Slide 1



Slide 1 |[pic] |It is becoming more important to know how to find information on the web, and more information is available there than anywhere else in the world. Since there is so much information it is necessary to know how to find the best information for our purposes. Then we need to determine if the information we find is useful to us. We also need to evaluate it for its quality or correctness. Since anyone with access to a computer and a connected browser can make information available on the web we must be very careful to check the accuracy, reliability, and currency of information we find there.

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|Slide 2 |[pic] |This popular segment of the internet contains billions |

| | |of documents called web pages. These pages can contain|

| | |text, graphics, sound, video, and has built-in |

| | |connections, or hyperlinks, to other web documents. |

| | |Need to access using browsers. |

|Slide 3 |[pic] |This slide builds by itself – let it do its thing until|

| | |the words “ANYONE with access and interest” appear. |

| | |Reminder: Students need to evaluate the information we |

| | |find on the world wide web so that we are sure we have |

| | |truthful and current information. |

|Slide 4 |[pic] |WEB ADDRESSES |

| | |The World Wide Web consists of files, called pages or |

| | |Web pages, containing information and links to |

| | |resources throughout the Internet. We find them using |

| | |URLs |

| | |URL’S Uniform resource locators. These are codes |

| | |developed to identify resources on the Internet. |

| | |A URL is similar to a library catalog number of a book.|

| | |The URL has Four components: |

| | |Protocol: the software tool to access the resources |

| | |(Telnet, FTP, HTTP) |

| | |Domain name: the server (computer) hosting the site |

| | |Domain designator: the type of organization hosting the|

| | |site |

| | |Suffix(es): the actual files being accessed, and/or |

| | |the path on the host server to find the requested |

| | |resource. |

| | |In the example given http is the protocol, asu is the |

| | |domain name, edu is the domain designator, and |

| | |directory is the suffix. |

|Slide 5 |[pic] |Identify the parts of this URL– click the mouse to see |

| | |the answer |

| | | |

| | |Protocol: http: |

| | |Domain name: microsoft |

| | |Domain designator: .com |

| | |Suffixes: windows/ie/default |

|Slide 6 |[pic] |Identify the parts of this URL – click the mouse to see|

| | |the answer |

| | |Protocol: http: |

| | |Domain name: public.asu |

| | |Domain designator: edu |

| | |Suffix: ~asurite/index.html |

|Slide 7 |[pic] |Domain designator help us identify the host of websites|

| | |and to evaluate Explain to the students that these are |

| | |some of the most used domain names. |

| | |Com = commercial enterprise |

| | |Gov = U.S. government entity |

| | |Net = network access provider |

| | |Org = usually nonprofit organizations |

| | |Edu = educational institution |

| | |Mil = U.S. military entity |

| | | |

| | |In addition, dozens of domain names have been assigned |

| | |to identify and locate files stored on host computers |

| | |in countries around the world. These are referred to as|

| | |two-letter Internet country codes, and have been |

| | |standardized by the International Standards |

| | |Organization. For example: |

| | |cn = China |

| | |de = Germany |

| | |jp = Japan |

| | |uk = United Kingdom |

| | |New domain names were approved in November 2000 by the |

| | |Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers |

| | |(ICANN): .biz, .museum, .info, .pro (for professionals)|

| | |.name (for individuals), .aero (for the aerospace |

| | |industry), and .coop (for cooperatives). These domain |

| | |names are beginning to become available. |

| | | |

|Slide 8 |[pic] |The most common errors we make when we type in URLs are|

| | |these. It’s always a good idea to double-check the URL|

| | |when we are browsing the web. |

|Slide 9 |[pic] |To find information on the WWW, you will use a search |

| | |tool. Search tools can be categorized three ways: |

| | |Search engines - Web databases, which are compiled by |

| | |software robots or intelligent agents that roam the Web|

| | |and collect information for the databases. Search |

| | |engines will search the entire web for the keywords |

| | |being searched. No organization or order to search |

| | |results. Will retrieve massive numbers of documents if|

| | |available. Not evaluated in any way. Meta search |

