"GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT!"

From my vantage point as an educator who examines hundreds of research projects each year, the typical student is a very poor information consumer. We have to expect inferior products when we don't encourage students to evaluate their resources, and when we don't hold them accountable for quality.

These days, it is especially important to be a good information consumer. Before the Web, students had help selecting information: Publishers, book and journal editors, booksellers, and librarians carefully filtered their research fodder for reliability and quality. But, alas, the Web is a self-publishing medium. While it allows a truly democratic voice to all who care to contribute, noise and garbage are insidious byproducts of its glorious democracy.

I have faced the fact that my students are heavily reliant on Web-based materials. For many the Web is the only source. The Pew Internet and Education study released on September 1, 2001, confirmed that "71% of online teens say that they used the Internet as the major source for their most recent major school project or report."

The problem is that these students tend to see the Internet as one big answer machine. Students need to know that not all information is created equally; evaluation and skepticism are essential strategies they'll need to carry them throughout the research process and, indeed, throughout their lives.

Here's why. Over the past few years I have seen variations on the following disappointing themes:

• High school students citing Web projects written by fifth graders
• Students relying on erroneous or skewed sources—e.g., Holocaust denial sites, and sites with clear commercial or political bias—without seeking balance
• Students mistaking Web-based variations of Cliffs Notes for scholarly criticism for their honors English projects
• Students ignoring the premium channels (the subscription journal and reference databases available online) in favor of less-than-reliable Web sites that appear on the result list of their favorite search engines
• Students unable to discern among the good, bad, and ugly results on their hit lists and instead just clicking on the first couple of hits
• Students ignoring reliable print sources (in-depth biographies and scholarly nonfiction) in favor of a two-page printout
• Students (and teachers) not quite "getting" that everything on the Web is not a Web page; that although they all are available on the Web, there are dramatic differences among Web pages, journal articles, and reference sources

The fact is, it's not our students' fault. Today's students are really the first generation to cope with true information overload and true information diversity. And the fact is that they may be developmentally unprepared to cope.

While we as adults have a broad scope of knowledge that allows us to instantly recognize the name of a reputable organization or a prominent public figure, our students have a much narrower scope. They have little background for determining quality. In the unchecked landscape of the Web, the job of assessing accuracy, relevance, validity, bias, and currency requires (and assumes) a good deal of judgment and consistent practice. And there is much to practice with.

1. STUDENTS MUST EVALUATE THEIR SEARCH TOOLS.
The search box is not a magic bullet. The savvy student selects the right search box, evaluates her choice of search tools. A colleague recently pointed out to me that he is careful when he seeks information from his friends. He does not ask his contractor buddy for help with his will, and he doesn't ask his lawyer to build his deck. Search tools have specialties, too. Choosing a second-generation search tool (e.g., Vivisimo, WiseNut, Teoma, or Google) that moves beyond word relevance to discern meaning and categorize results can help in putting the most relevant results at the top of the list, where students are more likely to find them.

Students who know to start with a subject-specialty search engine or a highly selective subject directory-such as Librarians' Index to the Internet-eliminate the noise of the wider Web and make use of an expert's careful selection. Teachers and librarians need to introduce and encourage use of a broad variety of search options, including subscription databases for reference and periodical materials such as SIRS, EBSCOHost, and GaleNet.

2. STUDENTS MUST EVALUATE THEIR RESULT LISTS.
To a student, the result list is a puzzle. How do you choose among the millions of sites listed? How do you recognize quality from the sketchy clues presented? Strategic searching and clever search tool selection might push some of the better hits to the top of the list, but sophisticated choices must be made.

We can model strategies for result list evaluation with our students. Parents can do this informally, while a student researches. In school, a teacher might project a sample list and encourage a class discussion about which hits to choose and which to discard. Consider laminating and cutting up a set of results for a small group exercise. Have students at each table arrange the same results in a "priority visit" order. You might even throw in a few ringers to make points about the value of subscription databases and how to handle bias. Follow this activity with a large group discussion to see if there was consensus among the groups. I recently created sample activities on ranking sources (see list of resources below).

