Using and Evaluating Online Sources for Research

The Online Information Environment

The availability of online information has made a tremendous difference in many fields of endeavor, including daily interactions. Many journals now have articles that are "online first" before print; others comment on and critique these online articles before the print issue even exists. Online access also broadens the ease of accessing materials without a nearby extensive library. This is true in nearly every profession: science, economics, finance, business, nursing, medicine, hairdressing, and more (Leiner et al., 2003). Access to online information has changed the information paradigm, and there is now a necessity and obligation to understand what appropriate online information consists of.

Use of social media and online tools for information-searching and access has increased considerably in recent years. Information is not only proliferating but is being shared more quickly than when print was the only medium available. The use of online media is a revolution comparable to the societal transformation caused by the printing press. Individuals can communicate in real time with others across international datelines and search for information using online platforms such as chat rooms, WebMD, Twitter, Wikipedia, Facebook, and YouTube (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010, p. 59).

Online businesses are thriving, with some — like Amazon — moving from being book sellers to include movie and grocery businesses; others like Walmart may sell as much online as they do in a brick-and-mortar store. Individuals start their own businesses with merely an online presence. The "information highway" provides businesses with details of customer preferences from Facebook "likes," and many corporations now maintain a Facebook presence, while corporate consultants write online articles on using Twitter and Facebook to grow their businesses (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010, p. 60). Individuals meet, become friends, and even marry others whom they have met online, and dating sites match up individuals; specialized niche markets are arising in all directions. However, the glut of information means an individual can fall prey to false or misleading information if they do not know how to investigate and verify online sources, business reputations, and the veracity of personal details from a new acquaintance who might be a predator.

Web Citations and Search Strategies

For most individuals, a precise understanding of what "online sources" means may be limited. Many have also not considered that the internet can simultaneously be full of factual resources and full of misinformation. Using the web to find answers to questions has become almost trivial — one only needs to type a few words or phrases into a search window to have many pages of links pop up.

The first step in obtaining information is knowing how to ask the right questions. Search engines will now accept almost any question and provide answers, but the more clearly the question is phrased and the more delimiting terms are used, the more likely one is to find the desired information (Macaulay, n.d.). Consider a hypothetical situation in which your mother experiences high blood pressure first thing every morning. You type in "cause of morning elevated blood pressure" and find a variety of sites. Many of the sites listed will be sales pitches, since that is how free search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo generate income. Many other sites will be advertisements disguised as helpful information, or outright misinformation. What should you do? Consider looking for reliable sources of online medical advice, such as WebMD (2015) or Wikipedia, a compendium of information similar to an encyclopedia. Because online users can contribute to Wikipedia and it is thus collaborative (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010, p. 60), Wikipedia is very powerful. Wikipedia articles also have detailed reference lists, leading to checkable primary sources.

The types of information available online are increasing, including ancient artifact photos, maps, and letters. The types of sites where information can be found vary widely. Some sites require one to sign in or become a subscriber to gain access; subscriptions may be prohibitively expensive even if useful. Other sites may send emails and newsletters even to individuals who are not full subscribers. As Vardi (2012, p. 510) points out, there are also traps for more advanced professionals, such as predatory scholarly publishing. In the areas of medical and scientific research, a considerable amount of data is available for free — such as on the PubMed database — and many articles can be read in their entirety by simply clicking "free full article."

Once one finds the appropriate reference information for a course paper or article, the proper use of citations — listing the full online source — enables others to locate the same information. Online papers and book reviews can be tremendously valuable for those without a large budget for books or access to a complete library. Proper citation of an online document includes the author's name, publication name and date, volume, issue, and page numbers, as well as other details such as publisher and editors (Castle, 2007, p. 163). When citing an online source, providing the online link in the bibliography or reference list along with the date accessed is important, since websites may be updated and online data may be altered or removed. Referencing styles vary according to discipline: scientific references are usually numbered in the text, whereas scholarly articles in other fields use in-text author names.

Perhaps the best way to approach the use of online sources is to recognize that as much as 50–60% of results found in a general search using Google, Bing, or Yahoo may be sales- or business-related and not scholarly. While this may be an exaggeration, it is important to seek primary sources. When searching specific databases such as PubMed, there are no advertisements and only scientific studies appear. One can then go through and select relevant publications, limited mainly by the appropriateness of search terms — perhaps the most important aspect of using online data. One of the best ways to conduct an online search is to discuss search terms with a course instructor or a library professional. The methods of metacognition (HLN, 2004) can be very useful in considering how to perform a search, especially since individuals think differently and might use different words when writing on the same topic — for example, "ancient art," "historical art," or "pre-historic art." This is where collaboration can be helpful (CWP, 2010). According to Trinkle (1996), books can also sometimes be helpful, such as The European History Highway: A Guide to Internet Resources.

Evaluating the Credibility of Online Sources

Following a successful online search, one must carefully examine the sources found to evaluate their credibility and properly list them in one's report. As stated by Metzger (2007), one should verify that the report still holds — that it has not been corrected or retracted — and that the validity of the article has not been undermined by a new, contradictory report. Some web articles that are not primary sources may excerpt part of an article to provide a particular slant, which is why primary sources are important. Additionally, authors are sometimes funded to write a report; this information is required for scientific journals as a conflict-of-interest statement, but may not be required in all fields. One useful consideration is to avoid websites for which it is not obvious why they were created, as this may indicate a hidden agenda or a deliberate slant in the data.

Conclusion

The use of online sources for information has tremendous benefits that would appear to outweigh their limitations. This information is generally readily available and can be used and compared for personal, family, and community purposes, as well as serving students, professors, and many professionals in a variety of fields. Once one understands both the benefits and limitations of using online information sources, data can readily be compared and evaluated in terms of both utility and accuracy. From the household search for lower grocery prices to the student's search for research information, and even research use by professionals, the online environment makes information access far easier than it once was.

Credible sources can be located for almost any topic, and the chief challenge may actually be the existence of too much information. Learning to evaluate, separate, and distinguish quality web sources from those that might contain incomplete or inaccurate information is therefore essential, since some websites may merely be copying others and the original source of the information is never cited (Loutzenhiser et al., 2006). The work of locating original sources may be more time-consuming and difficult, but it is important in order to ensure accuracy and avoid outdated information. The use of what is broadly called social media can also be valuable, as discussed by CWP (2010) in "The Power of Collaboration," which describes even talking to friends on Facebook as a means to obtain useful information such as news and recommendations. Sites that require subscriptions may provide more credible information and direct access to online journals, but there are also reliable non-subscription sites — if one remembers to check the lists of sources and references, such as those found on Wikipedia.

References

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Kaplan, A. M., & Haenlein, M. (2010). Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of social media. Business Horizons, 53(1), 59–68.

Leiner, B. M., Cerf, V. G., Clark, D. D., Kahn, R. E., Kleinrock, L., Lynch, C., Postel, J., Roberts, L. G., & Wolff, S. (n.d.). A brief history of the Internet. Internet Society. Retrieved January 24, 2015, from http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml

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Trinkle, D. A. (1996). The European history highway: A guide to internet resources.

Vardi, M. Y. (2012). Predatory scholarly publishing. Communications of the ACM, 55(7), 510.

WebMD. (2015). Hypertension/high blood pressure health center. Retrieved January 24, 2015, from http://www.webmd.com/hypertension-high-blood-pressure/news/20030303/mornings-raise-stroke-risk