Week Six Summary

During the lecture in week six I learned about information quality and how many websites that are not controlled so anyone can edit them, for example anyone can add a definition on wikipedia that could be completely false.

The class was also shown a small history of the world wide web and how it became so out-of-control.

There are ways that you can evaluate a website to check if it is authentic, these were also given in the lecture.

• Check the currency of the website to see how often it is updated


• Find out who the author is and check if that person or organisation is credible


• Read the content of a web page within the website and evaluate whether it is biased or if the site is sponsored


• Does the website refer to other sources? are they credible?


• Check that the content is error free and by looking at other websites on the same topic, check that the content is accurate


• Is there any advertising on the page


• How current are the links


• What topics are covered?


• Explore other websites on the same topic and find out what that website offers that the others don't


• What is the domain type (.com, .org, .gov, .edu, etc.)? Is the website a personal homepage (~)?

For the "Reliving the Sixties: A Web Evaluation Assignment" I evaluated site A: American cultural history and site D: The psychedelic sixties.

American cultural history: The first thing I noticed was that the site was educational because of the .edu domain. After researching the topic through other websites most of them have the same information which leads me to believe that the text is accurate. The website states, "The purpose of this web and library guide is to help the user gain a broad understanding and appreciation for the culture and history of the 1960s." The text goes into examples but there is not a heap of detail. I found this website very informing.

The psychedelic sixties: This site is also an education site because of the .edu. I found that the information is accurate and all of the links work. the author is real and credible. the purpose of the site is an exhibition to show others what happened in the sixties. The site is from the Library or Virginia which also leads me to know it is credible. I did find the site informing and had a lot more detail then the American cultural history site.

Week Five Summary

Week fives lecture was about using search engines. The class was introduced to the three different categories of search engines.
1. The free, visible Web
2. The free, invisible Web
3. Paid databases over the Web

Search tools are divided into two main categories.
1. Search engines: A program on the Internet that works as a portal to help a person find a website by using keywords to search for them. The problem with search engines is that the return number of websites is usually too big and most of the websites' content is irrelevant.
2. Directories: Human-edited sites so users only get quality results. these are used more for finding answers to a query rather then finding a website.

The lecture also contain information about search engine interfaces, search engine interaction, common search engines and statistics on search engines.


Tutorial Activities


Four strategies that will help you structure are good search:

1. Create a phrase by putting key words in quotation marks " " to narrow down the results and achieve more relevant websites.
2. Start your search at the right place e.g. for a specific search go to a search engine, for a broader search go to a web directory.
3. If unsure where to start then your best bet is to start at a web directory
4. Try not to use stop words i.e. unimportant words too short or too common to be considered relevant strings on which to search



Screen shot of results page on http://www.siteseen.co.uk/questions/historytrivia/



To finish this quiz took the main words from the questions and put them into quotation marks. this made my search more effective and even though I still had to go through some dud websites, the answer i was looking for wasn't too hard to find.

Reading One: Robert Harris "Web search strategies"

Most of the text was an extension of what was in the lecture. This still helped me further my knowledge on how to search effectively. Something that was not is the lecture was the FOREST LOG scheme: FO- Forms or variants of different words RE- Related terms ST-Synonymous Terms LOG- Ladder of generalisation.


Reading Two: History of the Internet (Chapter 4 - search engines)


The reading was about the history of search engines and web directories. It gave information on the first search engines and how they worked. This gave me insight to how far technology has come in just a few years. The reading also gave statistics to help the reader have some understanding just how big these search engines are and just how many files they hold.


Reading Three: Search engine optimisation for companies


This site is basically a company that analyses other companies websites and distributes them. This reading was a brief overview of what they actually do in order to give another company the most effective website possible.