3. STUDENTS MUST EVALUATE AN AUTHOR'S CREDENTIALS.
An author's credentials are not always obvious on a Web site. We can model some detective work to help determine an author's credibility. If no information relating to authority appears on the page in question, be suspicious and then try these strategies:

• Search the name of the author in a search engine. If you are lucky, this strategy will lead to the author's curriculum vitae or resume.
• Search for entries or news relating to an author in a periodical database. Try Contemporary Authors in print or online, or use the author's name as a search term in EBSCOHost, Student Resource Center Gold, or Big Chalk Library.
• Do a "link check". In either AltaVista or Google, perform the following search: link:putURLhere. Your results will show who else has linked to the page you are evaluating. Would the pages that link to your page be considered reputable? Do they review or annotate the page you are examining?
• Check to see if your page appears in a selective subject directory. For instance, has the page been included in Librarians' Index to the Internet?
• Examine the URL. Although there is no "etched in stone" rule, you can be guided by domain. A site ending in .gov is likely to be a reliable government site. A site ending in .org may be the work of a respected organization. A site ending in .edu might be created by a university or a college or K-12 student. Sites that include a "~" (tilde) are generally personal sites. While they may be appropriate for serious research, they are just as likely to be the product of a student or faculty member of a reliable institution who has a lot of free time!
• Truncate chunks of the URL, if no affiliation is available on the page you are examining. Your goal is to try to get to the "root" page that might contain information "about this site" or "about the author."

4. STUDENTS MUST HOLISTICALLY EVALUATE THE SITES THEY PLAN TO USE.
If we are serious about encouraging scholarship, students must be able to establish a site's relevance, validity, authorship, timeliness, and basic integrity before including it in a bibliography. They ought to be able to defend any source they cite. This is not an easy task. Evaluation takes practice and students must be held accountable. Yes, that means we must assess evaluation as a skill! If teachers do not carefully examine students' lists of sources, as well as their products, we lose critical opportunities for instruction, and we should expect inferior products.

One strategy I have used successfully with students is the bibliography checkpoint, which is a conference with students to make sure their resources are solid before they move on to writing the big product. This conference might include recommending search tools or databases (and yes, even books). For large projects, we have students annotate sources. This may take the form of a full-blown formal annotation or, for younger students, a simple note under a citation of why this particular author is credible. Some teachers ask that the first page of any Web document be included in the package.

Today's teachers are also new to this game. As the first group of teachers to evaluate the work of students using unfiltered sources, they must develop new strategies for helping learners.

Happily, there is help. A number of generous educators have pioneered lessons and activities in the area of evaluation.

LESSONS
Several years ago, I created a WebQuest on Evaluating Web Sites, that asks students to work in groups to evaluate Web sites in a particular subject area. Each student examines the site from a different critical perspective.

University librarians created my very favorite activities for use with high school students. The ICYouSee: T is for Thinking page, written by John Henderson of Ithaca College, pairs Web sites for students to compare. Teachers may choose among the themes: AIDS statistics, the Mayan calendar, or the Sixties.

UC Berkeley's Evaluating Web Pages guides students through an interactive assessment of sites on such subjects as Latin America, Mayan Calendar, Gun Control, Cloning Humans, Immigration, and Aspartame.

To get the point across to students quickly, consider examining, as a class, some meant-to-be-bad Web sites. Among the best are the slick looking Clones-R-Us and Ken Umbach's classic California's Velcro Crop Under Challenge.

Prior to a unit on animals, younger children might explore the Jackalope Conspiracy, Republic of Cascadia, Bureau of Sasquatch Affairs, Save the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus, or Save the Mountain Walrus. Check my site for a more extensive list of bogus sites to examine.

Kathy Schrock offers Critical Evaluation Surveys tailored to the specific needs of elementary, middle, and secondary students.

This problem of evaluation extends beyond the world of K-12 education. "It's a good enough/why bother world," said a fellow panelist at a professional conference this summer. To sum up what appeared to be the consensus in the crowded room: When people can get some information, they won't go to the trouble of getting the best information. It may be a quixotic quest, but if educators and parents work together, and if we continue to value scholarship, we can teach students to use the Web as critical consumers (and we can prove my esteemed colleague wrong).

