I work as a public services librarian at the University of Alberta, with a subject emphasis in engineering. One of our responsibilities when we instruct is to educate students to the fact that most of the information available freely on the Internet is not necessarily reliable or factual. Yesterday I presented to a class of 135 students in Chemical Engineering 200 (Introduction to Chemical and Materials Engineering), and used a number of different web sites to emphasize this point, including the very disturbing martinlutherking.org site (run by a white supremacy group), the hilarious DMHO.org site, and the FEMA full-text publication on the performance of the WTC after the Sept 11 attacks. Students (and anyone for that matter) need to be aware of ways to evaluate a web site when they find it.
An interesting article appeared in the Washington Post in July, dealing with this concern, and how instructors are spending more time warning students that the free Internet isn't the only place to look for information.
visits since 07/15/02
