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Information Literacy

STEP 3-Evaluate

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

  • What is the purpose of the source? For example:
    • To provide information (e.g., newspaper articles)
    • To persuade or advocate (e.g., editorials or opinion pieces)
    • To entertain (e.g., a viral video)
    • To sell a product or service (e.g., advertising or marketing materials on a company website)
  • Who is the intended audience? For example:
    • Scholars and academic researchers with specialized knowledge
    • The general public (without specialized knowledge)
    • Students in high school, college or university (e.g., textbooks for students learning a new subject).

Authority and credibility

  • Who is the author?
    • Is it a person?
    • Is it an organization such as a government agency, nonprofit organization, or a corporation?
  • What are the qualifications of the author?
    • What is the author's occupation, experience, or educational background?
    • Does the author have any subject matter expertise?
    • Is the author affiliated with an organization such as a university, government agency, nonprofit organization, or a corporation?
  • Who is the publisher?
    • For books, is it a university press or a commercial publisher? These types of publishers use editors in order to ensure a quality publication.
    • For journals or magazines, can you tell if it is popular or scholarly in nature?
    • For websites, is it an organizational website, or a personal blog?

Accuracy and reliability

  • Is the information well researched?
    • Are there references (e.g., citations, footnotes, or a bibliography) to sources that will provide evidence for the claims made?
    • If the source includes facts or statistical data, can this information be verified in another source?
    • If the data was gathered using original research (such as polling or surveys), what was the method of data collection? Has the author disclosed the validity or reliability of the data?

Currency and timeliness

  • When was the information published?
    • For books and articles - you should be able to easily verify the publication date.
    • For websites, try to determine the date the web page was created or updated
  • Is current information required? If not, then accurate, yet historical, information may still be acceptable.

Objectivity or bias

  • Does the source contain opinions or facts?
  • Is the information presented in the source objective (unbiased) or subjective (biased)?
  • Does the information promote a political, religious, or social agenda?
  • Is advertising content (usually found in business magazines or newspapers) clearly labelled?

In Summary

  • Does the source provide you with high-quality information? Is the information useful in answering your questions and meeting your information need?

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:

Burkhardt, J.M & MacDonald, M.C. (2010). Teaching information Literacy: 50 standards-based exercises for college students. Chicago: American Library Association.

Mandalios, J. (2013). RADAR: An approach for helping students evaluate Internet sources. Journal of Information Science, 39(4), 470-478.

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);

  1. They can use media technologies effectively in accessing, storing, retrieving and sharing information to meet their individual needs.
  2. They can access and make informed choices about various media forms and content from diverse cultural and institutional sources.
  3. They can understand how and why media content is produced.
  4. They can understand and critically analyze the languages, techniques and messages conveyed by the media.
  5. They can use media creatively to express and convey ideas, information and thoughts.
  6. They can identify and avoid media content and services that may be unwanted, offensive or harmful.
  7. They know the characteristics of this environment and are aware that they leave a digital trace. They may know that these traces have both economic and intelligence value.
  8. They may know that the accounts they use are registered in their database.
  9. They can use new media environments safely and consciously.
  10. They can protect themselves against risks by learning the intended use of these environments.
  11. They can share by evaluating the accuracy, integrity and quality of the shared information.
  12. They understand that false information can cause outrage and panic in society.
  13. They know the industrial aspect of new media and can approach it from a critical point of view.
  14. As a requirement of democratic life, they use different media channels and can communicate effectively and effectively.
  15. They can become aware of the impact of new media on individuals and society's beliefs, thoughts, behaviors and values ​​accepted by that society.

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.

  • The source should be verified from other sources.
  • Permission from the author must be obtained to use the content.
  • Identity, location and visual verification tools should be used.

It is important to know how the following concepts may affect the use of information. Therefore, consider the following concepts when evaluating information.

  • Viral
  • Citizen journalism
  • Post-truth
  • Filter bubbles
  • Echo chambers 
  • Fact-checking
  • Mis-information, dis-information, mal-information
  • Confirmation bios

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. 

How To Spot Fake News by IFLA under licensed CC BY 4.0

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

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