Exercise 8

Reflections
On my first view of the website, I was in a daze not knowing how to comment on the website. The website was an organization website, introducing its museums, and showcasing the oncoming exhibitions or plays in its museums. When I try to write the comments, most of the questions I was not able to answer well as it was the first time I been to such a website. An example was like if I was to answer whether the facts are accurate or not, I felt that the website is of more of a commercial website than an information website as it sells tickets and introduce on its museums, and because of this I couldn’t answer the question well.

My reflections on the UIR port folio

The UIR tutorials I have attended have been useful to my research skills for my current project and even for my major project in the future too. I learn of a new search engine called Meta search engines, which will in-cooperate multiple search engines in one. These in terms improve the searching ability of me. And I also learn how to evaluate websites that provides the information and decide whether to use this website for its information. And during the writing of the evaluation, I also improve my language. Development of the portfolio also allows me to learn how to write a bibliography correctly. And also makes me write out an evaluation, that I can use its question in questioning websites on whether it is trustworthy or not.

Practical 7

Website 1
During my evaluation of this article, I felt that the article hosted on this website was of a higher standard than any website I have seen. This article introduces different policies adopted by US, and is good for referencing for solutions. And during the evaluation, I found out that the article was last updated on October 2000, which I felt it not be up to currency. But even though it may not be up to currency, the policies may not have change so much. During the evaluation, the article has been certified by the NIAAA, which is an organization website, and if the article is not accurate, NIAAA would have taken it down, thus I believe that if the policies are not up to date, the NIAAA will have taken it down or marked it as not a reputable source.

Website 2
When I evaluated this website, this website provides information on statistic for “Alcohol and Youth Facts”. This website although short, but it contains the statistics that can be use to back the claims of alcoholism among youths. Although no published date was seen in the article, from the reference, we can see that the last statistic was obtained on April 2005, thus these statistics are still valid till now. And when I was answering the evaluation template, I felt that this website was good, but I was not able to explain well in the template as this website mainly is on statistics and not data for referencing, thus I was not able to write a lot on describing the website for the 8 values.

Website 3
This website is also on statistics, which is to find out if alcohol advertising affects the youth in prompting them to consume alcohol. I wanted to evaluate this website is because I want to write my report in another direction, different from the usual, thinking in a broad direction. This article shown not much biasness, as it retrieves and displayed the statistics from the references that the organization has retrieved. Thus if there is any biasness, it would have to be the references, but upon accounting that if the statistics are not right, this organization website will not have even wanted to publish them as this could tarnish their reputation since they are from Georgetown University. And since this website is also on statistics, some of the template’s question, I was not able to answer it well, as there are not much information in the webpage.

Practical Worksheet 6a

Title of InTitle of Internet Resource: Developments of alcoholism amongst youth
URL : http://alcoholism.about.com/cs/alerts/l/blnaa37.htm

Purpose
Are the aims of the website clearly stated?
Yes. The aim is to show the Risk Factors and Consequences on Youth Drinking

Coverage
What is the coverage of the site? Is it comprehensive? What subject areas and materials are covered? Are there any pointers to further information that enhance the coverage of the site? Are the links to other sites useful?
Its coverage is on the Risk Factors and Consequences on Youth Drinking. It is quite comprehensive as it covers the main aspect of the risk factors and consequences on youth drinking. The article is good and topics and subtopics are paragraph nicely to read. And there is a commentary by the director of National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) Enoch Gordis. The webpage also provide article link to other articles like “Underage Drinking - A Major Public Health Challenge”. It citation also leads to other articles where we can read up more on alcoholism among youths. The links given are quite useful as it also provide some extra information which is missing like advertising effect, data statistic report…etc

Authority
Is this an authoritative source? Are there any reviews about this site or has it been included in any gateways or virtual libraries?
The article is a compilation from different sources and data , and the article is furnished from National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA).

Accuracy
Are the facts accurate? Does it use research as a basis? Is there political, ideological, or biasness in the source? Is it a factual site or one that contains an opinion? Are the references stated clearly? Is it free from grammatical, spelling and typographical errors?
The facts are accurate as it refers to different sources online for the data. Some resources it had used was even from websites that I had research on. And best of all, the resources cited by the author was from reputable websites like NIAAA. Since the website is on data for risk factors and consequences, its data are extracted from different sources, therefore it does not have any biasness in the article as it is just a compilation of the data from different articles. In terms of language, I don’t find any errors in it, and when used with MS Word, the errors detected was actually due to the language use as the article may be written in UK format whereas the MS word is using US dictionary.

Currency
Is the information up-to-date? Is it well-maintained?
I believe that the information is quite up to date as the website is About, Inc, which is a website which stores articles and arranges them in different subject. The website is quite well maintained as I can see that they don’t have any broken links or discrepancy in their webpage and their copyright is till 2006.

Accessibility
Is the site easily accessible? Does it require registration and log-ins? Are all the information accessible for FREE?
The site can be accessed easily and best of all, it articles are free and registration free, requires no log-in. Compared to other website where they demand premium to view their articles, this website is a good place to source for articles.

Presentation and Arrangement
Is the information well presented and arranged? Is the information clearly, consistently and logically presented and arranged? Are there any features such as site map, an index or a search facility? How effective are the search features in helping users to find information?
The information is well arranged and presented. It gives the user a fine and pleasant look to the eyes and u will not feel that it is very messy with the links and data arranged. The author separates them in terms of topics and sub-topics respectively. When a keyword is search, it will provides articles found in the sub-topics area, and from there we can even know the topic it is related to.

Usability
Is it easy to use and navigate around? Are there user support facilities?
As it is an article, there isn’t much to navigate, except to access the article. The user will have to look at the topic listing in order to find this article. There is also a search engine to look for articles in About.com, to look for articles of your choice.

Overall
What is your overall impression of the quality of the websites?
I find the website to be of high standard, and since it is an organization webpage, it is designed with a pleasant view for viewing of articles. And the quality of articles in the websites are of a certain standard as they will require the verification of the articles by a reputable organization for the topic written.

Reflections
Upon evaluating this website, I felt that it was difficult as there are a lot of information and I had practically read up the whole article. The article contains a lot of information that I could use for the topic I am currently researching on. Writing the template was tough, and I have to consider the language used for writing. But during the evaluation, I felt that the some of the template questions was quite redundant. And during answering the template’s question, some questions asked by the template was not applicable for the website I am evaluating. Thus I was not able to answer some of the template questions correctly.