| | |engines search other search engines, and often return |

| | |duplicate sites. |

| | |Subject directories are manually compiled by staff of |

| | |the directory and by users who submit entries – will |

| | |only search the documents that have been placed in the |

| | |directory. Information is organized by categories |

| | |determined by the staff, may not match terms or key |

| | |words you are trying to use. Doesn’t usually bring |

| | |back all data, but will provide link to the original |

| | |information. Sometimes information is evaluated – not |

| | |always |

| | |Specialized, searchable databases that are not usually |

| | |accessible by search engines, but are accessed through |

| | |search boxes in web pages. Search terms are put into |

| | |the searchable database and results are returned. |

| | |These searches are not retained by the search engine or|

| | |database provider at any time. User must save results |

| | |that match data requested. |

|Slide 10 |[pic] |Search engines are different and will return different |

| | |results because they are created in different ways – |

| | |the structure of data organization is different. The |

| | |search engines look for different data and store them |

| | |in unique ways. It is a good idea to check at lease |

| | |two different search engines when conducting a search. |

|Slide 11 |[pic] |All web searches begin with the description of a |

| | |research question. What exactly are we looking for? |

| | |It is a good idea to actually write down the questions |

| | |we are interested in finding answers for. Then we use |

| | |the questions to locate KEYWORDS and PHRASES that we |

| | |can use as search terms. The more unique a word or |

| | |phrase is, the better, as that will help us narrow our |

| | |search. Often we find new words and phrases as we |

| | |begin to locate information about our topic. |

| | | |

|Slide 12 |[pic] |Students can use search engines by searching for a word|

| | |or phrase that they are interested in, but that they |

| | |may get back too many responses to be useful and often |

| | |have to refine the search. The formal word for this is|

| | |query – the search request is a query (or question) of |

| | |the database residing in the search engine. |

| | |Phrases should be put in quotes, otherwise each word is|

| | |searched and the order of the words doesn’t matter to |

| | |the search engine. |

| | |Many search engines have search guidance at the site, |

| | |often called Advanced Search – this feature provides a |

| | |lot of help to refine a search. |

| | | |

|Slide 13 |[pic] |Symbols can help with searches. The symbol should be |

| | |with the word being searched (no spaces between the |

| | |symbol and the word). |

| | |In our examples the first search would return documents|

| | |that had both red and hair in them, the second would |

| | |return documents about rock but not about rock music, |

| | |and the third would bring documents about vegetable, |

| | |vegetarians, and any other word that began with the |

| | |letters vege. This is useful if you don’t know how to |

| | |spell something exactly. |

|Slide 14 |[pic] |A way to refine a search is to use Boolean Logic |

| | |operators. The words AND, OR, and NOT operators assist|

| | |searchers to describe the logical relationship between |

| | |two or more search terms. Type these operators in |

| | |Capital letters. The word AND is often assumed by the |

| | |search engine when two or more words are searched for |

| | |and they aren’t in quotes, so sometimes it isn’t |

| | |necessary. The NEAR operator searches for the word or |

| | |phrase that is NEAR another word or phrase that the |

| | |searcher specifies. |

| | |If the search engine has an Advanced Search feature |

| | |that should be used instead of Boolean searches. |

| | | |

|Slide 15 |[pic] |We need to be able to decide if the information we find|

| | |on the web is reliable and valid. Reliability and |

| | |Validity are two important aspects of understanding |

| | |information. Students should be able to explain how |

| | |information they are using is reliable and valid. A |

| | |way to do that is to use assessment criteria to |

| | |evaluate information we find on the web (next slides). |

|Slide 16 |[pic] |Information located on the Web must be evaluated |

| | |critically, just as you would evaluate information from|

| | |any other source. In fact, information published on |

