Evaluating Information

Learning Outcomes

The goal of this section is to help you:

Identify the purpose and audience of potential resources (e.g. popular vs. scholarly, current vs. historical, external vs. internal, primary vs. secondary vs. tertiary).
Recognize parts of a document: author, author credentials, references, year of publication, methodology, data, and conclusion.
Consider IP rights in engineering work and respect the IP rights of others.
Recognizes that potentially useful information or data in a variety of formats may be proprietary, have limited access, or may be freely available online.

Finding information today is relatively easy thanks to the web and online resources. With just a few keywords typed into a search engine, anyone can find thousands or even millions of sources. However, how do we know if the sources that turn up in our search results are the best for our specific question or need? Anyone with access to the web may post information on a website or platform. How do we know if it's reliable?

With so much information available, both print and online, engineers need to develop skills in evaluating the resources they locate. In other words, you must make a choice of what sources should be included, or excluded, from your research. This is especially true for web sources.

So, what are the criteria for evaluating an information source? Let’s take look. Librarians and researchers have developed many frameworks and criteria for evaluating sources. Below is a framework called "OSCAR".

Objective

Why was the item written? Is that purpose clearly outlined by the author?
- Was it written to provide info, persuade, advocate, entertain, or sell something?
What is the perspective or point of view of the author?
Is the item provided fact, opinion, or propaganda?
Is the item presented in an objective (unbiased) or subjective (biased) manner?
- Is the language used emotional, provocative, or inflammatory?
Does the item promote a political, religious, ideological, cultural, institutional, personal, or social agenda?
Does the item include advertisi

Substantiated

What materials are cited or referenced in the item?
Are those materials relevant or related to the topic of the item?
What evidence or data was presented in the item?
Are you able to verify that evidence or data from another source?
How was the evidence or data collected?
Did the authors collect that data themselves, or was it collected by someone else?
Has the item been peer-reviewed or refereed?

Current

When was the item written and/or published?
Has more recent or updated information been written or published about the topic?
Does the date of publication matter?
Do you need the most up-to-date information about a topic, or are you looking for historical information about a topic?
Are the links included in the item functional?
Are the dates of the cited or referenced material reasonable for the date of publication?

Authoritative

Who are the authors of the item?
Are the authors clearly identified?
What is the background, expertise, or qualifications of the authors?
Does the background, expertise, and qualifications of the authors match the topic they wrote about?
What groups, organizations, or institutions are the authors affiliated with?
Who published the item?

Relevant

Is the topic and scope of the item relevant to the project or assignment you’re working on?
Does it include the relevant timeframe and/or geographical area you need?
Does the item include detailed information about the topic, or more broad and general information about the topic?
Who was the intended audience of the item?
What reading level is the item written for?