Advanced Computer ApplicationsEvaluating Web Sites

Name______________________

Why Do We Need to Evaluate Web Resources?

With the advent of the World Wide Web and the huge amount of information that is available, people need to be able to critically evaluate a Web page for authenticity, applicability, authorship, bias, and usability.

Anyone can (and probably will) put anything up on the Internet. Are they reliable? accurate? truthful? It is often difficult to tell:

What something is Where it came from How it got there Who the author is Don’t you think if it was important enough to put on the Internet, people should give pertinent

information about it? That is often not the case!

Criteria for Evaluating Web Resources

PurposeWhat is the purpose of the site or the page? Look for graphics and text. Web pages may be…

Commercial Informative Educational Entertaining Persuasive Personal Institutional A Hoax

What does the URL (web address) say about the producer of the web site, and its purpose? Look at the final syllable in the domain name. The first two sites below are “White House” sites. Which is the official White House site? How can you tell? Note that both sites are easily accessible in a web search for “White House”.

URL-Uniform Resource Locator – website address

.gov Government agency: www.whitehouse.gov

.net Internet Service Provider: www.whitehouse.net

.com Commercial Site: http://www.washingtonpost.com

.edu Higher Education: www.lesley.edu

Other educational sites may appear with different domain names: www.whitehouse.gov/kids

.mil Military site: www.navy.mil

~ (tilde) Personal site: http://www.members.tripod.com/~DAdams/qkbrdinf.html

.org Organization site-may be charitable, religious, or a lobbying group: http://www.beefnutrition.org

*Country names appear as a two-letter abbreviation in the domain name.

*New domain names include .museum, .info, and .biz, among others.

Authority Who is the author? What are his/her credentials (qualifications, occupation, position, education,

experience)? Does he/she have sufficient authority to speak on the subject? Is there any way to reach him/her? Who published the document and is it separate from the “Webmaster”? Check the domain of the document, what institution publishes this document? Does the publisher list his/her qualifications? Is there an organizational or corporate sponsor? Is the page authentic, or is it a hoax? Is there a reference list?

Accuracy Who wrote the page and can you contact him/her? What are his/her credentials? What is the purpose of the document and why was it produced? Is this person qualified to write this document?

Can you verify the information from another source, a knowledgeable person, or books, reference materials, or periodicals at the library?

Is the author objective and unbiased? Is the information up to date? Is the information free of grammatical, spelling, and typographical errors?

Objectivity Does the content reflect a bias (an opinion)? Is the bias explicit or hidden? Does the identity of the author or sponsor suggest a bias? How does the bias impact the usefulness of the information? What goals/objectives does this age meet? How detailed is the information? What opinions are expressed by the author?

Appropriateness & Relevance Is the content appropriate? Is the content accurate, Complete, well-written? Is the content relevant to your topic or question? Are you able to understand the language and terms used?

Currency Is the information on the page up-to-date? When was the page produced? Can you tell when the page was last updated? Are there dead links? Is there a difference between the date the information was created and the date the

page was last updated? Responsibility

Are the authors up-front about their purpose and content? Is there a way to contact the authors? Do the authors give credit for information used? Is there a reference list?

Clarity Is the information clearly presented? Is the text neat, legible and formatted for easy reading? If there are graphics, do they add to the content or distract? Is it all images or a balance of text and images? If there are advertisements, do they interfere with your ability to use the page? Are the pages well organized? Are there mistakes in spelling or word usage? Is there enough information, or are important points left out?

Accessibility Can you get in? Does the site load quickly? Can you move around the site easily to find what you want? Is the site or page still there next time? Do the links work?

Appeal Is the site colorful, easy to read, full of graphics, and fun to use? Is it easy to use?

Hoaxes

Hoaxes present a major challenge for evaluating information found on the Web. Here areseveral examples to test your evaluation IQ. To verify the authenticity of the site, you may have to drill down to through several layers to find “About” or “Contact Us”. Some of the examples below are harmless and entertaining; others harmful, even hateful. All could give misinformation to the unaware reader.

Martin Luther Kingo http://www.thekingcenter.org

World Trade Organizationo http://www.gatt.org o http://www.wto.org

Political Partieso http://www.gop.com/ o http://www.democrats.org/

http://www.improb.com/airchives/paperair/volume1/v1i1/barney.htm is a goofy, but real looking web site called Taxonomy of Barney. This is a good example of how something can appear to be real (the authors and affiliated institutions are listed) but the information is completely bogus. You could compare this with the Official Barney page http://pbskids.org/barney/ .

Check out California’s Velcro Crop Under Challenge—another example of a real-looking, but phony web site. http://home.inreach.com/kumbach/velcro.html

Photo Manipulation

Historically, Stalin was well known for his airbrushed photos where he removed high-ranking officials from photos after he had them executed. Now it is easier to do this using computer drawing programs such as PhotoShop.

[edit]

Yezhov is clearly visible to Stalin's left. The photo was later altered by censors.

This image taken by the Moscow Canal was taken when Nikolai Yezhov was water commissar. After he fell from power and fell out of Stalin’s favor, he was arrested, shot, and his image removed by the censors.

