by The Open University
Available in 48 free installments
Owner:
The provenance of a piece of information (i.e. who produced it? where did it come from?) may provide another useful clue to its reliability. It represents the 'credentials' of a piece of information that support its status and perceived value. It is therefore very important to be able to identify the author, sponsoring body or source of your information.
Why is this important?
Can you think of any reasons why you would want to know who produced a particular website?
We thought of a number of reasons why we would want to know the authors or the organisation responsible:
Authors ? If you know who the author is you can:
find out whether they are an acknowledged expert in the subject area;
find out what other papers or books they have published;
perhaps trace unpublished material like their PhD thesis;
find out if they are known to have a particular perspective on the topic and whether their views are controversial;
perhaps contact them in person.
Organisations ? knowing about the sponsoring organisation can tell you a great deal. We have already looked at 'vested interests' and it is important to be able to identify and take account of these. Here are some of the questions you might wish to ask:
What is the 'business' of the organisation?
is it a commercial company?
a voluntary organisation?
a statutory body?
a research organisation?
How well established is it?
does it have a 'history'?
is it ephemeral/short-lived?
Can you identify the people involved in the organisation?
could you contact them if you wanted to verify the information or find out more?
do the people have 'other interests' or links which might have a bearing on the way you regard the information?
As an example, can you tell who is responsible for this site?
http://www.d-b.net/dti/
You will probably have deduced that this site is a spoof. Others may not be as easy to identify.
Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Licence
