How ‘Shallow’ Is The Web?

A propos of the upcoming summer teaching term, Rob Hyndman blogs today about the value of the internet for research and the quality of the information it contains. He cites a current discussion in the blogosphere about the fact that searching for information on the internet is akin to swimming in the shallow end of the pool. The deep end of the wisdom pool contains books and other print items. It’s part of a critique of Wikipedia. (Hyndman’s post contains the links.)

Some of Hyndman’s discussion involves technology and media watchers who spend tremendous amounts of time on the internet. Hyndman takes a balanced view of the debate, acknowleding the need to evaluate information but being thankful that it is there. He continues, suggesting that it is necessary and wise to find a balance between internet and ‘deeper’ information despite the fact it may take some conscious effort for some to get away from the ‘net. Hyndman says:

I don’t think this needs to be about either / or. I try very hard to reserve daily periods for deeper concentration - devices mute, mail off, feeds quiet, gazing out the window / walking in the park time. My sense now, in the early days after a return from 10 days in wirelessless land, is that I’ve been missing out by spending too much time in the - er - shallow end of the pool. But I don’t intend to spend all of my time now in the deep end. I’m looking for balance, and coming to see that what I now have is a variety of tools at my disposal, and that I’m not a slave to any of them.

I saw some relevance here to the growing problem of students using the internet as their research library, handing in papers with only the internet cited, and not knowing how to evaluate properly the quality of internet sources. On the one hand, it seems crazy to expect that people won’t use the internet to do research (or to develop lectures). And, there are lots of reliable resources available through the web, including on-line versions of print journals which students at a small college like mine would never otherwise see. On the other, there’s lots of information available in book and journal form that isn’t available on the web. It strikes me that knowing how to use and critically evaluate both digital and print sources is necessary – the skills to do so might, in fact, be the same. Then, it’s a matter of convincing students that the on-line library catalogue is a great resource, even if it means going to the library afterwards.

Our library at Douglas College refers students to a web guide designed by the UC Berkeley Library concerning how to evaluate web sites for academic information. And, the Douglas College Library has created its own page called ‘Thinking Critically About the World Wide Web: A Checklist for Evaluation.’ Both of these resources are similar to others available at most university and college libraries.

How do you help students evaluate web sources? How much time do you devote to it in your classes? And, how to you get people to keep using the print library?

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