j. forte 2009

By now most of you have heard about how you should be cautious in using the general Internet for your class work, and this is true.

So we’re not going to bore you by listing and explaining sets of criteria for evaluating Web sites.

We’ll guide you with some brief information, link you to some suspicious Web sites, and show you a video or two.

Businesses, commercial sites—they want to sell you something. May offer some free information, but usually the best is not free. May skew information to make product more attractive.

Hospitals, charitable organizations, non- profits, etc. Many are reputable, but the.ORG’s are the ones you have to evaluate the closest, because anyone can get a.ORG and put forward their own agendas and prejudices.

Schools, colleges, and universities. These are mostly very reliable sites since they have reasonable control from the parent institutions. You will see an increasing amount of open access educational materials coming from these sites.

Web sites of the U.S. Government and state governments. These sites offer plenty of high quality information, especially statistical information and policies and procedures.

These are military installations. These are mostly Internet service providers.

Here are some examples of bogus and biased Web sites. On the Martin Luther King site go to the bottom of the page and click on the responsible organization. Click the BACK button to return to the tutorial.

Have you guessed what dihydrogen monoxide is? You won’t see a tree octopus on Animal Planet. What is Stormfront?

Evaluating Websites Thanks to Cal State Fullerton Here’s a cheesy Elvis one from UCLA (close browser to return to this slide)