Graus, J.(1999) An Evaluation of the Usefulness of the Internet in the EFL Classroom.University of Nijmegen,The Netherlands. Consulté en janvier 2004: http://home.plex.nl/~jgraus/thesis/Evaluation.htm
 

Chapter 5
5.4.1 Evaluating Internet sites

A wide variety of information can be found on the Internet that varies widely in accuracy, value, quality and reliability. Everyone can contribute freely to the Net and of course this is part of its strength and charm. On the other hand, however, this lack of a presiding or reviewing authority causes the Internet to be a true labyrinth for those who are looking for good and reliable information. Since the nature of the information on the Internet is so versatile, it is useful to have set criteria to facilitate the evaluation of sites one encounters during a search of the Net.

Teachers who are looking for web pages for their lessons are often put off by the sheer amount of hits a search tool can produce. The first thing they should do is to narrow down the search (see Chapter 3) and then they should test the pages they have found by previously determined criteria. The following model can help teachers separate high quality information from poor quality information. In a simplified form it can also be used by students. The model is an adaptation of those proposed by Harris (1997) and Caywood (1995).

The first thing teachers should do is pre-evaluate their objectives. Before starting to browse the Internet, it is important that teachers set goals as to what it is exactly they want to find. First of all, they should narrow down the subject as much as possible. Then they will have to ask themselves what it is they are looking for: is it an opinion, facts, stories, interpretations, statistics? Lastly, they have to determine why they are looking for this information. In other words, do they want to be informed, persuaded, presented with a viewpoint, etc.?

By answering these questions in advance teachers will create their own private set of criteria by which they can screen their sources quickly before actually evaluating their contents. So if a teacher is looking for facts, but he or she is presented with an opinion, then that particular page can be skipped, no matter how interesting it may be. It should be noted, though, that in practice this procedure can turn out to be a lot more complicated than it seems. Who of us has not had the experience of looking for a particular piece of information, but ending up with something completely different after having spent hours on end surfing incredibly interesting, but irrelevant sites? However, if one painstakingly adheres to these criteria, time will be used more efficiently.

The second step is to test the sites that have been selected by a number of criteria. For this purpose, a set of criteria can be used that can be divided into two groups: criteria pertaining to the contents of web pages and those pertaining to design and user-friendliness. The first category is of course the most important one, since only reliable information can be used. Therefore, it is necessary to look at the sources, accuracy and objectivity. However, in limited lesson time slots, it is also imperative that the sites are user-friendly, well designed and easy to access. Furthermore, students should not be distracted from the contents by poorly designed or poorly structured sites.

The SCAD checklist (Source evaluation, Contents, Access, Design) is an easy-to-use set of criteria which incorporates both aforementioned categories. Of course, it hardly needs saying that very few sources will meet every criterion in the list, and if they do, it still is no guarantee of high quality information. The list does facilitate evaluating Internet sites, however, and when used properly it will be a useful aid. See Table 5.1 below.

Source evaluation

It can be helpful to look for the author’s credentials. Is there any evidence that he or she is knowledgeable and reliable? For instance, is there biographical information (education, training, relevant experience)? Is contact information (e-mail, snail mail) provided? An anonymous publication is never a good sign.
Is the site reviewed or rated by an organisation? Or is the article published on the site of a well-known and reputable institution? If this is the case, then one can be sure that the publication has been reviewed thoroughly before it was put on the Web.

What sort of meta-information is provided? Meta-information is information about information. There are two sorts: summaries and evaluations. Search tools sometimes give a short summary of the contents of web pages, which can be very useful, but may sometimes be also deceptive. Therefore, it is always important to check for oneself. Evaluative meta-information is harder to come by. It includes reviews, comments, ratings and recommendations. Collections of hyperlinks often give this sort of information.

Neglect of bad spelling, style or grammar. This means that the author has not bothered to check the work and this is not a good sign. ‘Whether the errors come from carelessness or ignorance, neither puts the information or the writer in a favorable light’ (Harris, 1997).

Contents

It is important to find out if the information is accurate, detailed, factual, exact or comprehensive. The first thing to be done is to look at the date of publication. Some information is timeless, but most becomes outdated fairly quickly. It is best to make sure the information has been updated regularly.

One should also pay attention to the comprehensiveness of the story. It should be a rounded story that makes a complete impression. An information source should not deliberately leave out any important facts and should at least aim at completeness.

