Download - Evaluating information
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Once you have found information that matches the
topic and requirements of your research, you should
analyze or evaluate these information sources.
Why?
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Why Evaluating Information Is Important?
Evaluating information encourages you to think
critically about the reliability, validity, accuracy,
authority, timeliness, point of view or bias of
information sources.
Evaluation is closely associated with critical thinking.
Beyer (1985) argued that evaluation is equated with
critical thinking.
Most theorists, describe critical thinking as including
evaluation among several other higher-order thinking
processes (Cromwell 1992).
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Another model of thinking
skills is that of Benjamin
Bloom and his colleagues,
popularly dubbed
“Bloom‟s Taxonomy.” It
includes, from least to
most sophisticated,
knowledge,
comprehension,
application, analysis,
synthesis, and evaluation
(Bloom et al. 1956).
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There are Many Types of Information:
Books, both in-print and published electronically (e-
books).
Journal Articles, both in-print and electronic.
Newspaper Articles, both in- print and electronic.
Websites.
Other types, including social media, wikis, Wikipedia,
podcasts, newscasts, videos, etc.
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Use
CRAAP to
Evaluate Information
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1.Currency: The timeliness of the information
When the information published or posted? Has the
information recently been revised or updated?
Is the information current?
Are the links functional?
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2. Relevance: The importance of the
information for your needs.
Does the information related to your topic?
Who is the intended audience?
Is the information at an appropriate level?
Is the information compatible for academe research
paper?
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3. Authority: The source of the information.
Who is the author/ publisher/ source/ sponsor?
Are the author‟s credentials or original affiliations
given? What are they?
What are the author‟s qualifications to write on the
topic?
The source of the information, is there contact
information, such as a publisher or e-mail address?
Does the URL reveal anything about the author or
source like .com/ .edu/.gov/ .org/.net
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URL is an acronym for uniform resource
locator, or the website address.
Understanding the structure of URLs can
give you a lot of information about the
authorship and credibility of the website.
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Here are examples of some first level
domain names:.com = Commercial
.gov = Governmental
.int = International
.edu = Educational
.mil = Military
.net = Internet resource
.org = Non-profits
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4. Accuracy: The reliability, truthfulness, and
correctness of the informational content.
Where does the information come from?
Is the information supported by evidence?
Has the information been reviewed or refereed?
Can you verify any of the information in another
source or from personal knowledge?
Does the language or tone seem unbiased and free of
emotion?
Are there spelling, grammar or typographical errors?
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5. Purpose:The reason the information exists.
What is the purpose of the information?
Is the information fact, opinion, propaganda?
Is the site free of advertising?
Does the point of view appear objective and
impartial?
Is the purpose to inform?
Are there political, ideological, cultural, religious,
institutional and personal biases?
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If you think that your source DOESD NOT
pass any element of the CRAAP test, it
should NOT be used.
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In the 21st century classroom, students are able to
use Internet to access the information by using free
Web. The free Web is the part of the Web that is
accessible by search engines.
A search engine is an information retrieval system.
It is the most common tool used to locate information
on the Web.
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Before you use
Internet as a resource,
think about:
CRAAP first
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Wiki/Wikipedia:
• Wiki is a type of website while Wikipedia
is website that uses the Wiki format.
• Wikipedia is arguably the most popular
Wiki in the world.
• Wikipedia emulates an encyclopedia
while other wikis may contain other types
of information.
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Most academics consider Wikipedia the enemy, so they
do not allow them to use it in their research. But
students do not know how Wikipedia is helpful because
these following reasons:
Wikipedia is vetted by volunteer academics.
Everything must be cited, and if there is not
cited, these information is removed.
Wikipedia is one of the most common sites on
the Internet.
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How wikis can be used in classrooms:Create online text.
Try creating to choose own
adventure.
Create an online presence
for schools.
Create digital portfolios for
both learners and
educators.
- Create collaboration
opportunities between
classes across schools and
across the world
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Studies about using of Wikipedia as
a teaching tool:
• Piotr Konieczny has studied the advantages of
using Wikipedia as a teaching tool, an activity
that is a simple addition to the teaching, and
contributing to societies through service
learning and participation in an online
community of practice.
• Based on his five years of experience in
teaching with wikis and Wikipedia and holding
workshops on the subject, he discussed the
most effective
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Why teach with Wikipedia?
