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TOPIC 9
INFORMATION ANALYSIS
The availability and growth of
the Internet offers all of us, the opportunity to find information and data
from all over the world. Internet resources, in particular World Wide Web
resources, continue to proliferate at an astonishing rate. Also, some experts
say that a new site is placed online every 3 seconds! And it is possible for
almost anyone to place anything on the Internet. What I learnt from Information
Analysis is about the criteria to evaluate sources which are purpose and scope.
Why we have to evaluate? When we use a research or academic library, the books,
journals and other resources have already been evaluated by a librarian or by a
mechanism set up by a librarian. When we use an index or a database to find
information on any given topic, the index or database is often produced by a
professional or scholarly organization that selects the journals to be indexed
on the basis of their quality. Then, every resource we find has been evaluated
in one way or another, before we ever see it. When we are using the World Wide
Web, none of this applies, because there are no filters in between us and the
Internet. Now that anyone with access to a server and a passing knowledge of
HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) can put information on the Internet, the
problem has become one of sifting through a mass of advertising material and
vanity publications in order to find
information of high quality. Moreover, information can be spread over the
Internet by anyone without regard to accuracy, validity, or bias. So, using and
citing information found over the Web is a little like swimming on a beach
without a lifeguard. What we need is to check the accuracy, currency and
uniqueness of the information. By doing these steps, we can rely on whether the
resource is accurate or not. In addition, we also can analysis an information
by looking at their quality of writing, design and layout, organization,
navigability, style and functionality, color, multimedia, acces or workability,
ease of use, search-ability, brows-ability, software reliability, connectivity,
charging policy, copyright, censorship, language, documentation and many more.
The availability and growth of
the Internet offers all of us, the opportunity to find information and data
from all over the world. Internet resources, in particular World Wide Web
resources, continue to proliferate at an astonishing rate. Also, some experts
say that a new site is placed online every 3 seconds! And it is possible for
almost anyone to place anything on the Internet. What I learnt from Information
Analysis is about the criteria to evaluate sources which are purpose and scope.
Why we have to evaluate? When we use a research or academic library, the books,
journals and other resources have already been evaluated by a librarian or by a
mechanism set up by a librarian. When we use an index or a database to find
information on any given topic, the index or database is often produced by a
professional or scholarly organization that selects the journals to be indexed
on the basis of their quality. Then, every resource we find has been evaluated
in one way or another, before we ever see it. When we are using the World Wide
Web, none of this applies, because there are no filters in between us and the
Internet. Now that anyone with access to a server and a passing knowledge of
HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) can put information on the Internet, the
problem has become one of sifting through a mass of advertising material and
vanity publications in order to find
information of high quality. Moreover, information can be spread over the
Internet by anyone without regard to accuracy, validity, or bias. So, using and
citing information found over the Web is a little like swimming on a beach
without a lifeguard. What we need is to check the accuracy, currency and
uniqueness of the information. By doing these steps, we can rely on whether the
resource is accurate or not. In addition, we also can analysis an information
by looking at their quality of writing, design and layout, organization,
navigability, style and functionality, color, multimedia, acces or workability,
ease of use, search-ability, brows-ability, software reliability, connectivity,
charging policy, copyright, censorship, language, documentation and many more.
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