Evaluation of Websites: A Study

Abstract

While searching for information the researcher will encounter many types of resources-books, articles and websites.But all of them may not be suitable for his purpose.The researcher needs to identify only relevant and authentic information which suits his purpose. The information source has to be evaluated in terms of coverage, scope ,intended users, timeliness, authority, objectivity, documentation etc. Though most of the strategies stated above for evaluating the information can be applied to any type of resource,the unfiltered, free-from nature of the web provides unique challenges in determining a website'appropriateness as an information source.Many guidelines and checklists are available on Net for evaluating Internet sources.This paper presents the findings of such a study made to evaluate selected websites to check the validity of information, coverage,currency,appropriateness, links and structure of the website keeping in view certain evaluation criteria.Findings reveal that variations exist among the websites in terms of their structure and content and it is also possible to find out validity of information available on Web by evaluating the resource we want to use.