Outcomes
Students will be able to:
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use basic search techniques to find web sites relating to a topic
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evaluate the usefulness and reliability of different web sites as a suitable source of information on a particular topic
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apply Boolean-style operators to narrow a search, with a view to identifying more useful sites
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extract information from web sites to answer specific questions.
Time required
30 minutes plus homework
Outline of the activity
This task provides students with the opportunity to refine their skills at Internet searching by providing them with tools to evaluate web sites and refine searches using ‘Boolean operators’ (link words which combine multiple search terms).
There is a table on briefing sheet 1 for students to consider the usefulness of a particular web site. The following points for discussion may be useful when considering reliability.
Reliability of the author – Who is the author? What is the professional background of the author? What year was the information written?
Reliability of publisher – What is the purpose of the web site? Is it to persuade or to inform? Who are the target audience?
1 Introduce the task as an opportunity for
students to refine their skills in the area of internet searching, with a view to improving their efficiency and helping them to find more relevant information. It would be helpful to discuss criteria to use in evaluating the usefulness of web sites.
2 Students do Internet searches to find sources of information to answer three questions which they have identified. They find three web sites and evaluate them.
3 Students join up to discuss their evaluations as described on the briefing sheet. This should be followed by a class discussion on search methods. You could issue briefing sheet 2 at this point to revise the use of ‘+’, ‘–’ and ‘OR’ Boolean-style operators to help to narrow searches. (This is covered in ‘The Information Revolution’)
4 Students continue to work in pairs to refine their search.
In this activity you will evaluate some web sites used in your research.
Part 1 Evaluating web sites
1 In your group, agree three questions that you would like to know the answer to. These should relate to your current topic of study in Science in Society.
2 You have 2 minutes to find three web sites which are sources of information that can help answer the questions. You can do this individually or in pairs. Write down the web site URLs below.
Site 1: _____________________________________________________________
Site 2: _____________________________________________________________
Site 3: _____________________________________________________________
3 You are now going to evaluate the usefulness of these web sites according to the criteria in the table. Rank each site where 1 = Most useful, 3 = Least useful.
Criteria
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Site 1
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Site 2
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Site 3
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Reliability of the author
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Reliability of the publisher
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Whether the information is subject to independent checks
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Presentation of the information (simple/sophisticated)
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Presence of distracting clutter
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Usefulness of links to related information
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Relevance of the information to the question
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Amount of irrelevant information
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Amount of interesting issues that are not the main point
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Ease of access
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Visual appeal
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Requires little prior knowledge
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Date of last update
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Level of difficulty of the information
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Total score: _____ _____ _____
Using the Internet to find information: briefing sheet 1
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4 Join up with the other students in your group and discuss your evaluation of the web sites you found. Take a look at each others’
web sites, and discuss the approach you took to searching for them.
In your group, agree your top three web sites for the topic you are studying. How well do they serve your particular purpose?
2 Discuss with your partner whether these are more useful than the web sites you found earlier. You don’t need to complete another table, but refer to the criteria used before.
3 In your group, allocate one person to research each of the following. After 5 minutes, each student should feed back to the group to demonstrate how these can improve the accuracy of your searching.
i. Google Advanced Search techniques. Allocate two students to this area, so you can cover a specific technique such as ‘inurl’ and the general advanced search page.
ii. Google Scholar
iii. Google Images
4 Identify which web site is the most useful of those you have looked at. Make notes so you are ready to discuss with the
class how you found the site, and what made you decide that this was the most useful.
5 Discuss other techniques which can be used to narrow your searches.