🚀 go-pugleaf

From lindsay@titc.com
Diane,

Having heard nothing but good things about you for the last five years, I
was so pleased when I heard you had
taken on the role of Nettrain Moderator. Good for you!!

As to your question.....
In my Internet research courses I spend a good deal of time explaining how
the domain name system works. My students
are able to determine country of origin or slant of organisation,
organisation names, server names etc. I know it doesn't seem
like a big deal but most of these people are federal government employees
who have been using the Internet for two or three
years and this is all new to them. I take the time to cover domain names
because I do think it is very important that
the average user develop a better awareness of where they are when they are
looking at information. Sweeping statements such as those you quoted would
never come from my lips yet comments like "this is a commercial site - what
is the business
model here? - why are they making this information available?" are common
in my classroom. I point out that just because something is on a .edu or a
.gov server that doesn't mean that it is official. As government employees
they know that there
are cowboys out there publishing without their department's okay. Edu sites
can be terrible in terms of reliable information because of the student
access to the site. I also try to get students to think about the
importance of dates in determining
reliability of information (And, in my other life as a Web strategy
consultant, I try to convince my clients to decide what they are
trying to do by adding a date to their Web site - is it the date the
document was written, the date the document was marked up in HTML, the date
that someone changed a spelling mistake in the document or is it a date
that indicates he last time a document was checked for currency of
content). I also warn my students to look for disclaimers on Web site. Our
Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca has a honking great disclaimer on the home
page indicating that Department will take no responsibility for the content
on the site. Yes, this multi-million dollar Web site cannot be used for the
purposes of research unless the researcher also phones the department to
determine the validity and currency of the content.

Hope this is of some interest to you.

Lindsay

a
>(factual, timely, relatively unbiased) by looking at the domain names...I
>was told that one trainer told one of my students:  .edu is good .com is
>bad and that anything with ~  in it is bad.  What are your opinions on
>this?  Mine immediate reaction is to say that the domain name of a site in
>no way can be used as a guide to evaluate the content of a site.  Am I
>wrong?  What is the reality from your points of view?

Lindsay Fraser
Managing Director
The Internet Training Company
http://www.titc.com
lindsay@titc.com
Ottawa, Canada


________________________________________________________________________
Diane K. Kovacs                                 | http://www.kovacs.com
Kovacs Consulting -                             | fax: (330)225-0083
Specializing in Instructor-Led                  | phone: (330)273-5032
Web-Based Training
http://www.kovacs.com/online.html
________________________________________________________________________
 _The Internet Trainer's Total Solution Guide_
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471288322/002-1693589-5325203
_Cybrarians Guide to Successful Internet Programs and Services_
http://www.neal-schuman.com
Editor-Directory of Scholarly and Professional E-Conferences
http://www.n2h2.com/KOVACS or http://www.arl.org
(forthcoming?) _Health and Medicine on the Internet_
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1882208277/002-2591380-2197814