Website Evaluation

Thursday July 03rd, 2008

Most students are pretty comfortable on the Internet, so evaluating websites is one topic I like to let them teach to each other.

Begin the session by giving everyone a handout with criteria for evaluating a website. Briefly discuss the criteria you selected. (There are several good library instruction sites out there with criteria such as http://www.library.cornell.edu/olinuris/ref/research/webcrit.html).
Split the class into groups of 3-5 people and give each group a set of sites to evaluate. I also provide each group with a blank chart listing the criteria again so they can take notes about each website. Some good pairs I've used for this exercise are http://www.gatt.org (http://www.gatt.org/) and http://www.wto.org/, http://www.globalwarming.org/ and http://yosemite.epa.gov/oar/globalwarming.nsf/content/index.html.
Give the groups a little time to examine the sites and discuss it in their group. (I've found that 6-10 minutes is usually sufficient).
Each group will choose a representative to share their findings with the class. Rather than just having them go through each criteria element for every site, I have them display each site and explain why or why not they would consider this to be a valid source of information for their project. During each presentation I also ask additional questions to make sure all of the aspects I wanted to demonstrate are included.

This can take some time, so it works best with a small class - 15 or fewer students.

Brenda Kliethermes - Concordia University