1. Authenticating and Validating Content
1.03 Understand how to validate and authenticate information from the Internet.
1.02 Authenticating Content

2. Content Criteria
When validating information obtained from the Internet, we need to analyze the content.
1.02 Understand how to validate, authenticate, and legally use information from the Internet.
1.02 Authenticating Content

3. What does validate mean?
In layman’s terms: To validate means to verify or prove that something is what it says it is or that something does what it says it’s supposed to do.
For example, the statement, “The sun rises in the East and sets in the West,” is valid because it has proven to be scientifically true.
1.02 Understand how to validate, authenticate, and legally use information from the Internet.
1.02 Authenticating Content

4. Scenario Expert Historian?
A page has supposedly been created by Dr. Eunich Sweeney, Chairperson, Department of American Historical Studies, Scheisthaus University, to provide facts about the Civil War.
Let’s take a look:
The page is colorful and well laid out.
The text is well formatted and is easy to read.
The graphic images look real.
So how do you know if the content is valid?
We will use this scenario throughout the next slides to describe how a web page is validated (or not).
1.02 Understand how to validate, authenticate, and legally use information from the Internet.
1.02 Authenticating Content

5. 1. Who created the page?
Try to find information that confirms the author is who he/she claims to be.
Can you find links about Dr. Sweeney? What do the links say? Has he published other articles about historical events? What organization/research facility does he use to conduct his research?
Use Google to search for information about Dr. Sweeney and about his employer.
1.02 Understand how to validate, authenticate, and legally use information from the Internet.
1.02 Authenticating Content

6. Are there obvious spelling and grammar errors?
Do you think Dr. Sweeney would have spelling and grammatical errors on his page?
A page that is supposedly created by a university chairperson would assume very limited if any errors.
Errors should send up an immediate red flag to check further into the validity of the page.
1.02 Understand how to validate, authenticate, and legally use information from the Internet.
1.02 Authenticating Content

7. 3. Are there links to other pages?
Does the page contain links to go to other pages?
Does the page link to the resources that were used?
Does the page contain valid contact information?
Valid address
Valid phone number
1.02 Understand how to validate, authenticate, and legally use information from the Internet.

8. 4. Is it authentic? What does authentic mean?
Not counterfeit or copied
Genuine, real, original, true
What do other sites and links say about Dr. Sweeney’s information?
What research does Dr. Sweeney include on his page to prove that what he says is true?
1.02 Understand how to validate, authenticate, and legally use information from the Internet.
1.02 Authenticating Content

9. Truth or Fiction?
Just for fun, visit these sites about fictional topics:
1.02 Understand how to validate, authenticate, and legally use information from the Internet.
1.02 Authenticating Content

10. Let’s validate some websites!
What’s next?
Let’s validate some websites!
1.02 Understand how to validate, authenticate, and legally use information from the Internet.
1.02 Authenticating Content