Module 4 - Evaluating the Web

My best ‘source’ or site was “Academy Awards The Oscars” (Dirks, T, www.filmsite.org). This site provided a comprehensive description of the history of the Academy Awards or Oscars, from the first ceremony in May 1929 to outlining the criteria required in the early years for winning an Oscar. The article then moves on to comments about the awards themselves. It then moves on to the various categories of awards and lists the winners in award categories 1927/28-39, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and award summaries.

The site does state that it is not affiliated with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. However, when compared to the Academy site, the history outlined on this site appears to be correct and in line with the history outlined on the Academy site.

The filmsite provides a clearly indexed outline to search for Academy Award winners over previous years and I believe was written with the intention of providing clear and accessible information to its readers.



In terms of your own future use, which ‘body’ of information (ie the original ‘snapshot” of the site, or your own, annotated analytical version) would be most useful to refer back to?

In terms of external users (ie if you included this site as a hyperlink or resource on a website) which body of information would best help them judge if the site was useful or of interest to them?

The original ‘snapshot’ of the site provides the reader with only a very brief outline of the information with more comprehensive information being available on the website. The ‘snapshot’ generally only displays the key words entered in the original search with some additional information from the website. For future use, an annotated, analytical version would provide a more comprehensive resource to be used in any work assignment. In the annotated version a summary of the website content, author, date can be provided which would not be available on the snapshot.

In terms of external users possibly the ‘snapshot’ may be more useful as the contents would not be as long as the annotated version. An external user searching for the topic would the ‘snapshot’ more appealing. Additionally, a ‘snapshot’ allows more results to appear on a search page compared to a more lengthy annotated version.