Delving deeper into evaluation: exploring cognitive authority on the Internet

Abstract

This paper discusses the importance of ascribing cognitive authority to Internet information, provides basic evaluative criteria for ascribing authority, and describes technical tools for investigating authorship and conducting more advanced research. The proffered tools offer ways to investigate authorship and identity and can significantly contribute to the confidence with which a researcher can ascribe authority. Analyses of the output from technical tools directly reveal how these tools may be used to draw conclusions regarding authorship and identity. An overview of public-key infrastructure (PKI) is provided as a possible solution to the problem of determining identity in a networked environment.

Making sense of credibility on the Web: Models for evaluating online information and recommendations for future research

“…Authenticating the identity of the author is an important first step in assessing the credibility of online information, and is particularly important for Internet transactions involving sensitive information such as one's financial or personal data. Ultimately, however, digital signatures still require the recipient of some information to evaluate the quality of the information provided by the author (Fritch & Cromwell, 2002). This approach also is problematic for Web sites that are coauthored by more than one source, corporate authored, or provide no author information, as is increasingly the case.…”

“…Fritch and Cromwell (2002) explain that digital signatures are "a cryptographic method that allows a sender to append a small data block, called a "signature," that allows the recipient to prove, to some quantifiably high certainty, two things: first, that message contents have not been altered in transit, and second, that the message sender is really who he/she claims to be" (p. 252). Authenticating the identity of the author is an important first step in assessing the credibility of online information, and is particularly important for Internet transactions involving sensitive information such as one's financial or personal data.…”

Connecting with the user-generated Web: how group identification impacts online information sharing and evaluation

“…Yet, scholars note that digital media tools sometimes lack standard authority indicators such as author identity or reputation (Danielson, 2005;Fritch & Cromwell, 2002), and therefore source information is often unavailable, masked, or missing online. In other cases, source information is provided, but hard to interpret, such as when information is co-produced, re-purposed from one site, channel, or application to another or when information aggregators display information from multiple sources in a centralized location that may itself be perceived as the source.…”

Cognitively Based Assessment Of, For, and as Learning: A Framework for Assessing Reading Competency

“…Because no uniform standards exist for posting information on the Internet, however, the information found there can be unsubstantiated and inaccurate (Fritch & Cromwell, 2002;Metzger, Flanagin, Eyal, Lemus, & McCann, 2003). Now, more than ever, people need to approach all forms of print and nonprint-based sources of information with a critical stance.…”