The Newsweek cover is the original mugshot, whereas the Time cover is digitally manipulated. O.J.Simpson's face is darker, blurrier and unshaven3. The photographer that manipulated the picture

said that he "wanted to make it more artful, more compelling"3. It is here that the ethical issues arise. News photographs should either be authentic or not be published at all. Any manipulation distorts the truth. It is clear that on the cover of Time, O.J.Simpson looks more sinister than he does on the cover of Newsweek. The photographers intention to make the cover more compelling failed miserably, since the matter raised so much discussion. This goes to show that best intentions are often not good enough and that ethical principles should be applied when decisions are made.

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With the advent of powerful desktop publishing software like Adobe Photoshop, digital image manipulation has become mainstream. However, even before the invention of such software, doctored and tampered photos were used to alter perception and shape history. Fourandsix.com has chronicled these occurrences in their brilliant series, ‘Photo Tampering throughout History‘. Below you will find a curated list of 12 famously doctored photographs from the history books, enjoy!

 10 Famous Historical Photos that were Manipulated

1. Abraham Lincoln’s Head on John Calhoun’s Body, circa 1860

 

 

This iconic portrait of U.S President Abraham Lincoln is actually a composite of Lincoln’s head and the Southern politician John Calhoun’s body. [Source: fourandsix.com]

 

 

2. General Ulysses. S. Grant on a Horsein front of Troops, circa 1864

 

 

 

Researchers at the Library of Congress uncovered this gem after extensive detective work. The image appears to show General Ulsses S. Grant in front of his troops at City Point, Virginia during the American Civil War. Investigation now shows the image to be made of three separate prints: (1) the head is taken from a portrait of Grant; (2) the horse and body are those of Major General Alexander M. Cook; and (3) the background is of Confederate prisoners captured at the battle of Fisher’s Hill, Virginia. [Source: fourandsix.com]

 

 

3. General Francis P. Blair Added to Photograph of General Sherman Posing with his Generals, circa 1865

 

 

 

In this famous photograph taken by Matthew Brady, General Sherman is seen posing with his generals. General Francis P. Blair (standing far right) was added to the photograph as he was not in attendance for that specific shot. His image was taken from the second photograph shown, which was taken during the same sitting. [Source: fourandsix.com]

 

 

4. Stalin Airbrushes Out His Enemies, circa 1930

 

 

Stalin was notorious for routinely airbrushing his enemies out of photographs. As people fell out of favor with Stalin, so to did their photographic identity. In this image we see a comissar removed after falling out of Stalin’s good graces. [Source: fourandsix.com]

 

 

5. Mao Tse-tung Removes Po Ku, 1936

 

 

Just like Stalin, Mao Tse-tung was known for removing people after they fell out of favor. In this image we see Po Ku removed for just that. [Source: fourandix.com

 

 

6. Hitler Removes Joseph Goebbels, 1937

 

 

Not to be outdone by Stalin and Mao, Hitler also liked to tamper. In this doctored photograph we see Joseph Goebbels removed, though it is unclear why Goebbels fell out of favor with Hitler. [Source: fourandsix.com]

 

 

7. Canadian PM William Lyon Mackenzie KingRemoves King George VI, 1939

 

 

Prime Minster of Canada, William Lyon Mackenzie King, removed King George VI from the original photograph with the PM alongside Queen Elizabeth. The photograph was used on an election poster for the Prime Minister, so the theory is that an image of just Mackenzie with the Queen put him in a more powerful light. [Source: fourandsix.com]

 

 

8. Benito Mussolini Removes Horse Handler, 1942

 

 

Benito Mussolini had the horse handler removed from the original photograph to make himself look more epic and heroic in this iconic capture. [Source: fourandsix.com]

 

 

9. Watch Removed from WWIIRussian Flag Raising Photograph, 1945

 

 

The editor-in-chief of Russian Magazine Ogoniok, removed a soldier’s watch as they raised the soviet flag atop the German Reichstag building during WWII. The reason? If you look closely, the soldier has a watch on his other hand as well. This suggests that ‘looting’ may have occurred before this photo was taken. [Source: fourandsix.com]

 

 

10. US Olympic Hockey Team Adds Missing Players, 1960

 

 

In this rather obvious tampering, the faces of Bill Cleary (front row, third from left), Bob Cleary (middle row, far left), and John Mayasich (top row far left), are superimposed onto the bodies of Bob Dupuis, Larry Alm and Herb Brooks. It’s unclear why those players were selected as ‘replacements’. The US Olympic Hockey team defeated the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia to win its first Olympic Gold Medal in Hockey. [Source: fourandsix.com]

 

 

11. Russian Cosmonaut Grigoriy Nelyubov Removed, 1961

 

 

On April 12th, 1961, a Russian team of cosmonauts led by Yuri Gagarin were the first humans to complete an orbit of Earth. One of the cosmonauts, Grigoriy Nelyubov, was removed from a photo of the team taken after their journey. Nelyubov had been expelled from the program for misbehavior. [Source: fourandsix.com]

 

 

12. Kent State Massacre Fencepost Removal, 1970

 

 

In this Pulitzer Prize winning photograph by John Filo, we see Mary Ann Vecchio screaming as she kneels over the body of student Jeffrey Miller at Kent State University. The Kent State Shootings occurred when National Guardsmen had fired into a crowd of demonstrators, killing four and wounding nine. The photo originally featured a visually distracting fencepost behind Mary Ann Vecchio’s head, but this was removed by an unknown photo editor in the early 1970’s. The modified photo then was published in Life magazine and other publications.