Konieczny, 2012 pointed out why teach
with Wikipedia, and how it can be used as
an educational tool, with benefits for
students, educator and the larger
community.
Moreover, he emphasized some several
advantages of working with Wikipedia for
students:
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Increase student motivation in assignments, make a
very pertinent observation and editing Wikipedia
provides a much less artificial and much more
rewarding option.
The Wikipedia assignment has a potential to be more
enjoyable than most other traditional assignments.
Students learn the difference between essay like and
fact–based, analytical, encyclopedic writing style, and
encyclopedic style, similar to papers, thesis or
research reports, so this style is very useful in
developing critical thinking and improving the
understanding of course materials.
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Konieczny, 2012 pointed out why teach with
Wikipedia, and how it can be used as an
educational tool, with benefits for
students, educator and the larger community.
He emphasized some several advantages of
working with Wikipedia for students:
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Students strengthen their ability to search for reliable
sources and evaluate them critically.
Students will be able to more critically analyze the text
on the Web site in their future activities.
Students can interact with other group members and
learn how to work in a real time, real world
collaborative community of–practice environment.
Students can improve their new media literacy and
gain insights in the creation process of texts.
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Wikipedia can be beneficial for an
instructor?
The instructor is assisted in the task of
assessing students by other editors from the
Wikipedia community. In Fall 2011, the
Wikipedia Foundation begun developing an
“Education Program MediaWiki Extension” to
give instructors an extra set of tools that not
needed by regular Wikipedia editors. Wikipedia
was developed with the goal of group
collaboration facilitation.It can be used for free
and without having to secure permission.
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Assigning Wikipedia articles as
coursework is beneficial for the
Wikipedia community because
these following reasons:
More content is created which is in a more
specialized and academic topics.
The content created is reviewed by course
instructors.
Wikipedia content is freely available to the
entire world and widely used.
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This site provides a good example of
educational wikis.
How to use a Wiki?
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Advantages of using Wiki in classrooms:
Wikipedia is not just words, but it encourages
students to create chart and graphs to illustrate
important concepts such as population growth.
Anyone can edit and it is easy to use and follow.
Teachers can view „recent changes‟ on the student‟s
Wikispaces which assists the assessment
processes.
it is a flexible tool which can be used for a wide
variety of applications.
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Students are able to develop communication skills
within classes using computers.
No need to wait for a publisher to create a new
edition or update information.
It provides opportunities for active-learning activities
in classrooms.
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However, there are are some advantages
and disadvantages of using Wiki in
classrooms:
Requires Internet connection to collaborate.
Information can become disorganized. As a wiki
grows, the community plans and administers the
structure collaboratively.
Wikipedia is not a scholarly source.
Don‟t use wikipedia pages, and definitely don‟t put
then in your bibliography.
It is a user edited site meaning that anyone can
add or delete information
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While Wikipedia seems like a
comprehensive source, it can‟t be
considered reliable due to its ability
to be edited by anyone. Statistics
could be out of date and concepts
presented unclearly because of the
continuing changes in water
conservation research. The
Wikipedia community of users may
not be presenting the most up to
date information. As such, we need
to be careful when considering this
site as a resource.
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Conclusion:
There are many resources of
information as well as World
Web that it offers a lot of
information whether reliable or
unreliable, so it is necessary to
evaluate what we find from
information.
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References
Beyer, B.K. 1985. “Critical thinking: What is it?” Social Education. 49:270–6.Bloom, B.S., M.D. Engelhart, E.J. Furst, W.H. Hill, and D.R. Krathworhl. 1956. Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educational goals. New York: David McKay.
Cromwell, L.S. 1992. “Assessing critical thinking.” In Critical thinking: Educational imperative, ed. C.A. Barnes, 37–50. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Konieczny, P. (2012). Wikis and wikipedia as a teaching tool: Five years later. Retrieved from http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3583/3313.
http://www.libraries.psu.edu/psul/lls/students/research_resources/evaluate_info.html
http://www.post.edu/maincampus/library/Evaluating%20Information%20Sources.pdf
http://library.uaf.edu/ls101-evaluation
http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3583/3313http://wikiatuni.wikispaces.com/Advantages+and+Disadvantages+of+Wikihttp://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/effective-teaching-strategies/wikipedia-in-the-classroom-tips-for-effective-use/