by The Open University
Available in 48 free installments
Owner:
There is so much information available on the internet on every topic imaginable. But how do you know if it is any good? And if you find a lot more information than you really need, how do you decide what to keep and who to discard?
In this section we are going to introduce a simple checklist to help you to judge the quality of the information you find. Before we do this, spend a few minutes thinking about what is meant by information quality.
Imagine you are trying to find out about a current story in the news. Have a look at this website ? http://news.bbc.co.uk/
We would recommend this to you as a ‘quality? source of information. If you agree with us, jot down as many words as you can think of to describe what is good about the website. For example, you might think it is clearly presented.
What did you come up with?
We thought it was:
Clearly presented
Up to date
Relevant to our purpose
Authoritative (clear who is responsible for it)
Gives a balanced view
Based on good evidence
We think there are six distinct aspects of information quality. These are:
Presentation
Relevance
Objectivity
Method
Provenance
Timeliness
Or, for short, P R O M P T.
Let us look at the six aspects, one by one.
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