The audience a publication is meant for and the purpose it was written for can be important too. If a publication is meant for scholars, it is not suitable for secondary school students. More important is the purpose for which the information was created. Harris (1997) rightly asserts that ‘information pretending to objectivity but possessing a hidden agenda or persuasion or a hidden bias is among the most common kind of information in our culture.’ This does not necessarily mean that biased information is useless, but one should take the bias into consideration and make its existence clear to the students.

Another criterion is objectivity. A publication should be well balanced, moderate and not emotional. It should not comprise wild and irrational claims or arguments. A good web site offers a balanced, reasoned argument, free of prejudice or bias. Of course, the nature of some writings is biased, but this should not pose a problem as long as one is aware of the purpose of the author. One should be also look out for conflict of interests, since this is one of the major threats to objectivity.

Lastly, it is important to check if the information presented is consistent with one’s own world view (so-called external consistency). If information contradicts common sense or your own experience, it should be handled with distrust.

Access

Students easily get bored if they have to wait too long for a page to download to their computer. So it is good to check if a site is not cluttered with unnecessary graphics that help to slow down download time. It is also important to check if a site is so popular that it can become overcrowded and difficult to access. Furthermore, teachers should make sure they have all the plug-ins and software that are required for using the site and they should check if it uses standard multimedia formats. Lastly, they should check if the site is completely free of charge. Most of the material on the Internet is free, but this may change in the future.

Design

The last, but certainly not the least category is design. A web page should be well structured and the individual pages should be concise and short enough to avoid having to scroll endlessly. In addition, a web site should be easy to navigate and using it should be intuitive. Teachers should also ask themselves if the design is functional or just fancy. Does it support the contents or does it constitute a distracting element? Do all parts of a page work and are the hyperlinks up-to-date? Can users interact in satisfying ways?

A last consideration is the degree of interaction. One of the benefits of using the Internet is that students can interact and not merely passively sit back and consume information. There are three levels of interaction that can be found on a web site (Godwin-Jones, 1998). First, there is JavaScript interactivity. This is network-independent and the code is embedded in the page alongside traditional HTML. The second form is CGI (Common Gateway Interface). This is the traditional way of creating and processing interactive web pages. CGI allows users to fill in forms which are then processed and the results of which can be sent back again to the user. The last and most complex level of interactivity is Java. This is a programming language, which unlike JavaScript is sent as a separate application to the user. Java may be the future of the Web. Interactivity on the WWW is still scarce and for real interactive communication teachers should turn to other Internet facilities, such as e-mail and Internet Relay Chat.

 

Source Evaluation
 Trustworthy source, author’s credentials, e-mail, organisational support, rated by known authority, metainformation, bad grammar
Contents
 accurate information, up-to-date, comprehensive, rounded story, audience & purpose, objectivity, fairness, reasonableness, moderateness, external consistency
Access
 standard multimedia formats, does it require extra software or plug-ins, free, easy to reach or overloaded, download time
Design
 well structured, easy to navigate, interaction, distracting visual elements, does everything function, functional design, working hyperlinks

Table 5.1: SCAD checklist

Warschauer, M. & Healey, D. (1998). Computers and language learning: An overview. Language Teaching. http://www.gse.uci.edu/markw/overview.html
 

The following are two areas that we believe will be essential for language teachers to consider:

(1) Finding, evaluating, and critically interpreting net-based information. When reading print materials, finding and evaluating sources is largely separated from the act of reading. In the "old days," students went to the library, found some books, and read them at home--largely trusting what they read because, after all, it was in the library. Reading on the Internet, however, is a completely different phenomenon. Even to locate the information worthy of reading involves sophisticated skills of searching for material and evaluating it in mid-stream (to decide, for example, whether to continue or back-track). Students themselves create their "texts" from their own selection of materials from a variety of sources. In teaching reading, we will have to go beyond how to decode texts, or understand them, and pay increasing attention to how to explore and interpret the vast range of online texts.
 

