KCL • CCH • Minor programme • AV1000 • Electronic communications and publishing

AV1000
Fundamentals of the digital humanities
Assessing Web sites

1. Criteria for assessing Web-sites
2. Exercises

I. Criteria

The following criteria describe an apparently wide consensus about what to look for in a Web site intended for research or other informational uses. Sites intended e.g. for artistic or advertising purposes call for rather different criteria, or at least for the following to be applied in different ways.

Librarians, who in the past have been closely involved in filtering print publications, have in recent years turned their attention similarly to the Web. See, for example, Alastair G. Smith, "Testing the surf: Criteria for evaluating Internet information resources", Public-Access Computer Systems Review 8.3 (1997), and the tutorial guide produced by the Library at the University of California Berkeley, "Evaluating Web Pages: Techniques to Apply and Questions to Ask". It is useful to ask how someone who stands outside a discipline, at least professionally, but takes an interest in its materials, looks at these materials. What signs does such a person look for?

Begin with this overall warning: never assume that the author of a Web page thinks as you do—or indeed even as he or she seems. Because of the ease with which Web pages may be published, all of the usual mechanisms for filtering out the intellectually or socially problematic are gone. This can of course be a good as well as a bad thing, but in any case it is a fact of online life. Be wary. Look for all the clues.

Most of the literature on the topic speaks of "evaluating" pages, suggesting that the essential act is deciding whether something is good or bad. We are apt thus to think in a binary fashion, accepting or rejecting the page in question. We are likely then to miss the value of some aspects of the page, or the page taken for a particular purpose different from, but perhaps relevant to, our own. Think, rather, of "assessing" a page—and in particular for the kind of knowledge it has to offer. It may not be offering knowledge in any way useful or desirable to you, but at least asking what kind promotes a finer-grained judgement.

A. Authority

• Is the page personal or institutional? If the former then authority must be borne by the person; if the latter, by the institution.
• Who is the author? What are his or her credentials? Look for biographical information, a c.v., departmental/institutional affiliation (which can be checked). Unstated authorial responsibility may be a bad sign. Use a Web search-engine to locate other resources for which this author is responsible. Is this person qualified?
• With what institution is the Web-site affiliated? If this is not stated, look at the domain-name (.com, .edu, .org, etc.) but beware—none of these guarantee institutional approval in any sense; some university sites, for example, allow students and staff to put up anything they please.
• Are there additional sponsors or affiliated organisations? If there are, check the Web-sites of these sponsors/organisations; check their lists of links or of affiliated organisations.
• Is contact information provided? Someone who does not provide contact details may be trying to avoid contact—or they may just be shy.

B. Nature, purpose and audience

• What kind of thing is the page? If you cannot readily tell, then why not?
• What is the purpose of the page? What is it for? Advertising, advocacy, news, entertainment, opinion, scholarship, satire—or more than one of these?
• What is the assumed context? Is the page participating in a wider debate? Usually if so the author will provide links to it.
• What is the intended audience? Who is it for? Ordinary Web-surfers? Academics? Children? Political extremists? Look at the reading-level; what knowledge is assumed, if any? Look for jargon or otherwise specialised terms; search for these on the Web to see what sorts of people use them commonly.
• What kind of audience do the design elements, especially graphics, tend to suggest?

C. Currency

• Is the subject matter of the page time-dependent? Note that technological and commercial information will tend to age quickly, information in the social sciences and humanities much more slowly.
• When was the page last updated? Look at the date given by “Page Info” (usually under either View or Tools in the menu bar). Note also that a responsible author will tend to state somewhere on the page the date on which it was last modified if the information on it could be expected to change. Recording what has been changed, however, is so difficult that few do it at all. And a recently updated page may still contain out-of-date information.
• Are the links on the page, if any, working? Broken links tend to indicate a poorly maintained page, though of course not always.

D. Objectivity

• Is the page advocating or arguing for a point of view or action to be taken? If so you need to identify and consider opposed points of view, to weigh whether the advocacy is reasonable, whether the argument is strong or weak.
• Is the text of the page defensive, e.g. pointing to wrongs that have been committed or anticipating objections to the points of view expressed there? Are these wrongs verifiable? Are the objections answered well?
• Are facts accurately and completely cited? What facts are omitted?
• Based on the author's credentials and affiliations, are there any conflicts of interest?

E. Coverage

• What is the scope of the site, i.e. how much of the subject area does it set for itself to cover? A clear statement of purpose will help you to determine this.
• Does it cover its implicitly or explicitly designated scope adequately?
• Is there any indication that the site is complete or is still in the draft stage or under construction? (All Web pages are in a sense always under construction, but adequate coverage of the defined scope can reasonably be expected.

F. Bibliographic support

• Does the author support what he or she says? Look for bibliographies, links to sources.
• Are the sources respectable? Since "birds of a feather flock together" these sources may tell you quite a lot about the page in question. Are the authorities cited well-known?

G. Aesthetics and craftsmanship

• What does the design of the site communicate? Links between appearance and content are problematic, but the aesthetics of the site is part of the message.
• Is there for the subject an appropriate balance between text and images?
• Has the author taken into consideration users who have slow links? Do not have the latest equipment and so may not be able to run the latest plugins?
• If the page requires specialised software to view the contents, what do you miss if you do not have this software? An author inconsiderate in these respects may not be thinking clearly in others.
• Is the writing of high quality? Has the author proofread his or her text carefully? Are there spelling errors? Egregious typos and sloppy use of language may indicate a lack of care in other respects as well.

II. Exercises

1. Post-traumatic stress disorder
2. Philosophy
3. A book list: Excalibur
4. News of Iraq

revised October 2007