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Assessing the Quality of Information on the Internet

Accuracy

• Is it clear who is sponsoring the information?
  
• Is there a way of verifying the legitimacy of the sponsor? (phone number, postal address?)
  
• Is it clear who wrote the information?
  
• Is there a statement giving the name of the copyright holder?

Authority

• Are the sources for factual information clearly listed so they can be verified in another source?
  
• Is the information free of grammatical, spelling, and other typographical errors?
  
• Is it clear who has the ultimate responsibility for the accuracy of the material?
  
• If statistical data are presented in graphs and /or charts, are the graphs/charts clearly labeled and easy to read?

Objectivity

• Is the information provided as a public service?
  
• Is the information free of advertising?
  
• If there is any advertising on the page, is it clearly differentiated from the informational content?

Currency

• Are there dates on the sources to indicate: when the information was written, when the information was first placed on the Internet, and when the information was last revised?

Coverage

• Is there an indication that the information has been completed and is not still under construction?
  
• If there is a print equivalent to the information, is there clear indication of whether the entire work or only a portion of it is available on the Internet?
  
• If the material is from a work that is out of copyright, has there been an effort to update the material to make it more current?



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Designed and Created by Jeneen LaSee-Willemssen & Laura Jacobs
Last updated: September 01, 2000
Copyright © 2000. All Rights Reserved.