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Critical ThinkingOn your way to become Information

Literate

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Evaluating websites

Credibility

Content

Technical

There are 3 elements we should consider . . .

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Credibility

Examine the URL - Uniform Resource Locator

http://www.cce.ac.nz/teachered/secondary/graddip.html

Identifies the Christchurch College of Education

Identifies the protocol - http is a webpage

Identifies the domain as an academic institution

Identifies the country Identifies the filenames

and the path of the files

Identifies the file type

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Credibility

What the URL can tell you What is the domain?

Government and military (.govt .gov .mil) Commercial (.co .com) Education (.ac .edu .k12 .school) Network providers (.net) Organisations - non-profit (.org) International treaty organisations (.int) Country (.nz .au .us .uk .ca .jp .za ue.)

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Credibility

What the URL can tell you . . . Who published the page?

www.zu.ac.ae/ http://www.uae.gov.ae/moia.htm http://www.etisalat.co.ae/index2.htm www.globalnet.org.nz/ www.fno.org webtips.dantobias.com

(Etisalat = company)

(Globalnet = organization)

(Individual)

(From Now On)

(Ministry of Islamic Affairs)

(Zayed University)

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Credibilaty When was the site updated? Is this

important to the content? Is the information authentic? Can you

check the authenticity elsewhere? Can you email the webmaster? Is the information well documented?

Credible journals? Credible organisations?

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Content

Words spelled correctly?

Materials organized?

Information referenced?

Quality of references?

Do links add to the value of website?

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Content Does the information add to the body of

knowledge about the topic? Does the material provide information

not readily available? Does the site contain original work or

primary source material?

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Technical

Are screens uncluttered and easy to read?

Are the color and background of the page acceptable

Do graphics enhance the purpose of the site

Are animations helpful or distracting?

Is the text legible and the print size appropriate?

Do links add to the value of website?

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Technical

Does the site load quickly

Navigation: Easy to follow?

Are all links active?

Can you go quickly from page to page?

Do links add to the value of website?