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There is no question that the Web has transformed how students and academics
conduct research. Where once our only source of information was from books
and periodicals, now the Web provides immediate access to a wealth of
diverse information. Regardless of our academic discipline, the Web poses
a challenge for us as teachers; namely, how can we teach our students
to use online resources in their research? As a teacher of Writing and
Critical Thinking in the Scholars Programme, my approach to this challenge
has been to try and identify the most common problems my students encounter
when using the Web in their research and to discuss these problems in
class. The five common problems I’ve encountered are:
- Limited evaluation by students of online material:
The student uses a website as part of his/her research without evaluating
the motives for the site’s creation and hosting. For example:
A student writing on genetically modified foods takes information from
a site dedicated to stopping the production of genetically modified
foods without any reference to its source.
- Few print references: The student’s research
relies almost exclusively on non-refereed online material and publications.
- Poor documentation: The student fails to note the
date an online resource was accessed.
- Limited web search: The student only looks at the
first couple of results displayed by a search engine.
- Plagiarism: Many students feel that it is acceptable
to copy an image without acknowledging its source or requesting permission.
I don’t have the space to cover each one of these problems here
and will offer instead a few thoughts on the first three difficulties
which I feel stem from a lack of understanding of the mechanics of academic
research and publication. With so many resources online, we need to discuss
with students the role presses, refereed journals and notable academics
play in maintaining research standards. One way of assessing an online
resource is by identifying the editorial powers that have approved the
publication of the information. Some students are tempted to rely exclusively
on online sources—as it saves them a trip to the library—with
scant regard for the quality of these sources. Clearly, we need to explain
to students why academic presses and refereed journals are important to
our own fields of inquiry. As more academic journals and, to a lesser
degree, books go online—through ventures such as print on demand—the
distinction between online publication and print publications becomes
increasingly insignificant. The medium—whether the information is
delivered on paper or electronically through the Internet—matters
less than the editors and publishers attached to the journal or the press.
That said, the very ease of online publication allows for a greater number
of voices to be heard online. Students can be taught to value non-refereed
websites as sources of primary information on a given field. For example,
a student writing a research paper on autism would need to be familiar
with the major figures who have published in this field, but might also
supplement this research with information taken from online resources
(such as the online journal Autism and numerous autism resource websites)
as well the numerous personal webpages created by autists which attempt
to convey the experience of being autistic to non-autists. At the same
time, the student would need to be wary of relying too heavily on any
number of autism-related sites which favour and promote a particular view
of autism (that it is curable, or caused by diet, or by certain vaccinations,
etc.).
What criteria for assessing websites should we recommend to our students?
After a survey of 19 guidelines for assessing websites published by universities
and colleges, Gurak (2001) identified a number of criteria, including:
- Authorship: The author’s credentials and availability
of contact information.
- Currentness: Frequently updated sites are less likely
to have outdated information.
- Purpose: A consideration of the website’s
purpose and intended audience. Does it inform, explain or persuade?
Is it intended for a specialised or a general audience?
- URL: An address ending in .edu is seen as often
more reputable than a .com or .org—but an .edu address does not
guarantee the accuracy of the published information.
- Accuracy: Appropriate references for the sources
of information presented on the site.
Finally, a word about insisting on the need to include the date a site
was accessed. Online documents and news sources are notoriously malleable
and unlike their print counterparts their early versions can literally
vanish without trace. How one page looks today may well be different from
how it looks tomorrow. The mutability of digital documents requires researchers
to include information on when the researcher accessed the resource as
well as the author, publisher and date of publication.
Recommended Reading
For my workshop notes on ‘Teaching Students to Use Online Resources’,
please see: http://www.scholars.nus.edu.sg/writing/onlineresources.html.
In addition, John Whalen-Bridge in the English Language and Literature
Department has a valuable webpage on hyperresearch at http://courses.nus.edu.sg/Course/elljwb/cdtl/cdtl.internet.research.htm.
Other useful guidelines can be gained from:
Bolter, J. David. (1998). ‘Hypertext and the Question of Visual
Literacy’. In D. Reinking, M.C. McKenna, L.D. Labbo & R.D. Kieffer
(Eds.). Handbook of Literacy and Technology. New Jersey: Lawrence
Erlbaum. 3–13.
Bradley, Phil. (2002). The Advanced Internet Searcher’s Handbook
(2nd ed.). London: Library Association Publishing.
References
Gurak, J. Laura (2001). Cyberliteracy: Navigating the Internet with
Awareness. New Haven & London: Yale University Press.
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