Website Evaluation

Which of the following is the best indicator that a website is reliable? 

• The author of the site tells you the information is reliable. 
• The author of the site provides contact information and his or her qualifications. 
• The author links to his or her favorite websites. 
• The author states in bold letters that the site was proofread by a librarian. 

Look closely at this URL. What does the extension tell you about the source? http://vos.ucsb.edu 

• It is associated with an educational institution. 
• It is an English teacher’s personal home page. 
• It is an article from a magazine. 
• It is from a government site. 

Evaluating content on the web is important because... 

• Web authors are always less professional. 
• Web authors are always biased. 
• Anyone can publish on the Web. There’s no guarantee that what you’re reading is reliable. 
•  Printed information is always more accurate than information found on the Web. 

You found a site that seems to have credible information, but there is no date of publication. What do you do? 

• Panic
• Make up your own information. 
•  Use the information anyway. You don’t have time to keep searching. 
• Try to find a site that has quality information AND a date of publication. Most reputable sites will have a copyright date. 

The domain extension is the part of the web address that identifies the type of organization that owns the website.  What is the domain extension for a government website?

• .com
• .biz
• .gov
• .org

Websites affiliated with colleges have what domain extension?

• .com
• .org
• .edu
• .gov

Currency refers to how __________ a website's information was updated.

• recently
• decisively
• neatly
• accurately

The domain extension can help identify websites with authority.  In this situation, what does authority mean?

• They have written lots of books
• They have expert knowledge of the subject
• They work for the police department
• They update their websites every night

What term is used to identify the items you're searching for when using the internet or databases?

• Guide words
• Smartwords
• Keywords
• Search words

How can you make a search engine look for words that are together on the page, like a name or title?

• put the words in parentheses
• put a + between each word
• put a - between each word
• put the words inside quotations