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Evaluating historical information on the web

Home > Subject areas > Studying history > Evaluating historical information on the web

One of the wonderful things about the Web is that anybody can make information available quickly and without too much expense, and anybody else will be able to locate it relatively easily. But this is also one of the deeply problematic things about the Web. There are many conscientious, intelligent people writing material and putting it online. There are also many crackpots. Worse, there are many completely sane and well meaning, but simply not trained to academic standards and they present their views of the past as established truth. And some of them are very literate and very convincing. Therefore, the problem of evaluating the usefulness of websites and their content is a major issue.

Accuracy

So how do you judge the accuracy of what you find? Well, how do you judge the accuracy of something somebody tells you in a book? There are three pointers you can use:

  • Prior knowledge of the material.
  • Internal consistency of the site’s (or book’s) content.
  • Established indicators (for books, peer reviews or recognised publisher; for websites, the three subsidiary points mentioned above).

If you have done preliminary reading on your subject (always recommended), you are clearly in a very good position to judge where a site contains enough accurate information for its new assertions to carry some weight with you. If it contradicts much of what you already know, you will be wary of trusting its new assertions. If it conforms to the things you already know, you will be more prepared to add any new information, albeit cautiously, to the list of things you may consider accurate.

In addition to this, you may be able to judge whether the site gives enough information about the topic in question; if you have prior knowledge, you will be able to tell if crucial parts are omitted, and whether all sides of the argument are now shown.

However, it is possible that you come to a site unprepared. In that case, here are some basic things you might ask yourself:

  • Is it clear who wrote the content? Is there a name, and is it even vaguely familiar? Are there any contact details? Does the author give information about his or her educational qualifications, or the background from which they approach the subject?
  • In addition to an author, is there a site editor? Some sites bring together contributions from a number of authors, specialists in individual subjects. If there is an editor, is there a form of peer review in place, and is it explained? Who is the editor? And if the site has neither author or editor information, are you not entitled to wonder why they are so keen on anonymity?
  • What is the aim of the site? Is it stated clearly anywhere, for example in a mission statement or in something as simple as an introduction? Does the content of the site match its avowed end?
  • Do the spelling, grammar and composition conform to accepted standards? If that is not accurate, do you trust their ideas?
  • Do the external links lead to sites you know to be trustworthy? Do any trustworthy sites link to this one? Has anybody reviewed the site?
  • Is the information given verifiable? Does the writer quote sources? Are the sources themselves known to you, and are they respectable? Have you been able to check any of them out? Does the authors use the sources responsibly – that is, do they quote sources according to their spirit, or do they quote misleadingly or out of context?

A site does not have to fulfil all these criteria to be considered respectable or useful, but of you have to answer ‘no’ to more than a couple of questions, you should definitely treat it with caution and try to verify its claims.

Authority

Looking for signs of ‘authority’ is a time honoured way of getting a feeling for whether or not a book is likely to be academically valuable or not. This very traditional approach to evaluating quality is not always valid with regard to web-based information. A person can have very thorough knowledge and worthwhile ideas without having their book, or site, published or hosted by a recognised institution. However, as a rule of thumb, looking for indications of institutional support for a site can do know harm. Ask yourself:

  • Where is the site hosted? Is it in an educational domain (e.g. .ac.uk or .edu) or any official domain (e.g. gov), or is it hosted by a commercial organisation (e.g. .co.uk, .com, .net)? Is it hosted on one of the free web servers to which anybody can sign up? Or even by GeoYahoo, a free server which will host pages from anyone at all (geocities.com)? You can tell by looking at the last part of a site’s address before the first single forward slash.
  • Where does the content come from? Sometimes, publications, which were previously in print, have been scanned and put on the web. This can be a good thing. Sometimes it means that an outdated (and therefore out of copyright) publication has been placed onto the web – it may be useful in some respects, misleading in others. If the content on a web page was not created originally for the web, can you tell where it came form? Did it come from a print publication, from a course handout, and undergraduate essay or from notes scribbled on a beer mat?
  • Does the site carry advertising? Educational sites generally will not – but then again neither will sites hosted on commercial servers, as long as the site owner pays enough. Therefore the presence of advertising is only a general guide. Check how much there is, and by whom. The more advertising, the less seriously the site should be taken.
  • Who, if anybody, sponsors the site, and what might their agenda be? Sponsorship is just a more subtle form of advertising.

Objectivity

This is a vague area where you may have to rely on your own judgement, but it is no more difficult than dealing with a dubious academic article. Simply use your common sense, and some of these questions:

  • Does the content of the site sound like special pleading? Do you keep wanting to go ‘But…’ as you read it?
  • Can you detect a clear bias in how things are presented?
  • If there is bias, is it openly stated? Bias doesn’t mean that a site is useless – published academics are biased too, even if they deny it. But it does mean you have to be more wary of accepting anything you find at face value.
  • Does the author of the site at least acknowledge that there are two sides to an issue (most historical issues have at least two sides)? Or are they trying to sneak something past you?

Currency

The web is a constantly growing medium. It is quite easy to put up a website cheaply and quickly. This means that some people do it without much thought, remain enthusiastic about that site for a while, then move on to the next project in a different domain. And the original site remains, especially if it was hosted by a free server with advertising. This means you may come across a site that looks very useful, but was last updated in 1996. This is not a problem if you are dealing with an archive of older material, but it is an issue if the site promotes views which have since been refuted by further academic study and debate.

There are some means by which to tell the currency of a page:

  • Is there any indication when it was first put online, and (more importantly) when it was last updated? Some webmasters are conscientious about including this information, but many, especially amateurs, are not. If there is no indication, you can find a little program (an ‘applet’) at http://bookmarklets.com/, which will tell you anyway.
  • Do the external links on the site in question still work? If many of the links are dead, the site may be quite old, and is most definitely of less use than it could have been. Is there an email link to the author, does that still work, or has the author moved on?

Miscellaneous considerations

There are some additional observations, which are difficult to make into hard-and-fast rules:

  • The format of the page – what colour is the colour scheme? Is it easily readable? Is it funky and flashy or is it staid and boring and, well, face it, academic? Is the font consistent?
  • What is the ratio of advertising to content? Does the advertising actually outweigh the content? Do things flash and blink, does the site spawn sub-windows all over the place, and does it try to deploy dozens of cookies (small pieces of information that track your usage) on your machine? If it does all this, would you buy a used car from the author? Would you trust their historical assertions?
  • While academics may have atrocious taste and may also get carried away with clipart, content is generally the main focus of truly educational sites, and distractions will be few.
  • Should you be here at all? What kind of information are you looking for, and do you think the web is really likely to provide it? Would you find your information more quickly and more reliably elsewhere – in the library, for example, or in a reference work? The web is a useful repository of resources, but depending on your subject, it may have less to offer than traditional resource collections.

For more advice, see e-Learning skills.

This content has been taken from Using Computers in History by Sonja Cameron and Sarah Richardson.

 

 



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