(2) Effective online writing. Online writing to date has been principally viewed as a way to get students to practice their writing. It is as if the "real" writing takes place in the printed essay the student hands in to their teacher; the online writing is just a way to get practice so that students can then improve their real writing. In the networked society, though, much if not most real writing will take place on screen. Much of business and personal affairs get conducted over e-mail. Teachers in many schools and universities are starting to have their students complete web-projects or other multimedia documents, rather than traditional essays. Indeed, the paper essay may become a "marked" form in the next 10-20 years, studied principally for its historical relevance. In response to this situation, second language teachers will need to teach students effective online writing skills. This includes both the genres of electronic communication as well as the relationship of texts to other media. This will represent a natural evolution of the way we view the World Wide Web. At first, many teachers saw the Web as a distribution vehicle for student writing; students were assigned to write traditional print essays which were then posted on the Web. In the future, we need to think about the Web not only a distribution vehicle, but as a medium in its own right; students will want to learn how to publish Web pages that are fitting for the multimedia environment. We will thus need to find ways to teach our students to combine a variety of media--texts, images, sounds, video--without diluting the attention we give to language.
 

           Criteria to use for Evaluating a Site
 

Content	Is the subject content relevant and appropriate to my students' learning needs?
Coverage	What is the scope of this resource? Does it cover all aspects of the topic, with valid and appropriate examples?
Accuracy	Is the information and the presentation accurate, or could they be misleading?
Authority	Is it clear who is responsible for the resource, and all that is in it? Is this author an expert on this subject? Are links to other Web sites acknowledged?
Objectivity	Is the information well balanced or can I detect some prejudice or bias? Is the perspective appropriately bicultural or multicultural, non-sexist, non-racist, or how can I redress the balance?
Currency	Is the date of publication or update available and acceptable?
Presentation	Is the resource appealing? Is it clearly and logically presented? (And for online use, there are many more considerations, eg. Is the information accessible and the site easily navigable? Is it unencumbered by advertising or other diversions?)
Usability	Will this be useful for my students? How will I give them access to it?

 

Alexander, J. & Tate, M.A (1996). "Teaching Critical Evaluation Skills for World Wide Web Resources." Computers in Libraries 16, no. 10 (November/December 1996): 49-55.

Caywood, C. (1995). Library Selection Criteria for WWW Resources http://www.keele.ac.uk/depts/cs/Stephen_Bostock/Internet/criteria.htm

Everhart, N. (1996) Web Page Evaluation Worksheet http://www.duke.edu/~de1/evaluate.html

Harris, R. (1997). Evaluating Internet Research Sources  http://www.virtualsalt.com/evalu8it.htm

Smith, A. (1997) "Testing the Surf: Criteria for Evaluating Internet Information Resources." The Public-Access Computer Systems Review 8, no. 3 (1997). (Refereed Article) http://info.lib.uh.edu/pr/v8/n3/smit8n3.html

Graus, J.(1999) An Evaluation of the Usefulness of the Internet in the EFL Classroom.University of Nijmegen,The Netherlands. Consulté en janvier 2004: http://home.plex.nl/~jgraus/thesis/Evaluation.htm

Warschauer, M. & Healey, D. (1998). Computers and language learning: An overview. Language Teaching. http://www.gse.uci.edu/markw/overview.html

Website/Web Page Evaluation Form   http://www.ict4lt.org/en/evalform.rtf
in Davies, G.(1999)  ICT4LT Module 1.5 - Introduction to the Internet http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_mod1-5.htm

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Alexander, J. &  Tate, M. A. (1996) Checklist for a Personal Web Page  http://www2.widener.edu/Wolfgram-Memorial-Library/webevaluation/perspg.htm
 
Evaluating Websites for Educational Uses: Bibliography and Checklist. The University of North Carolina
http://www.unc.edu/cit/guides/irg-49.html

Smith, A. (1998-2003)  Evaluation of information sources  http://www.vuw.ac.nz/staff/alastair_smith/evaln/evaln.htm

Chelin, J. (2002) Guide for evaluating Internet resources. University of the West of England  http://www.uwe.ac.uk/library/resources/general/internet/eval.htm
 
 
 

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Barker, Joe. "Evaluating Web Pages: Techniques to Apply & Questions to Ask (Why and How)." UC Berkeley - Teaching Library Internet Workshops. http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/Evaluate.html

2Learn.ca  (1999) Evaluating a Site - Recommended Web Resources
http://www.2learn.ca/evaluating/evaluating.html

Bibliography on evaluating web information  http://www.lib.vt.edu/research/evaluate/evalbiblio.html
Sample Evaluation Forms    http://www.lib.vt.edu/research/evaluate/evalbiblio.html#forms
Barker, Joe. "Web Page Evaluation Worksheet. UC-Berkeley Teaching Library. "http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/EvalForm.pdf
Burns, Sarah. "Web Site Evaluation Worksheet." Pace University. http://www.pace.edu/library/instruct/webevalworksheet.htm