ON EVALUATING WEB PAGES
American Library Association's 700+ Great Sites: Selection Criteria: How to Tell if You Are Looking at a Great Web Site
http://www.ala.org/parentspage/greatsites/criteria.html
Better Read That Again: Web Hoaxes and Misinformation from Searcher, by Paul S. Piper, Librarian at Western Washington University
http://www.infotoday.com/searcher/sep00/piper.htm
Evaluating Web Resources from Jan Alexander and Marsha Ann Tate of Wolfgram Memorial Library, Widener University
http://www2.widener.edu/Wolfgram-Memorial-Library/webevaluation/webeval.htm
Evaluation of Resources on the Internet by Dr. Anne Clyde
http://www.hi.is/~anne/webeval.html
ABCs of Web Site Evaluation by Kathy Schrock
http://kathyschrock.com/abceval/index.htm
Evaluating Web Sites, What Makes a Site Good? from Multnomah County Librarian Sara Ryan
http://www.multnomah.lib.or.us/lib/homework/webeval.html
Ten Cs for Evaluating Internet Sources from the McIntyre Library of the University of Wisconsin.
http://www.uwec.edu/library/Guides/tencs.html
Evaluation Rubrics for Websites by Tammy Payton
http://www.siec.k12.in.us/~west/edu/evaltr.htm
Virtual Salt: Evaluating Internet Research Sources by Robert Harris
http://www.virtualsalt.com/evalu8it.htm
QUICK: The Quality Information Checklist
http://www.quick.org.uk/menu.htm
Teaching Zack to Think (Alan November) This important article, written for High School Principal, describes the research of a fourteen-year old boy led to believe the Holocaust never happened.
http://www.anovember.com/articles/zack.html
Thinking Critically about WWW Resources by Esther Grassian of UCLA College Library
http://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/college/help/critical/index.htm
Using the Internet for School Reports from the Boston Public Library
http://www.bpl.org/kids/Evaluate.htm
Web Awareness for Teachers: Fact and Folly from the Media Awareness Network
http://www.media-awareness.ca/eng/webaware/teachers/fact/tfact.htm

ACTIVITIES
WebQuest on Evaluating Web Sites (Valenza)
http://mciu.org/~spjvweb/evalwebstu.html
Practice Ranking Sources: High School (Valenza)
http://mciu.org/~spjvweb/ranking.html
Practice Ranking Sources: Middle School (Valenza)
http://mciu.org/~spjvweb/rankingms.html
Why Should I Take This Author Seriously (Valenza)
http://mciu.org/~spjvweb/whyauthor.html
Evaluating Web Pages: Why It's Important from the UC Berkeley Teaching Library
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/Evaluate.html
ICYouSee: T is for Thinking by John Henderson of Ithaca College Library
http://www.ithaca.edu/library/Training/hott.html
Hoax? Scholarly Research? Personal Opinion? You Decide!
http://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/college/help/hoax/index.htm
The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly from Susan Beck of New Mexico State University Library
http://lib.nmsu.edu/instruction/eval.html
Anonka High School Bogus Sites
http://anokahs.anoka.k12.mn.us/Media/bogus.html
Who Dunnit: What Kind of Web Page Is This? from UCLA College Library
http://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/college/help/whodunnit/index.htm
Kathy Schrock's Critical Evaluation Information for elementary, middle, and secondary students
http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide/eval.html

SOME MEANT-TO-BE-BAD SITES
Clones-R-Us
http://www.d-b.net/dti/
Evaluation of Resources on the Internet
http://www.hi.is/~anne/webeval.html
First Human Male Pregnancy
http://www.malepregnancy.com
GW Bush for President
http://gwbush.com/
MoonBeam Enterprises and Lunar Travel Agency
http://www.dreamweaverstudios.com/moonbeam/moon.htm
California's Velcro Crop Under Challenge
http://home.inreach.com/kumbach/velcro.html
Mountain Walrus
http://www.end.com/~jynx/walrus/
Jackalope
http://www.sudftw.com/jackcon.htm
Sasquatch
http://zapatopi.net/bsa.html
Tree Octopus
http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus.html
Greenpeas
http://www.greenpeas.org
Dihydrogen Monoxide (a most dangerous chemical compound)
http://www.dhmo.org

by Joyce Kasman Valenza
joyce_valenza@sdst.org

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