Transcript week6_webcredibility - Web Design & Publishing

Evaluating Web Resources
Web Credibility Defined
• Web credibility is about making your website in such
a way that it comes across as trustworthy and
knowledgeable. A credible website can reap huge
benefits on to your website and your business–
webcredible.co.uk
• 52.8% of web users believe online information to be
credible- UCLA.
Two Sides of Web Credibility
• As a website creator, you want to achieve
optimal credibility on the Web.
• As a information consumer/user who is
surfing the web, you want to understand how
credible the information is.
Traditional Media on the Web
• Any one can publish on the Web and most
traditional news media have a Web version to
present their content.
• When you access sites of traditional media,
you tend to think these websites are more
credible.
• Example: nytimes.com, online.wsj.com,
statesman.com, and latimes.com.
Benefits of Online Publishing
• Access to local, national, and international
information.
• More opinions available.
• Up to date & On demand.
• Multimedia.
• Interactivity.
• Search.
Disadvantages & Differences of
Online Publishing
• Anyone can publish, thus it is hard to assess credentials
of online authors and sites.
• Sites could have hidden sponsorships or corporate
affiliations- conflict of interest could arise.
• Advertisements can disguise themselves as other
formats, such as a news article.
• Search engines drop you on a page of a website,
leaving little reference of source or credibility.
• Information might be out-of-date.
• Information might be inaccurate of falsified- rumors
spread easily on the Web.
Disadvantages & Differences of
Online Publishing
• Multimedia, especially digital image, might be
easily manipulated (into something it wasn’t).
• Difficult to enforce standards due to
widespread of nature of the web. Media and
journalists are expected to self police.
• Easy to change or update, thus previously
published information can “disappear.”
• Lost in information- Information overload.
What do we do?
Checklist of Evaluating Web Credibility
• Content
• Authority
• Presentation
Checklist: Content
•
•
•
•
Is the page complete or still under construction?
What is the title of the page?
When was it created, last updated?
Who is the audience, is there any obvious bias or slant
to the information?
• Are other sources of information available from the
site? Are the links for the site internal or external
sources? Do they all work properly?
• Do outside sources support the information? (journal
articles, scholarly material, other news sources)
Checklist: Authority
• Who created the page? What are his/her credentials?
• Is there a means to contact the author? Email, phone, address? Discussion
forums or other interactivity?
• What are their associations or affiliations? Does the site make that clear?
• Who is sponsoring the site? Is that clearly stated?
• What does domain name tell you about the site? Is it a .com, .gov, .edu,
personal Web Page?
• Can you backtrack in the url to get more information about the site or
author?
• Can you tell if the site is accurate? Are there references to outside sources
of the information?
• Is there a non-Web version of the site? If not, this is not necessarily a
detriment but can add or detract from credibility based on the reputation
of the print medium.
Checklist: Presentation
• Is the site professional looking?
• Is it free of grammar, spelling and punctuation problems? Is the
writing style appropriate for the topic?
• Is the format of the site meaningful and easy to use? Are there
appropriate headings? Is navigation useful?
• How do images and sounds work on the site? How do they support
the content? Could they have been edited?
• How did you find the site? Consider how the search engine works?
For example, Alta Vista searches meta tags that are assigned by the
author in the code and Yahoo uses a registration by author.
• Can you tell if news, editorial, and advertisements have separate
presentations on the site?
• Look at the source code of the site. Is there anything in it that
influences your impression? Meta tags, dates, comments, etc.
Exercise: Web Credibility Blog Post
• Work in groups of 3.
• Refer to Web Credibility assignment
requirement sheet (from class or on course
website: http://webpub.jacieyang.com).
• Post on course blog:
http://webdesignandpublishing.blogspot.com/