A project of the Public Learning Media Laboratory

Website: http://www.boolify.org

Important Questions for Evaluating Web & Research Material

The following questions represent some of the important qualities to

know about information when exploring its relevance to your work. All
resources have been written by someone – an expert or, in many
cases, not.

Whether the information you are browsing is located in a newspaper,

wiki or peer-reviewed journal, there are some fundamental answers
you must know in order to sift the poor-quality information from the
rich:

Start with the basics:

• Who authored the article, web page or resource? Does a web

search pull up their biography? What have they done that makes
them an expert?
• When was it authored? Have other lines of research or work filled
in gaps, or provided new theories?
• What group of individuals was the article written to inform?
• Was the article peer-reviewed, and by what body of people?
• If the article is located in a place where commenting is allowed,
what insights can you glean through reading the comments?

Further identify:

• What is its bias?

• If funded, who provided the funding?
• What evidence can you find, elsewhere, that corroborates or
refutes the research that you have found?

Activity: Have students evaluate http://www.dhmo.org/. What evidence

can they find that confirms or disproves this hypothesis? (Worksheet,
page 2; note that fine web evaluation criteria can be found in many
locations on the web, as noted below).

Further reading: Cornell University’s “Evaluating Websites: Criteria and

Tools” page presents a range of high-quality information.
A project of the Public Learning Media Laboratory
 A project of the Public Learning Media Laboratory

Evaluating Websites

Your Name:

Activity: Your instructor has probably given you some guidelines for
evaluating websites. Use these guidelines to evaluate the website
located at: http://www.dhmo.org.

Imagine that you’re the City Public Health Director. That’s a tough
position, you know! Guess what? Your life just became harder. The local
radio station has released information about a serious-sounding
substance, Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO), and it’s up to you to prove
to the scared population that it’s real, or a hoax. The radio station
found information about DHMO on a website, http://www.dhmo.org.

What are five pieces of information you can find about the site that tell
you it is legitimate?

What are five pieces of information that you can believe prove the
website is presenting inaccurate?

What do you tell the scared people in your city?