Evaluate information sources with criteria such as accuracy, reliability, relevance, completeness and objectivity
It is important to determine the quality of the sources of information you collect for your research. The common evaluation criteria are purpose and audience, authority and reliability, accuracy and reliability, timeliness and timeliness, and objectivity or bias. To consider each source of information that you will use in your research according to the following criteria, you should ask the questions below:
Purpose and intended audience
Authority and credibility
Accuracy and reliability
Currency and timeliness
Objectivity or bias
In Summary
Adapted from Burkhardt, J.M & MacDonald, M.C. (2010). Teaching information Literacy: 50 standards-based exercises for college students.Chicago: American Library Association.
Evaluating Internet Sources With RADAR
“The 21st century has been described as the Information Age. However, it is a time when we are surrounded by so much information, in so many forms, that it often seems that we are drowning. This is especially true when searching on the Internet. You can navigate your way safely through this sea of information by using the RADAR method of evaluating information. This can be used for evaluating any sources of information: in books, on the Internet and in the periodical databases
Relevance - How is this information relevant to your assignment?
Authority - Who is the author? What makes this person or organization an authoritative source?
Date - When was this information published and is the publication date important to you?
Appearance - Does the information look professional or academic? Does it have citations and references?
Reason for writing - Why did the author publish this information?” (Mandalios, 2013, p.473).
This page is taken from the Brock University Library, which was adapted from the below sources:
Developing technologies and an increasing amount of information have created a new ecosystem. This new environment, which has entered our lives mostly with social media tools, has fundamentally changed our information usage habits and has led to the formation of a new culture. In this ecosystem, which we can call new media, mostly there is the internet that enables communication in digital media as well as printed materials such as newspapers, books, brochures with audio-visual mass media such as television, radio, and cinema. Now, when people need information, they want to meet their information needs from audience members who are connected to their networks. However, the information revealed through social media may not always have reliable or accurate content. Therefore, it is important for everyone to have the new media literacy skills listed below.
Characteristics of New Media Literate Individuals
The characteristics of individuals who are new media literate can be briefly listed as follows. New media literate individuals (Karabacak, 2016b; Euro Media Literacy,2006);
Knowing how to use User-Generated Content (UGC) and verifying the information on social networks, which are overloaded with situational updates, calls for relief, reports of new developments, and rescue information, especially in crisis situations, has become the most important issue today.
The Verification Handbook, developed by the European Journalism Centre, based in the Netherlands, under its Emergency Journalism Initiative, is a resource to help you with this.
To verify user-generated content:
Information such as the origin of the source, the author and the date and place where the content was produced should be checked.
It is important to know how the following concepts may affect the use of information. Therefore, consider the following concepts when evaluating information.
Confirmation bias; is a tendency to seek information that confirms one's own wishes, ideas, and beliefs and to ignore opposing views while researching about any subject, evaluating a situation, making a decision, or even remembering a past event. Even if we consider that any idea has pros and cons, our mind unconsciously seeks information that confirms our beliefs. Thanks to this information, we want to defend the ideas we believe in and give reasons. It is often very difficult to accept a different opinion on the same subject. This is because we are biased towards change or do not want to change easily. Researchers can overcome confirmation bias by making a targeted effort to evaluate all evidence objectively, particularly evidence that may be contradictory to the researcher's preconceptions.
Alison J. Head, Barbara Fister, and Margy MacMillan (January 15, 2020), Information literacy in the age of algorithms, Project Information Literacy Research Institute, https://projectinfolit.org/publications/algorithm-study