Module 4 - Evaluating the Web

The primary purpose of this site is to provide information to internet users about some functions that you can perform to get the most out of the internet. It is published by the Center fo Improved Engineering and Science Education at the Stevens Institiute of Technology and is covered by copyright, it has a link to the Center of Improved Engineering and Science Education website that tells you more about the publisher, this would indicate to me that the site is credible.

The site is made of tutorials that cover a number of areas for advanced internet users. In my opinion it is published more for the use of teachers at the Institute than the general internet user, but it does provide some useful information for others as well. It provides practical exercises to ensure your understanding of the tutorials. It provides a link that indicates what the purpose of the website and who it is directed at.

I dont believe that the information contained in the website is a current as it could be due to the fact that the copyright happened in the year 2000. I cant see any other date that indicates that information has been updated since then. However the links that are contained in the site are functional.

I used the A9 function to give me an indication of the type of people who visit this site, the people who visit this page also visit a number of other educational sites.

Compare your final analysis and annotation with the material you saved for the last task, and think about these questions :

In terms of your own future use, which 'body ' of information (ie. the original 'snapshot' of the site, or your own, annotated, analytical version) would be most useful to refer back to?

I think that the credibility of the site has a lot to do with how useful the site actually is. I would refer to the about us links and look further into who published and wrote the information contained in the site. I would also need to decide what the mission of the site was to see if it was the kind of information that I wanted to use.

In term of external users (i.e. if you included this site as a hyperlink or resource on a website) which body of information would best help them judge if the site was useful or of interest to them?

To best judge if this site was useful to an external user, it would be best to determine what purpose the site was made for, ie Advocacy, Commercial or Reference/Information. The user could refer to the site information or the about us link to find out more information about the site and to see if the site is relevant to them.