🚀 go-pugleaf

At 09:24 AM 10/21/98 -0400, you wrote:
>Diane,
>
>I teach a team presentation "Navigating the Internet", we use six criteria
>to evaluate an Internet resource.
>
>Authority ~ Who is the creator?
>Currency ~  How up to date is it?
>Quality/Reliability ~ Is the info accurate?
>Scope ~ How inclusive is the info?
>Fairness ~ Is the material biased?
>Aesthetic Quality ~ Organization, style/design, technical capabilities

This is an excellent summary of validation points.  However, I would expand
on the first point to define the "creator" as the author, publisher and
(stretching it) references used.  In healthcare, many authors are
themselves qualified experts in a given field, and are well known within
their disciplines.  But often, writers are not themselves experts yet rely
on information and interviews from authorities and authoritative works.
The more an item references authoritative individuals and works, the more
confidence it delivers.

Even here, authority is dicey.  Case in point:  when the TWA jet crashed
off Long Island in 1996, several well-known journalists cites Internet
resources as stating a Navy missile had accidentally downed the plane.  Yet
that information came from a source that was later found to be invalid.
These journalists should have known better, yet they assumed the
information they found online to be authoritative.  Similarly, many content
developers inadvertently pass off urban legends and rumors as facts without
doing their homework.  This problem isn't unique to the Net, but the
immediacy of online news prevents and discourages otherwise careful
individuals from validating information.

NOTE:  For some fun and eye-opening reading, check out the archive of the
alt.folklore.urban newsgroup at http://www.urbanlegends.com/  (Some of the
spookier ones make good Halloween stories).


Brian Pomeroy
lunar@voicenet.com
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/6346/bio.htm
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia - http://www.chop.edu/