Faced with an ever-changing information world, undergraduates and graduates need to learn how to use a variety of methods to filter out the information they need in the shortest period of time. Part and parcel of dynamic academic learning environments are the many economic, legal, and social issues that arise when accessing and using information ethically, legally, and safely in both private or public computing scenarios.
Without clearly knowing which activities are legal when it comes to fair use or what behaviors are recognized as plagiarism, college and university students may suffer major setbacks to their academic life and career prospects.
We constantly evaluate information to guide our decision-making process in both our personal and professional lives. Information is available at our fingertips around the clock; we can easily search the Internet, browse library holdings, or even access experts in Google chat sessions. Not only is it easier to find information, but there is a lot more of it. It can be challenging to evaluate the integrity of information sources when developing Extension programming. Not all the information available is valid, useful or accurate. Evaluating information sources is an important skill that involves deciding where to look for information, sifting through it, and deciding what to accept.
Authorship confirms the identity of the person who creates or writes a published work, including articles, works of art, books, designs, images, music, papers, paintings, pictures, and videos. Generally speaking, authorship for academic and scholarly publications is easily identified. It is common to see a lot of general web articles without clear authorship. If there are no identified authors, an editor, publisher, or a website will normally be used for authorship.
Authority examines the credibility of the person who creates the information. The author’s educational background, expertise, knowledge, reputation, and skills are factors that need critical review. Most academic publications, especially peer-reviewed articles or papers, will include accurate authorship and other publication information. In stark contrast, many general web publications such as those published by the online encyclopedia Wikipedia do not contain any accurate publication information, rendering it hard to verify the author’s credibility and expertise. This is the reason college and university students must take care when citing web-based information as their academic information sources. If an article lacks appropriate authority it cannot be deemed qualified peer-reviewed academic information.
Objectivity concerns the author’s motivation for writing the work or the viewpoints expressed in the work. Objectivity involves making a judgment to see whether the collected information
Using information ethically, legally and safely is suitable for the information user’s needs. The following questions should help assess the author intentions:
1.Does the author use statements to support his topics or themes?
2.Does the author use proofs to support his viewpoints?
3.Does the author use conclusions or inferences to persuade his readers?
4.Are you convinced the author is being objective?
Accuracy concerns the provenance and reliability of the information and information sources used to infer conclusions. The following questions should help assess whether the information provided by the author is reliable.
Relevancy concerns correlating the information collected with the theme of academic studies or scholarly research. While reviewing the information collected, information users must make sure that it is appropriate to the academic assignment or scholarly research being undertaken.
Scope concerns the range covered by a topic or a theme. Absent the requisite experience, knowledge, and skill, it is impossible to understand the complete scope of academic studies or scholarly research. Only once the relationship between a current developing trend and the retrospective history of a certain academic discipline is understood can college students hope to comprehend the scope of an academic study or scholarly research.
Audience concerns the target readers for published articles, books, papers, reports, videos, etc. Common magazine and newspaper articles are written for the general public, while professional journal articles are written for readers who have specialist background and knowledge. Academic dissertations and theses aim at scholarly communication among faculty, students, scientists, scholars, and other professionals and relate to advances, laboratory reviews, Scholarly Information Discovery in the Networked Academic Learning Environment mechanisms, notations, theories, and so on in various fields of science and technology. A common mistake made by junior college students is taking general information from web search engines as peer-reviewed scholarly information.