Homework #6 : Wikipedia

This assignment was designed to explore Wikipedia. Wikipedia is an interesting phenomenon. In fact, the whole suite of Web 2.0 applications have had a tremendous impact on how people use and interact with the Web, and each other. You no longer have to sit there and passivley read the news, or read about someone. You can interact, by commenting, or by uploading your own information, or, as in the case of Wikipedia, by creating and adding to the body of collective knowledge.

In the past several years, Wikipedia has become more conscious of the role it plays in web related research. A Wikipedia page will come up in the first ten results on almost any Google search you can perform. People rely on Wkipedia for all sorts of information. The site used to be less accurate, and therfore less reliable, but it has fixed many of those problems, and more and more experts are adding their expertise and knowledge to help make sure content is accurate. An occasional problem still occurs, but for the most part, Wikipedia has become more reliable.

However, the information from the site still needs to be corroborated, which is what we had you do this week. Why? Especially if, as I just stated, the site has become more reliable?

There are 2 reasons. One is that anyone can contribute to Wikipedia, as we know, and even though experts might be looking over the group’s collective shoulder, it would be impossible for them to catch every single information piece added. The second reason is that Wikipedia is basically an Encyclopedia, and contains encyclopedic information. “Just the facts, mam”, as quoted from a long ago TV show (look it up on Wikipedia!). For intepretation of those facts, to see the body of knowledge that examines and evaluates how those facts might fit together for different topics, you have to look elsewhere. Journals, magazines and newspapers contain the collective knowledge of scholars who have closely examined issues and events. Your research must be based on those sources, if it’s going to have validity and reliability.

Oevrall, everyone seemed to do well on this assignment, and seemed to “get it”. It used to be that this assignment was difficult for students, but not any more. I’d like to think we teach it better, but I think it has to do with students becoming more aware of their information surroundings, and their increased sophistication in using web tools.

We’d love to hear your comments.

Homework #3 Evaluating Websites

First, sorry for getting everything back so late. The Columbus holiday threw off our normal routine, and it’s been a busy week.

In Week 3’s assignment, we had you read some articles about evaluating websites, and asked you to do some exercises.

A very short time ago, as little as 9 or 10 years, people still had problems finding things on the Internet. Search engines were clunky, and you got a lot of different things back, some not helpful, when you searched for things. Sometimes, incredibly, you found nothing! Students who search now would find the Internet very strange if they were able to go back in time.

The problem used to be that people didn’t know how to search the Internet. As information professionals, librarians spent a great deal of time teaching people how to conduct the search, how to craft it, use the proper syntax, or language of the database. There were all kinds of special commands, and you had to evaluate what you got back. The evaluation part was hard, but it has gotten even harder because, paradoxically, it has become easier to search.

Spending so much time learning how to create and conduct searches made it easier for people to zero in on what they needed. A well-crafted search would often return very solid results. Results you could use to help write a paper, support an argument or help you study.

When Google created PageRank, searching got much easier. It got so easy that you could basically put anything in a search box and find something. Millions of hits are now possible on single word searches, such as you conducted in Week 2, when you looked for “gambling” in the various search engines. The more difficult part, I think, for researchers today is being able to evaluate what they find, and focus on sources that are reliable and trustworthy.

Many of you in your blogs mentioned that the criteria you used to evaluate web sites was that you trusted it. Some of you didn’t even search using a search engine, but went right to a site that you trusted, such as the New York Times website. Why do you trust those sites? There are criteria you should use to evaluate whether a site is reliable, but much of this comes with experience and practice. As you become expert in a field, you will start to apply some of the criteria you learned in this lesson, maybe even subconsciously, or use your own. It’s important that you search, however, and not rely on the sources that you know and trust. They’ve already passed your criteria test. You have to be able to apply the skills you learn in the class to identify other trustworthy sources.

Some of you also say that you’ll use a site because you know it’s true. How do you know it’s true? The ability to corroborate information with other sources is important. For example, you may find out something interesting about someone, but can you be sure it’s true. Even if it’s published in a reliable source, it’s important to identify other reliable sources to help make sure the information is accurate.

The question about who Robert Harris was resulted in some interesting responses. Some of you got it right, and some of you didn’t. Why do you think there might be a discrepancy? When applying evaluation criteria, one of the first things you want to do is make sure you are paying attention to who has created the work. In this case, you read a piece by Mr. Harris. Some people went right to Google, and got the wrong answer. How do you think that’s possible? Post a comment to this Blog post if you think you know.

Many of you don’t know who the publisher is. The author may or may not be the publisher. In many cases, you used newspaper articles. Who is the publisher in that case? The definition of a publisher is one that is engaged in making material available, whether through print, or now, more and more, in electronic form. In order to find the publisher, you sometimes need to dig through the site. Can anyone tell me who publishes the New York Times? How about the Boston Globe? Post it in the comments.

Many of you said that you chose the sources because you trusted the search engine. Can there be any problems with that? Can a trusted search engine give you bad sources? Should you trust things you find using a search engine just because the search engine is reliable?

Keywords are important when searching. You need to make sure you exhaust the possibilities of keyword searching when conducting searches. Make sure you think of variations in the word, or different words to use when searching. The language you use to find things will affect the reliability of what you find.

Overall, the class is progressing well. Keep some of the ideas from this post in mind during the class. We’ll continually use the skills we’re learning as we progress through the class.

Assignment #1

Why did we start the class with articles, a PowerPoint presentation on search engines, Google, and databases?  Any guesses?

In today’s information world, it becomes imperative to take a step back and look at where information resides, how do we access it and which pieces might be relevant to a particular task.

So the first lesson dwelled on search engines and subscription databases, two of the primary means to get at online information.  A key question that will be explored in this class is how do we access and use reliable information, whether to complete a school assignment, buy a new car, or look up medical information for a family member.

Feel free to comment.