November / December 2000 Table of Contents

In this Article

The Basics

Intermediate Users

Advanced Level

by Pearl Soltys

It has been said that information consists of facts about the world around us, knowledge is an organization of those facts and wisdom comes from the evaluation of knowledge.

The explosion of information available on the Internet is a phenomenon of which most of us are very well aware. Many of us are also concerned about the quality and reliability of information contained on a medium that has little or no "quality controls". Fortunately, there is advice for those of us travelling on the Information Highway to help us sort out the answer to the question: "How do I know if what I found on the web is true or not?"

The Basics
Even the most inexperienced web user knows that information found on the web does not always fit the definition of "facts", but there are some steps that you can take to assure yourself that the information you are planning to use is reliable. At the very least, you should be able to know who authored the web page you are reading. The main or index page to the site you are browsing should state who the author is or provide a link to that information. There should also be an e-mail address for you to contact the author if you have questions or concerns about information contained at the site. This is particularly important if the page you are browsing is not clearly affiliated with an organization such as a university or a professional organization, for example, CAOT, or a commercial organization, for example, Microsoft. These pages will often have a link to a webmaster or information but may not have one specific author.

If the author of a personal site chooses to remain anonymous, there is a way to track them down as long as the site name is registered as a domain. This is a process that web site owners can go through to "claim" a special web name that does not necessarily specify the host organization that owns the computer that the web site is stored on. For example, in the case of my personal page, you can get a rough idea of where my site is stored just by looking at the address: http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~soltys. (It's on the home page server of the University of Manitoba.) Sites that have an address that ends in .com or .org or .net have been registered by a company such as Internic http://www.internic.ca or Network Solutions http://www.networksolutions.com. The Network Solutions site offers a search called WHOIS that allows you to search for the registration information of persons who have registered a domain this way. Unfortunately, this doesn't work for personal pages. Host organizations like mine use a naming convention that includes the surname of the page owner. Other hosts may use numerical "userids" or some combination of the two. I don't recommend author anonymity and question the reliability of information that is obtained on sites where the authors make efforts to conceal their identity.

Intermediate Users
The best "practice" involves having a line at the bottom of the main/index page that includes information about the author, any disclaimers and, increasingly important, a privacy statement. The privacy statement describes how the site owner will use any personal information that site visitors disclose. There are things that you want to know about the author or publisher to help you decide on the reliability of the information they provide: What are their credentials? Education, work experience… things that would explain an author's perspective and expertise are useful. Also, some indication of why they have decided to publish on the Internet… what is the purpose of the site?

Some sites have statements indicating that they subscribe to, or are certified to be meeting a particular set of standards such as the HON (Health On the Net) standards. The HON Foundation actually calls their product a Code of Conduct that is intended to "help standardise the reliability of medical and health information available on the World-Wide Web." The Canadian Health Network is also a good example of an organization that seeks to provide a level of "quality assurance" for consumers of internet health information. The Network uses a system of "partnering" with organizations and individuals to provide a level of confidence for users of member sites. Both HON and the Canadian Health Network contain useful information to help you evaluate information on the net including the specific standards to which they require their members to adhere. Finding an icon or text indicating that the author of the site you are browsing is a member of one of these groups is a good indication that their intentions are honourable. However, both organizations expect authors to be responsible for the content that is provided by them. In other words, they don't rate the material contained at each site so much as they provide for a standardized method of displaying it.

Advanced Level
Now that you know the name, and possibly the credentials of the person who published the web site you are browsing - is that sufficient? Well, that depends on what you want to do with the information. If you are looking for a good recipe for this weekend's entertaining, it may be. But if you are looking for advice regarding a specific ADL problem that one of your clients is confronting, or if you are going to be using the information in a paper or presentation, you may want to go a step further.

The next step is evaluation. You had to know I would get to this eventually! You can go one of two routes here: either use a set of criteria that is already established or create your own. There are a number of different evaluation criteria sets available on the web. Some common themes are:

Attribution
Referencing, obtaining consent or permission, links to source data...citing sources always strengthens credibility. Does the author provide sufficient support/corroboration for the position they are taking? Is the information verifiable?

Authorship
Name and contact information provided, education, organizational affiliations, position/job function/title.

Comprehensiveness
Does this cover the whole story? Is there an obvious bias or are both sides of an issue addressed?

Disclosure
Who is the intended audience and for what purpose is the information posted? Is there a hidden agenda or vested interest? Are commercial links and sponsorships clear?

Relevance
Does it match your needs? Is it relevant to the context, i.e. Canadian, in which you wish to apply it?

Timeliness
Dates when information is first posted and updated, recent updating preferred. This has implications for accuracy, the more current the better.

Some examples of "ready-made criteria" are found at:

The last two are a little more basic and may also be useful for a younger audience. If you would like to review this topic in even more detail, an excellent meta-site, designed for librarians and maintained by Alastair Smith, is available at Evaluation of information sources
http://www.vuw.ac.nz/~agsmith/evaln/evaln.htm

This concludes my first column. If you have any questions or ideas to explore in future columns, I'd love to hear from you. You can contact me at soltys@cc.umanitoba.ca or visit my web site at home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~soltys
Happy hunting!

Pearl Soltys is a Internet Advisor for CAOT and has generously offered to provide a column in OT Now. Author of Pearl's Piks for the Manitoba Society of Occupational Therapists' newsletter and long time web master of her own site, Pearl is dedicated to the advancement of the profession via the world wide web.

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November / December 2000 Table of Contents


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