This week’s topic for our weekly blog is evaluating web sites and my module is 9.2 “Maintaining a Balance”. Before doing this, as a teacher I should know how to evaluate a web site. With help from the given link in the lecture this week, I have gotten an idea about it. Then I have literally searched for a “not proper” web site. My chosen dot point from column 3 is- analyse and present information from secondary sources to report on progress in the production of artificial blood and use available evidence to propose reasons why such research is needed.
The web site I chose to evaluate is “Medical Discoveries” which is a search engine on medical and dental interventions and research. The web link is
The URL: it indicates that the site is a commercial one, not personal. It does not belong to any non-profit, government or educational organization. And name of the site and url correspond each other.
Scanning the perimeter: There is no clear cut information on the agency or organization who created the site. Furthermore, the page does not show any evidence of recent updating. There are many health related topics discussed on the site. But no topic including our relevant one has an author or publishing date.
Indicators of quality information: There is not much link given. Some links take to the different topics on the same site and some lead to sites which will not provide any relevant information to the students. It will rather distract them from the actual purpose of the research.
Moreover, the information provided is not sourced. Therefore there is no evidence if the data is reliable.
Web evaluation of the web site:
After typing the url on the search engine of alexa.com the web ranking of the site is revealed (global ranking 597,285). It was also found that the site is mainly used by mostly women aged 55-64 years with no college education from home. Moreover there is no review on the site.
Again after typing to the search engine box of wayback machine no previous page is displayed. Because the page is quite recently created.
After looking for the site in several renown directories, nothing on the publisher or the title is discovered.
Summarized evaluation: After step by step evaluation of the site, I have realized that the site has been mainly created to provide information on health related topics to novice people.
It does not target any learned audiences or readers. There is not much concern about reliability of the information. The students should be discouraged to use information from this site no matter how correct the information is.
Web is an enormous source of information where uploading data is cheap and unregulated. So before providing the students with any secondary sources, we must evaluate the site. And before they start their own discovery, they must be taught about how to pick up the right information from right place.
Rezwana i think you have done a great job of evaluating your choosen website. i think you made me realise as a teacher it is very important to consider where our students are getting their information from and teaching them to pick up the right information from the right places. Using alexa.com for this site indicated many important factors that student using this site should be aware of. Your search for a not proper website was a good idea also, wish i had thought of that.
ReplyDeletegood Job
Katrina