Evaluation means making a judgement based on criteria or determining the value of something. The Berkley website provides criteria which allows the evaluation of a website in a logical and systematic way.
Evaluating websites requires careful consideration of a number of factors. The 2 main factors are validity and reliability.
In order to assess the validity of a web page, you need to consider the
Authority – who authored the article?
Content – does it answer your question? Is it relevant to your research?
In order to assess the reliability of a web page you need to verify that it is the same information that has been published by other valid sources, at least three.
Dot point: Gather process and analyse information from secondary sources to describe ways in which drinking water can be treated and use available evidence to explain how these methods reduce the risk of infection from pathogens
Evaluation:
1) The URL
· It is not someone’s personal page because it lacks the tidle/percentage sign, a personal name or the words users etc.
The server is government domain .’
· This is a government site. The domain name .gov is a sponsored top-level domain in the Domain Name System of the Internet.
The name is derived from government, indicating its restricted use by government entities.
The fact that it has ‘.au’ in its URL indicates that this is an Australian website.
2) Scanning the perimeter
· www.health.nsw.gov.au is the publisher. I have heard of this entity and the URL is a legitimate page of the state’s department of health website. This corresponds to the name of the site.
· The NSW government is responsible for the website. They have a several tabs ‘Home,’ ‘about us’ etc. which makes it a genuine site. It also has a ‘contact us’ tab which provides a list of postal addresses, phone numbers, fax. Although it has not listed any ‘last updated’ information, there is a recent article dated August 8, 2011. This makes it up-to-date.
· The NSW department of health is certainly qualified to write on this topic. I cannot think of a more legitimate source of information for the topic.
3) Indicators of quality information
· On the right hand side of this website are links to other government websites on water treatment, such as Australian Water Association, Water Services Association of Australia, Local Government and Shires Association of NSW etc. All the links work, open up on a new page and are well organised.
· The information provided on the website is authentic and since this is a government website with high security, the information cannot be retyped or tampered with. Permissions to reproduce and copyright information have been provided in the website and are subject to the operation of the Copyright Act 1968.
· The website gets its information from various corporations and authorities, all of which have links to their own websites and work. These other websites have similar information making this website reliable.
4) Reviews
· There are links to other resources on the topic. In fact, there is a very article ‘NSW Health Response Protocol: for the management of microbiological quality of drinking water’ for the dot point in the Biology syllabus.
· According to the reputation by website alexa.com, the Nsw.gov.au website shows the following details:
-Traffic details: 3,869 in the world and 44 in Australia.
- It belongs to the “Government” category of sites
- 74% of the site's visitors are in Australia
-20,294 sites link in to the page.
5) Conclusion
· This website is meant to provide information and facts on all areas of water quality, drinking water, recreational and swimming pool water, waste water and sewage. I would recommend this website and advocate it more than books and other resources because of its credibility as an official government website. Considering this is an Australian website with Australian information, students will be able to relate to it. The limitations that I came across were that the information was very vast and would require some amount of time. Therefore the teacher would have to scaffold a set of guidelines for the students. If students need a broader perspective, one that is not confined to NSW, then another website would have to be accessed. On the whole, I find this a good website after evaluating it using the criteria given in the Berkley website.
References:
NSW Government. (2011). Water Quality. Retrieved from http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/publichealth/environment/water/index.asp
Board of Studies. (2009). Biology Stage 6 Syllabus. NSW: Board of studies. Retrieved from http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/syllabus_hsc/pdf_doc/biology-st6-syl-from2010.pdf
Uc Berkley. (2010). Evaluating web pages: techniques to apply & questions to ask. Retrieved from: http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/teachinglib/guides/internet/evaluate.html
I liked your systematic evaluation of the site, the only things i would add are that the provided links could include a brief blurb about each one to suggest why the link has been provided. what is it that these links inlude that can not be found on the main site. the other thing i wanted to add is that, yes, while the site does provide a lot of information, a lot of it is not specifically in relation to the dot point. the section they provide on 'water quality' is not very detailed and i'm not sure that it would give enough info for students for the relevant dot point. i couldn't find any specific information relating to how the water is treated or how these methods would reduce the risks of infection.
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