Day 8 Journal

Today time is moving very fast as today the lecturer will go through lecture 6 7 and 8. Plus this Friday is test, we have to do critic and evaluation on the website and resources.

So we look at how these information can be evaluate. Before looking at the internet quality, we first look at the problem arise from the website.
Basic problems are similar information and irrelevance information. so we go in depth to these problem where too much information allows the user needs to click on the result and waste a lot of time to pick the sources he wants which is totally inefficient. Or some resources such as blogs are not useful as there is no formal authority to "police" the information in the internet or even no review process for most internet information unlike printed materials. Inaccurate information which is not updated or maybe upload by Tom, Dick or Harry which will harm the user to do their research instead of helping. Or sometimes, it may not even be updated frequently or even worse, it comes with a broken link. Or sometimes, there is a constant change on the webpage where the relevance search maybe remove or moved to other sources. Sometimes, you need to pay or require to download software to get full access to webpages. The website has a blending of entertainments, informations and advertising where user need to determine if informations provided is supplied by the advertiser.

What are the areas to look out for while checking for internet?
-The purpose of the website
-Access the coverage
-Are they in the position to put up the information e.g. doctor
-Make sure the information are current, not outdated
-Consider the accessibility e.g. log in password, register
-How well they present the information. Formal or informal?
-Compare the information on what you have suggested with other sources.
-And check the overall quality of the website.

For indepth evaluation on the webpage, different types of resources may require different criteria for websites. For the best one, rating tools is usually formed in search engine where the higher the people visited the website, the higher the rank would become.

And what are the evaluation criteria?
Puropose-Ask yourself why are the information is there and the true objective of it. Who is the target audience and take a look at the "About Us" Tab. "IBM- business and marketing information"
Coverage-What kind of materials they provide? Video and Graphic? And the range of coverage E.g." disease- wide range of heart attack add the in depth of it".
Authority-The publisher and the sponsor must be verify. Who are the board of director iin the webpage? How the citation- is it coded by other place? Or did they provide an avenue to contact them and how reliable are they?
Accuracy-Ask yourself is it collected from research and how reliable is it? Check for grammar and spelling error and any evidence of quality control.
Currency-Is the information up to date e.g."The straits times is updated every moning" Also check on how often is it updated?
Accessibility-Is the loading time fast? The language is it international and do we have the permission to write on them?
Presentation and Arrangement- Is it easy to read and does it capture your eyes? These search features more on visual usage.
Usability-Is there arrows to click? does it access the navigation of one screen to another search key.
Over quality-Compare with other source which one is better in terms of quality and how unique is the website you have chosen to be?

But the most important thing is different materials are mend for different reasons. The assessment of quality may differ from other. Bear in mind that.

Let's talk about database and journals
How to check?
User will need to verify the authority and who are the people who post the article there. Whether the person who provide the link given are useful information. And of course Google search the web page and see how popular the website are.

Mailing list, Newsgroup
How reliable and accurate form the people who are engaging in the discussion forum.
Any moderator? Is there anyone who referee the situations? and is the person qualify to participate in the forum. E.g.Doctor

Electronics, Magazine
Usually they have been reviewed and are often quite reliable.
When is the research done when you get the information?
How accurate is it or how often is it updated?

Database
More of abstract where user can find information if you want statistic.
The accessibility is when do you need to pay for it?
How fast is the download and will someone be there to help you if you need it?

Lastly, check for the organization or the "about us" before you start to do research and find the relevance sources

Ok back to practical 7 where we are suppose to justify and critic this website,TalkingCock.com.

It is a Singaporean website where it features articles and jokes about Singapore politics and current affairs which include some funny games link to the current affairs. So this is the fun of having to critic this website. Please look at my blog reflection after the critic. see ya.....