Evaluating%20Information%20on%20the%20Internet%20Getting%20the%20Best%20from%20the%20Web

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Evaluating Information on the InternetGetting
the Best from the Web
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Who we are . . .

• Reference Librarians available to you 60 hours a
  week
• M-Th 10 am-5 pm 6-10 pm
• Fri- 9 am-5 pm
• Sun. 1-5 7-10 pm
• Your questions are our priority!

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JOSEPH CHMURA
JENNIFER NACE
EMILY HART
MICHAEL HUNTER
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ALWAYS know where you are on the Web --The url
is your guidepost
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New Top Level Domains (ICANN 1/11/12)

• .com domains almost exhausted for new website
  names
• Someone got there first
• New businesses must pay domain brokers for an
  address or register a new one with un-natural,
  insignificant words
• Now possible to purchase a unique TLD (.mycompany
  or .ourtrademark or .ourbrand)
• Fee - 185,000 with waiting period of 2 years.

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Domain Registration

• Currently unrestricted
• .com
• .info
• .net
• .org
• Currently require proof of eligibility
• .edu .coop .mil
• .gov .int .museum
• .xxx .aero .asia

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DIAL Evaluating Sites

• DocumentVerify factual accuracy
• Can it be corroborated by you or others?
• Is there scholarly support for assertions?
• Check the Format and Tone
• Is it well-organized and easily navigated?
• Is there an overt (or covert) bias, advocacy
  purpose or other hidden agenda?

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DIAL Evaluating SitesCaveat lector

• Be especially careful if you find yourself
  agreeing with the point of view of the author(s).
  You may not notice information that is
• Incomplete
• One sided
• Poorly researched
• Undocumented

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DIAL Evaluating Sites

• Institution or Sponsor
• What is the reputation of the sponsor(s) or
  affiliated organization(s)?
• Check their identity if you have a question
  about the site
• Use Whois for domain ownership
• information
• http//www.internic.net/ or
• http//www.networksolutions.com/whois

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DIAL Evaluating Sites

• Author(s)
• Check for credentials and accessibility (e-mail
  or other contact information)
• Navigate until you find this information if you
  dont, dont use the document

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DIAL Evaluating Sites

• Linkage or Affiliations
• Overt Outgoing links and/or advertisements
  found on the page
• Covert Incoming links
• (Use Google or Yahoo and simply type link
  followed by the URL in the searchbox. You will
  be given a list of all incoming links and much
  more about the site)
• What other sites exist by the same author(s) or
  sponsoring organization(s)?
• (You many need Whois for this)

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WikipediaAuthorship

• No requirements
• Most content contributed by a core of about 1,000
  regular, registered users
• IP addresses of anonymous editors are recorded in
  the page history
• About ¼ of articles have only one author
• Articles average 2.7 authors each

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Editorial Control (?)

• Volunteer administrators
• Monitor changes in a section or topic area
• Arbitrate conflicts i.e. edit wars and decide
  when to protect an article from further
  revision
• Peer Review Status - granted by a larger number
  of reviewers as a sign of higher quality
• Featured Content Status (The Best of W.) -peer
  reviewed sites selected for this honor by
  further review and labeled with a Star
• Featured Portals Large subject metasites of
  high quality

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Web TopographyLayers of the web and what you
can get from each

• Curated web
• Human, expert-created subject directories
• Infomine.ucr.edu ipl2.org
• Content well-vetted and locked
• Human, crowdsourced subject sites
• Wikipedia, Quora
• Content open (crowdsourced)
• Human/crawler hybrids DuckDuckGo ddg.gg

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Web TopographyLayers of the web and what you
can get from each

• General Web results
• General search engines algo-based
• Google, Bing
• Content closed (static web pages)
• Limited search options influenced by social web
• Social Web
• Blogs, Twitter, Facebook
• Content open and closed (crowdsourced)
• Topsy.com social web metaengine

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• The Shape of Todays Social Web

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The very latest in.

• Public responses/attitudes/primary sources
• Breaking news, local to worldwide
• Trending topics and people
• Latest product reviews
• Companies and competition
• Security, technology topics (latest virus, etc.)
• Locate individuals and their networks
• Who they follow, who follows them
• People interested in a topic/hobby
• Monitor collaborations

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Social Networks in the Egyptian Revolution
1/25/11-2/11/11Enabling protesters to become
citizen journalists
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Facebook, TwitterThe Heartbeat of the Egyptian
Revolution in 2011

• From January 10 to February 10
• Twitter
• Over 93 million revolution-related tweets within
  Egypt and between Egypt and other countries
• Facebook
• 2313 revolution-related pages and events created
• 461,000 posts by 9,815 users
• 216 Egyptian cyber-revolutionary FB groups
  formed

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Mining Todays Social WebThe trust factors

• People you dont know
• Wikipedia
• Human-created databases, directories
• I need a few good sites on solar energy
• Mahalo, Ipl2.org
• Video Sharing and QA Services
• How do I repair my garage door opener?
• YouTube, Yahoo Answers, Answers.com, Mahalo
  Answers

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Mining Todays Social WebThe trust factors

• People you follow
• Twitter-human created Tweets
• Whats the buzz on Beyonce?
• People you know
• Post a question to friends and family
• What type of Mac should I buy?
• Facebook, LinkedIn, Google, Bing (login via
  Facebook)

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• SOCIAL SEARCH TOOLS

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Topsy www.topsy.comReal-time search of Twitter
and Google

• Unlike other real time ses, ranking is based on
  a deep archive of social media
• Trending metrics used in ranking
• Whats viral right now?
• Experts Search locates authoritative Twitter
  users on topics of your choice
• Advanced search filters
• Site/domain Twitter user
• Language (10) Date, time posted

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Twittermining Tools

• Twitter.com
• Requires a (free) account
• Only the latest 2 weeks available
• Searchable by hashtag ()
• Author-designated keyword or significant term or
  phrase
• rochester
• jobs
• marketing

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Facebooks Graph SearchSearch using the
knowledge of your friends

• Personalized search results based on your circle
  of FB friends and public posts
• A collection of entities and their relationships
  on Facebook (FB Graph Search engineering team)
• Designed for full natural language queries
• Made public 7/15/13
• Must access via your FB account