So you have found some literature on your education topic. How can you tell whether your resources are suitable for your assessment? Have you been asked to use peer reviewed or refereed articles?
The videos below will help you to pick up strategies to evaluate Library resources, web resources and find peer reviewed articles.
| Currency |
Is it current enough for your topic? A general rule is to use resources published in the last 5 years. |
| Reliability |
Is the source reputable? Is it peer reviewed? Does the creator provide references? Do those references pass the CRAP test? |
| Authority |
Who is the creator or author? What are their qualifications? Are they an expert in the field? |
| Purpose |
Is it fact or opinion? Is it biased or balanced? Is the creator trying to sell you something? |
The type of domain provides you a hint as to the reliability of the website at which you are looking.
|
.edu (educational institution) .gov (government)
|
These are more likely to be reliable and unbiased. |
|
.org (non-profit organisation) .asn (non-commercial organisation)
|
Sometimes these organisations can be biased toward one side of an issue that is actually quite complex. |
|
.com (commercial site) .net (network) |
Try to avoid these sites as they are likely to be unreliable. .net is the domain given to any site that doesn't fit into the other domain categories. |
If you find a .com or .net site that you think is ok, look at the currency, reliability, authority and purpose to see if your suspicion is supported by evidence.
Articles published in peer-reviewed or refereed journals have been through a formal approval process. An editor and one or more subject specialists review the article before it is accepted for publication. This process is intended to ensure that the article is accurate, well-researched, and contributes to the body of knowledge in the field.
Primo Search and some Journal Databases include an option to limit your search to scholarly or peer-reviewed articles, and some other databases include this information as part of an article record. While this is an indication that the article could be peer-reviewed, the definitive way to find out is to use Ulrichsweb Global Periodicals Directory. You can access this database from the Library's list of U-databases.
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