabist.net/

http://angryarab.blogspot.com/

http://www.sandmonkey.org/