A Powerful Rubric for Evaluating Web Content for Teachers, Parents, and Students

June 8, 2014
Here is another wonderful rubric from University of Wisconsin on the different criteria to use to evaluate websites . Students and parents can use it to assess web content in terms of its relevance to what is being taught in class. It can also be used as a tool for self-asessment and peer feedback.

This rubric covers 8 major criteria :

Content:
This criterion is for evaluating the usefulness of the content of webpages in terms of the information it has, the quality of the content, how frequently the content is updated, and whether it includes feedback loops such as surveys, forms or questionnaires.

Multimedia
This one assesses the use of multimedia elements in web content. These elements include, photos, graphics, sound, video and animation.It specifically looks into how these elements  are integrated into the texture of the content and to what effect they are used.

Fair Use Guidelines
This one looks into how citations are being used  (if at all) in web content

Internal and External Navigation
This criterion examines the validity of the the internal links ( links directing to other pages within the same website) and external links (links leading to content in other websites). It also looks into how the linking system is being built into the website and whether or not it facilitates users navigation.

Layout and Text Elements
This has to do with the typography of the web content: size and font of the text, the uses of headlines and subtitles, use of italics and indentations. It also examines the format of the page, the colour being used and the background and whether these elements enhance the general readability of the text or not.

Contact Person, Copyright and Update Information
Does the web page includes a a section where users can contact the author and read more information about the website such as the date of creation and copyright information ?

Speed Web Pages
Does the page load quickly? How images are featured into the web page and whether they include tags to help users get an idea of what they are about if they do not show up properly.

Writing Mechanics
This criterion evaluates the written content of a web page in terms of grammatical errors, capitalization, punctuation, and spelling.

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Excellent Checklist for Evaluating Information Sources

April 8, 2014
Digital literacy, as a set of skills that students need to develop and master in order to properly use digital technologies , is an essential component of the 21st century education. Being digitally literate should not be confused with being comfortable  using certain types of digital media such as  social media. And as Danah Boyd argued in her book "Understanding The Social Lives of Networked Teens" teenagers know how how to use Facebook, but their understanding of the site’s privacy settings did not mesh with the ways in which they configured their accounts.They know how to get to Google but had little understanding about how to construct a query to get quality information from the popular search engine.

Along with learning how to conduct effective online searches comes the the second most important skill which is that of evaluating and assessing the validity of information found online.  One of the versatile tools teachers can use to teach students about web content evaluation is called CRAAP . The acronym CRAAP stands for Currency, Relevance, Authority, and Purpose. CRAAP is a test developed by the University of California at Chico to help students evaluate web content ( and any other content) based on those four dimensions. Below is a public domain document, a checklist, that teachers and  students can use to evaluate web content. Click here to download it.

I learned about this wonderful document from an article I have recently read entitled: "How to Infuse Digital Literacy Throughout The Curriculum"

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