week 9

                                
                  In week 9, I learnt about how to evaluate internet sources.At first,I would like to tell why we need to evaluate the information sources.We need to evaluate information sources to judge the quality or appropriateness of information for a particular query or user, to spread the information over the internet by anyone without regard to accuracy, validity, or bias and for some librians and library users to make effective use of the internet.

                                      
Here are some criteria for evaluating Internet Sources:
Criteria for evaluating Internet Sources

1. Purpose
2. Scope/Comprehensiveness/Coverage
3. Authority
4. Audience
5. Information Content
6. Design and layout
7. Access/Workability

                               
1. Purpose
           Resource should make their purpose obvious at first sight. If a site provides its own mission statement, the user can verify whether the content matches this statement. A good resource will not be ambiguous and will not deflect potential users, due to it's poor communication of purpose.

2. Scope
          The resource covers a subject adequately with

• Breadth: which all the aspects of the subject are covered,
• Depth: the level of detail in the subject which the resource goes,
• Time: which the information in the resource is limited to certain time period,
• Format: some kind of internet resources, e.g, telnet, Gopher, FTP

3. Authority

• Institution- ".edu", ".com", ".gov"                         
• Author- author's professional affiliations
• Resource- verifiable information

4. Audience- intended users such as a subject expert, a layperson or a school student.

                                         
5. Information Content

• Accuracy- documented origin of the content, political or ideological biases
• Currency- static or reliant resource, a version number for software, frequency of updates
• Uniqueness- the information which can be avaliable in other forms

6. Design and Layout

                             

• Organization- individual Web pages, a text-only version, visual similarities in all sections
• Navigability- location of particular pages, internal links, logically through the sites
• Styles and functionality- general layout of resource functional, well function, graphic design
• Colour- plain background which the text can easily be read
• Multimedia- creativity, quality of the image and sound, and interactivity

7. Access/Workability

• Ease of use- easy for the intended audience to connect to the site.
• Feel friendly- the site user is friendly with the effective interface.

                                             
                            
         These are all about evaluation of information resources. I hope all of you've known how to evaluate information sources and the criteria to evaluate these sources.