Web Literacy for Evaluating Credibility of Web Information: Issues and Considerations

Because of a variety of procedures related to design and presentation of web content and structure, there would be a pressing need to consider issues of quality of web information in upcoming years. It is argued, in the current paper, that evaluation issues related to credibility and quality assessments are of high importance in web environment in comparison with traditional information environments. Some evaluation skills like authority, coverage, currency, objectivity, accuracy, critical thinking and information literacy all of which could be categorized as Web Literacy would be fruitful in doing so. There exists, however, lack of evaluation skills among users caused by their cognitive styles, prior knowledge, information skills and of web resources characteristics as well. Some other solutions like dialectical reading, information ethics and also institutional policymaking will also be taken into account at the end of the paper.

Keywords:

web information quality , web literacy , evaluation skills , information literacy , critical thinking