It is amazing how quickly we can learn to assess the quality of websites at a glance. It may just mean that we practice working out what to look for.
If you want to practice evaluating some websites, pick three websites that you may want to explore and consider these five important questions:
- Who runs or created the site or app? Can you trust them?
- What is the site or app promising or offering? Do its claims seem too good to be true?
- When was its information written or reviewed? Is it up-to-date?
- Where does the information come from? Is it based on scientific research?
- Why does the site or app exist? Is it selling something?
Searching for reliable information: Alice
Read the story below for a case study of how you can apply these questions when browsing websites.
“These are the sorts of thought processes that I go through when looking up information. Let’s say that I google “brain cancer”. I can see that there are a couple of websites by Cancer Council Australia and Cancer Council QLD.
My doctor has some of their brochures in the waiting room and so I’m guessing they may be fairly reliable, plus it has .org.au at the end of the website address so I can guess that it is an Australian not-for-profit organisation. I may double-check that when I explore the website.
I may just scroll down a bit to see what else there is…. A few pages down I notice …”
“I see that it was last updated in July, 2018 or perhaps that the article was written then. I’m keen to see what this article says, but I notice that it is probably a USA based commercial website because it has .com at the end. Clicking on the link I explore further.”
“I can see from the above information that there are section editors and that it seems to be based on recent research literature. Hmm but there are some rather technical terms here. I wonder what the Patient Education section has in it. I click on that…”
“Hmm, there’s a list of topics including cancer but there is also this standard for trustworthy. But they could be just saying that. Anyone can put that sort of thing on a website.”
“If I click on verify here it takes me to a not for profit Health on the Net foundation that seems to be about quality control and so I think this website is pretty reliable. I’ll go ahead and explore it.”