DHL Test

Slide 1: 

Research Quality Web Searching, Part 2 Joe Barker jbarker at library.berkeley.edu John Kupersmith jkupersm at library.berkeley.edu A “Know Your Library” Workshop Teaching Library, University of California, Berkeley Spring 2007

Overview : 

Overview Other good search engines Subject directories – built by people Evaluating what you find

Other good search engines : 

Other good search engines

Small directories : 

Small directories Built by information specialists Selected, evaluated, annotated Organized into subject categories Librarians’ Internet Index (lii.org) By a group of California library professionals Infomine By UC consortium of library professionals Academic Info By a librarian in Arizona

Larger directories : 

Larger directories Google Web directory http://directory.google.com 5+ million pages - less than 0.04% of Google web About.com – a collection of specialized directories search by subject Yahoo’s directory http://dir.yahoo.com 4 million UNevaluated pages - about 0.06% of Yahoo! search

Finding “expert pages” and searchable databases : 

Finding “expert pages” and searchable databases Look in all the directories just mentioned Databases and “expert pages” scattered throughout In routine searching: If a site calls itself a directory or database, you can search on it genome database “cell biology” directory Look for society’s pages with collections of links genome society Home Page of “International mammalian genome society”

Slide 7: 

SAMPLE SEARCHES Yahoo, Ask.com Directories

CRITICAL EVALUATIONWhy Evaluate What You Find on the Web? : 

CRITICAL EVALUATIONWhy Evaluate What You Find on the Web? Anyone can put up a Web page about anything Many pages not kept up-to-date No quality control most sites not “peer-reviewed” less trustworthy than scholarly publications no selection guidelines for search engines

Web Evaluation TechniquesBefore you click to view the page... : 

Web Evaluation TechniquesBefore you click to view the page... Look at the URL - personal page or site ? ~ or % or users or members Domain name appropriate for the content ? edu, com, org, net, gov, ca.us, uk, etc. Published by an entity that makes sense ? News from its source? www.nytimes.com Advice from valid agency? www.nih.gov/ www.nlm.nih.gov/ www.nimh.nih.gov/

Web Evaluation Techniques Scan the perimeter of the page : 

Web Evaluation Techniques Scan the perimeter of the page Can you tell who wrote it ? name of page author organization, institution, agency you recognize e-mail contact by itself not enough Credentials for the subject matter ? Look for links to: “About us” “Philosophy” “Background” “Biography” Is it recent or current enough ? Look for “last updated” date - usually at bottom If no links or other clues... truncate back the URL http://hs.houstonisd.org/hspva/academic/Science/Thinkquest/gail/text/ethics.html

Web Evaluation TechniquesIndicators of quality : 

Web Evaluation TechniquesIndicators of quality Sources documented links, footnotes, etc. As detailed as you expect in print publications ? do the links work ? Information retyped or forged why not a link to published version instead ? Links to other resources biased, slanted ?

Web Evaluation TechniquesWhat Do Others Say ? : 

Web Evaluation TechniquesWhat Do Others Say ? Search the URL in alexa.com Who links to the site? Who owns the domain? Type or paste the URL into the basic search box Traffic for top 100,000 sites See what links are in Google’s Similar pages Look up the page author in Google

Web Evaluation TechniquesSTEP BACK & ASK: Does it all add up ? : 

Web Evaluation TechniquesSTEP BACK & ASK: Does it all add up ? Why was the page put on the Web ? inform with facts and data? explain, persuade? sell, entice? share, disclose? as a parody or satire? Is it appropriate for your purpose?

Try evaluating some sites... : 

Try evaluating some sites... Search a controversial topic in Google: "nuclear armageddon" prions danger “stem cells” abortion Scan the first two pages of results Visit one or two sites try to evaluate their quality and reliability Use the worksheet as a guide to techniques