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abstract:
This paper criticizes the checklist model approach (authority, accuracy, objectivity, currency, coverage) to teaching undergraduates how to evaluate Web sites. The checklist model rests on faulty assumptions about the nature of information available through the Web, mistaken beliefs about student evaluation skills, and an exaggerated sense of librarian expertise in evaluating information. The checklist model is difficult to implement in practice and encourages a mechanistic way of evaluating that is at odds with critical thinking. A contextual approach is offered as an alternative. A contextual approach uses three techniques: promoting peer- and editorially-reviewed resources, comparison, and corroboration. The contextual approach promotes library resources, teaches information literacy, and encourages reasoned judgments of information quality.
Introduction
Academic librarians have been arguing since the mid-1990s that students need instruction in evaluating the quality of information found on Web sites and that librarians should provide this instruction.1 Academic teaching faculty have also bemoaned the use of inferior Web sites in student papers,2 and they frequently look to librarians for instruction classes in evaluating Web sites. In books, articles, and Web-page tutorials, a typical librarian approach is to promote the use of checklists of various criteria.3 Recent articles, however, suggest that the checklist model, although important and useful, is in need of revision. Ann Scholz-Crane, for example, found the simple checklist to be an unsatisfactory teaching tool in a study of how undergraduate students evaluate Web sites.4 John Fritch and Robert Cromwell have developed a filtering model as an alternative to the checklist model.5 This paper points out additional problems with the checklist model and presents as an alternative-a contextual approach-that uses peer review, comparison, and corroboration as methods for teaching Web-site evaluation.
Ditching the Dogma
Why do librarians believe they need to teach students how to evaluate Web sites? The following line of reasoning is common in the literature and has become something of an unquestioned dogma of contemporary librarianship.6 The World Wide Web has no standards. Anyone can publish anything on the Web. High quality resources and Web sites of dubious distinction co-exist alongside each other on the Web. Today's students use the Web for their papers, but they do not know how to tell the difference between good information and bad information. In fact, students...