Evaluating Information on the InternetGetting the Best from the Web

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Your questions are our priority!

EMILYHART

JOSEPHCHMURA JENNIFER

NACE MICHAELHUNTER

ALWAYS know where you are on the Web --

The url is your guidepost

New Top Level Domains (ICANN 1/11/12) .com domains almost exhausted for new

website names “Someone got there first” New businesses must pay domain brokers

for an address or register a new one with un-natural, insignificant words

Now possible to purchase a unique TLD (.mycompany or .ourtrademark or .ourbrand)

Fee - $185,000 with waiting period of 2 years.

Domain Registration

Currently unrestricted: .com .info .net .org

Currently require proof of eligibility .edu .coop .mil .gov .int .museum .xxx .aero .asia

DIAL: Evaluating Sites

Document:Verify factual accuracy

Can it be corroborated by you or others?

Is there scholarly support for assertions?Check the Format and Tone

Is it well-organized and easily navigated?

Is there an overt (or covert) bias, advocacy purpose or other hidden

agenda?

DIAL: Evaluating SitesCaveat lector Be especially careful if you find yourself

agreeing with the point of view of the author(s). You may not notice information that is IncompleteOne sidedPoorly researchedUndocumented

DIAL: Evaluating Sites

Institution or Sponsor:What is the reputation of the sponsor(s) or affiliated organization(s)?Check their identity if you have a question about the site

Use Whois for domain ownershipinformation:

http://www.internic.net/ orhttp://www.networksolutions.com/whois

DIAL: Evaluating Sites

Author(s):Check for credentials and accessibility (e-mail or other contact information)Navigate until you find this information; if you don’t, don’t use the document

DIAL: Evaluating Sites

Linkage or Affiliations:Overt: Outgoing links and/or advertisements found on the pageCovert: Incoming links

(Use Google or Yahoo and simply type link: followed by the URL in the searchbox. You will be given a list of all incoming links and much more about the site)What other sites exist by the same author(s) or sponsoring organization(s)?

(You many need Whois for this)

Wikipedia:Authorship

No requirements Most content contributed by a core of

about 1,000 “regular, registered users” IP addresses of anonymous editors are

recorded in the page history About ¼ of articles have only one author Articles average 2.7 authors each

Editorial Control (?)

Volunteer “administrators” Monitor changes in a section or topic area Arbitrate conflicts i.e. “edit wars” and decide

when to “protect” an article from further revision

Peer Review Status - granted by a larger number of reviewers as a sign of higher quality

Featured Content Status (“The Best of W.”) -peer reviewed sites selected for this honor by further review and labeled with a Star

Featured Portals – Large subject metasites of high quality

Web Topography:Layers of the web and what you can get from each…

Curated web Human, expert-created subject

directories Infomine.ucr.edu ipl2.org Content well-vetted and locked

Human, crowdsourced subject sites Wikipedia, Quora Content open (crowdsourced)

Human/crawler hybrids DuckDuckGo ddg.gg

Web Topography:Layers of the web and what you can get from each…

General Web results General search engines – algo-based

Google, Bing Content closed (static web pages) Limited search options; influenced by social

web Social Web

Blogs, Twitter, Facebook Content open and closed (crowdsourced) Topsy.com –social web metaengine

The Shape of Today’s Social Web

Public responses/attitudes/primary sources Breaking news, local to worldwide Trending topics and people Latest product reviews Companies and competition

Security, technology topics (latest virus, etc.) Locate individuals and their networks

Who they follow, who follows them People interested in a topic/hobby

Monitor collaborations

The very latest in…….

Social Networks in the Egyptian Revolution

1/25/11-2/11/11Enabling protesters to become citizen

journalists

Facebook, TwitterThe Heartbeat of the Egyptian Revolution in 2011 From January 10 to February 10: Twitter

Over 93 million revolution-related tweets within Egypt and between Egypt and other countries

Facebook 2313 revolution-related pages and events

created 461,000 posts by 9,815 users 216 Egyptian “cyber-revolutionary” FB

groups formed

Mining Today’s Social Web:The trust factors People you don’t know

Wikipedia Human-created databases, directories

“I need a few good sites on solar energy”

Mahalo, Ipl2.org Video Sharing and Q&A Services “How do I repair my garage door

opener?” YouTube, Yahoo Answers, Answers.com,

Mahalo Answers

Mining Today’s Social Web:The trust factors

People you follow Twitter-human created Tweets“What’s the buzz on Beyonce?”

People you know Post a question to friends and family“What type of Mac should I buy?” Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Bing (login

via Facebook)

SOCIAL SEARCH TOOLS

Topsy – www.topsy.comReal-time search of Twitter and Google+

Unlike other real time se’s, ranking is based on a deep archive of social media

Trending metrics used in ranking What’s viral right now?

Experts Search locates authoritative Twitter users on topics of your choice

Advanced search filters Site/domain Twitter user Language (10) Date, time posted

Twittermining Tools

Twitter.com Requires a (free) account Only the latest 2 weeks available Searchable by hashtag (#)

Author-designated keyword or significant term or phrase

#rochester #jobs #marketing

Facebook’s Graph SearchSearch using the knowledge of your friends Personalized search results based on

your circle of FB friends and public posts

“A collection of entities and their relationships on Facebook” (FB Graph Search engineering team)

Designed for full natural language queries

Made public 7/15/13 Must access via your FB account