The CRAP Test
Just saw this resource - The CRAP Test - love the acronym because it will be a memorable way to look for what’s crap and what’s not. They provide the following questions. I wanted to note this because evaluation of content is certainly one of the topics we’ll discuss here.
* Currency -
o How recent is the information?
o How recently has the website been updated?
o Is it current enough for your topic?
* Reliability -
o What kind of information is included in the resource?
o Is content of the resource primarily opinion? Is is balanced?
o Does the creator provide references or sources for data or quotations?
* Authority -
o Who is the creator or author?
o What are the credentials?
o Who is the published or sponsor?
o Are they reputable?
o What is the publisher’s interest (if any) in this information?
o Are there advertisements on the website?
* Purpose/Point of View -
o Is this fact or opinion?
o Is it biased?
o Is the creator/author trying to sell you something?
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
June 23rd, 2008 at 8:35 am
Does opinion, bias, or age of content mean something is crap? There’s no real context for this evaluator. I like opinion and fact. Bias is natural, transparency is key. Accurate and relevant are more important than age of information. No?
June 23rd, 2008 at 8:45 am
Janet - every session I do when the question of quality of content comes up (relative to Wikis for example) it’s interesting to see that people don’t realize that even major media or scholarly papers or books all contain perspective / bias. I think it’s a great point that transparency is key.
Age is important in my mind because if I see something written in 1994 vs. 2004 vs. 2008, I react differently. If it’s 1994, I need to find out what’s happened since that point. If it’s 2008, I need to find out if it’s too new and better foundation exists. If it’s 2004, I may need to go both directions.
But your point is taken - there’s a lot to evaluation. Some really good stuff on this topic I’ve seen at various universities. My sense is that if we can combine what universities tell students around evaluation under this acronym - we have something pretty good.
June 23rd, 2008 at 11:55 pm
This is a good list. These are all things that I’ve been trying to get my teenagers to understand as they use the web for school (and other) research.
No single one of these things makes the information unusable, but it will definitely help you better understand the information you are using (and better able to defend your use of it).