Appraising Web Pages for Quality

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Why bother appraising web pages?

A vast amount of information is now freely available on the internet, and can be easily accessed by using a search engine. However, the internet is a free medium, and anyone can publish what they want without having to be an expert in a subject or undergo a process of peer review.

Even after you have eliminated all the irrelevant results returned by a search engine, you will still have to check that any remaining web pages are reliable before you can risk citing them in your work. You may well come across some quack pages written by people with an axe to grind, or a great deal of commercial research with a bias towards a particular product.

Subject gateways

The best option, if you wish to find internet resources to back up research or study, is to begin with a subject gateway. These cut out some of the leg-work involved by only including web pages which have already been assessed as reaching a certain standard.

If you need to do a wider search on the web, then you will need to consider whether any information you come across is reliable.

Appraising web pages

You should view web pages as critically as you would a journal article or book chapter. Here are some simple things to consider:

Relevance
  • Does the content of the page match the information you are looking for?
Provenance
  • Are the Author/Editor's name and credentials given within the document?
  • Are details of a related publisher or organisation given?
  • Are contact details for the Author/affiliated organisation given?
  • Do the cited Author/organisation have a reliable background/reputation in the given subject area?
  • NB the web address (URL) can often help you decide if the provenance of a document is trustworthy
Currency
  • Are there any amendment/revision dates?
  • Is it well maintained - i.e. do links (particularly to referenced resources) still work?
Reliability
  • Are the aims of the document stated, and does the body of the document try to address those aims?
  • Does the document reference the resources it cites?
  • Are the resources on which the document is based reliable and up-to-date?
  • Is the research methodology, and any statistical analysis, within the document sound?
Bias
  • Is the document written subjectively or objectively?
  • Is the work based on a range of evidence and sources?
  • Is there any evidence of financial bias (commercial sponsorship etc.)?
  • Have any instances of bias been acknowledged within the document?

Other reading

Social Science Collection Development Policy (particularly section3 - "Selection Criteria") - for the INTUTE Social Sciences gateway - a collection of quality assessed internet resources in the social sciences

INTUTE Health & Life Sciences Evaluation Guidelines (.doc) - gives background to selection criteria for INTUTE's internet gateway for subjects in the biological sciences (including health, nursing and medicine)

To report errors or make suggestions for this page:

Please e-mail Jason Harper