Engineering 190W, Spring 2023 - Hong Section: Home

When using Online or Internet Resources, consider Search Engines vs. metasites - evaluate resource - be attentive to domain -may include .com, .edu, .org, .gov, .net

Evaluating Information – Applying the CRAAP Test

For Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, Purpose

http://www.csuchico.edu/lins/handouts/eval_websites.pdf

Goal is to establish relevancy.  The evaluation criteria includes these issues:

Scope of coverage

Currency – be able to distinguish currency from timeliness

Relevance – meaningful to what audience; at what level; will you cite it as authoritative?

Authority – stem is author – establishes the source of the information – author/publisher/source/sponsor; organizational affiliations & credentials; contact information

Accuracy – reliability, correctness of content; supported by evidence; is it verifiable; is tone unbiased, objective, impartial & free of emotion; free of errors?

Purpose – are hypotheses and authors’ intentions clear?  Why is content important – to inform, teach, sell, entertain or persuade?  Any political, ideological, cultural, religious, institutional or personal biases?

Ease of use – Capturing, copying, citing; design & presentation

Remember when we cite or quote, we are CHOOSING to bring other voices into our paper or scholarly work.  Let's ask, Why we cite:

• to give credit to authors
• to show your work
• to be responsible researcher
• to avoid plagiarism

Think of 5 criteria you use to evaluate information and what questions you ask yourself to determine relevancy or whether your information ned is met?

Evaluating strategies:

• consider that we are on information overload - how to distinguish between accurate information & misinformation
• transition from reading vertically (CRAAP) to laterally - use 4 moves, known as S.I.F.T, with these action items:
  • Stop - open up a browser tab & enter a search term
  • investigate the source(s) - who is the author? what process or methodology was used to produce this information and what systems are in place to catch mistakes and correct them?
  • find better coverage - consult other sources, demonstrating the historical context, disciplinary approaches, are there patterns or perspectives or dominant ideas that emerge, and what voices are missing?
  • trace things back to the original context - is the evidence misquoted or misrepresented; where is the data from & how was it collected and can we make legitimate conclusions from it?  Science and research is about reproducibility.
  • watch this video on lateral reading strategies (3.47) from the Civic Online Reasoning curriculum, co-sponsored by the Stanford History Education Group