| | |the Web may be somewhat less likely to be trustworthy |

| | |than information from books, magazines, or major media |

| | |outlets such as television networks. |

| | |In contrast, publishing information over the Web is |

| | |relatively easy and inexpensive, so individuals can set|

| | |up a Web page and make statements or claims that may be|

| | |read by a large audience, all without any outside check|

| | |on the accuracy of the statements or claims being made.|

| | |We’ll be using an evaluation checklist from the |

| | |University of California Berkeley that looks at five |

| | |aspects about a web site. An example follows on the |

| | |next few slides. |

| | |When you research web sites you might be tempted to |

| | |conduct research with speed rather than accuracy and |

| | |rarely evaluate resources. We’re going to learn how to|

| | |evaluate web resources so you can be sure the |

| | |information you have found is correct and usable. |

|Slide 17 |[pic] |Students should download the Scavenger Hunt Activity |

| | |file from the Blackboard. Be sure to upload this |

| | |activity file to your WWW folder and also send it to |

| | |your instructor through the Digital Drop Box. |

|Slide 18 |[pic] |Here is a google search using “sea urchin” as our |

| | |search phrase. We’ll evaluate the first site as an |

| | |example of how to use the evaluation checklist. Look |

| | |at the search phrase, the number of “hits” or web pages|

| | |that have that search term (in the Google database), |

| | |the URL of the website, and the hyperlink name of the |

| | |site. |

|Slide 19 |[pic] |Students may refer to Scavenger Hunt Activity handout |

| | |while going over the following. |

| | |The first question suggests that you evaluate the URL |

| | |before you visit the page and make the following |

| | |judgements. |

| | |Is this a personal site? Does it have a tilda (~) in |

| | |the name, or a person’s name, etc. This example is not |

| | |a personal site |

| | |What type of domain is it? This example is an |

| | |education site (edu) |

| | |Does the domain seem appropriate for the content? |

| | |Probably in this case, since it is educational. |

| | |Is the page published by an entity that makes sense? |

| | |We can assume so, since it is Stanford University, but |

| | |we really don’t know what the suffix Group refers to. |

| | |We would want to examine this site further. |

|Slide 20 |[pic] |This page invites us into the rest of the site, but |

| | |there are some clues here to help us evaluate it. The |

| | |author is Stanford University, copyrighted in 2003, and|

| | |funded in part by the National Science Foundation. We |

| | |can probably continue our evaluation by looking at |

| | |further pages in the site. |

|Slide 21 |[pic] |From the contents page it appears that the site is well|

| | |documented (there is a hyperlink for references at the |

| | |top), there is an email link for information, it |

| | |appears quite complete, there are links to other web |

| | |sites, and we really can’t tell if other viewpoints or|

| | |bias will be expressed at this point. |

|Slide 22 |[pic] |Use Google to see what other pages link to the page you|

| | |are interested in. Go to Advanced Search, copy and |

| | |paste the URL into the Page-Specific search section, |

| | |and click the Search button. Google will advise if |

| | |other pages have posted links to the page you are |

| | |evaluating. In this example there were 36 other pages |

| | |that linked to the contents page. |

| | |To see if the page is rated in a directory we checked |

| | |http:/, but weren’t able to find the page |

| | |listed. We couldn’t look up the author because it was |

| | |a project that probably had many authors. Pages |

| | |further inside the web page may have individual authors|

| | |listed. |

|Slide 23 |[pic] |This page was fairly easy to evaluate. It was placed |

| | |on the web to provide resources for biology teachers. |

| | |So it was to inform and present facts or data. |

| | |Obviously it is a serious site, and not meant to be |

| | |humorous or ironic. |

| | |Bottom Line – is the web page useful for research and |

| | |as good as or better than what could be found in |

| | |journals or other printed literature? In this case, |

| | |Yes. |

|Slide 24 |[pic] |This is the Berkeley web site – there is some really |

| | |good information here about search engines and web |

| | |searching techniques. |

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