1.3 Evaluating the results of the search

Table of Contents

1. Validity of information
2. Reliability criteria
   1. Expertise and reputation
   2. Lack of bias
   3. Opposing views
   4. Equal emphasis
   5. Accuracy
   6. Currency
   7. Establishing currency
   8. Indirect methods of establishing currency
3. Measuring the success of a search
4. Structuring and saving of search results

Establishing currency

We can think of a few possible ways of establishing the currency of a website. Obviously they depend on finding date information. This can be explicit:

• You can check the "Last revised" date on a website. This is usually found on the first screen. Note that this may only indicate the last time a change was made to a particular part of the website and that it does not imply that all the content was updated on that date.
• You can look to see how recent are the publication dates of the documents referred to on the site
• You can look out for dates quoted within text and make an estimate of currency
• You might find a "Forthcoming events" list where all dates should be in the future, or in the very recent past.

In the absence of any explicit date information you may need to look at Indirect methods of establishing currency...