grimes.p65 Worries with the Web: A Look at Student Use of Web Resources 11 Worries with the Web: A Look at Student Use of Web Resources Deborah J. Grimes and Carl H. Boening The purpose of this research project was to determine whether students are using unauthenticated resources, whether they are evaluating their resources, and whether there is a gap between the quality of resources expected by instructors and the quality of resources used by students. Using case study methodology, the authors interviewed instructors and students and analyzed Web resources cited in research papers in two English composition classes. The findings show that students are using unevaluated resources and that there is a gap between what instructors expect students to use and what students actually use. Ways to alleviate “worries with the Web” are discussed. he authors are concerned that, despite the best efforts of aca­ demic librarians to provide high-quality print and electronic resources, college students are using unevaluated or inappropriate Web re­ sources to support their writing assign­ ments. Evidence that this concern is wide­ spread is apparent in the development of hundreds of online guides evaluating Web resources and in anecdotal literature lament­ ing how easily students are seduced by the convenience and speed with which they can locate what they consider to be good infor­ mation on the Web. Experts such as Evan Ira Farber have pointed out that today’s stu­ dents, like those of a generation ago, still cannot separate the good from the bad when locating information sources.1 The authors do not mean to imply that all Web-based resources are of poor qual­ ity; on the contrary, there are numerous examples of high-quality resources on the Web and a growing body of review tools, in both print and online formats, to help librarians and others identify worthwhile sites. However, students find Web re­ sources easily accessible and convenient without needing the intervention or assis­ tance of a librarian, so there are greater opportunities for them to select sources of dubious value and quality. Although the authors celebrate the Web as an outstand­ ing vehicle for information, they also are concerned about student use of Web re­ sources—and they are not alone in their concern. In an article entitled “How the Web Destroys Student Research Papers,” Professor David Rothenberg complained that he has “noticed a disturbing decline in both the quality of the writing and the originality of thoughts expressed.” He sug­ gested that this decline is caused by the use of Web resources, with out-of-date refer­ ences, unattributed quotes, and “what passes for information” on the Web.2 Deborah J. Grimes is the Director of Library Services at Shelton State Community College; e-mail: dgrimes@shelton.cc.al.us. Carl H. Boening is the Library Systems Officer at Shelton State Community College; e-mail: cboening@shelton.cc.al.us. 11 mailto:cboening@shelton.cc.al.us mailto:dgrimes@shelton.cc.al.us 12 College & Research Libraries January 2001 Moreover, a gap seems to exist between what many instructors expect of resources traditionally provided by an academic li­ brary and what the students actually use from the Web. There are at least two rea­ sons why such a gap should exist. First, instructors are accustomed to relying on librarians to ensure the quality of resources available for student use. After all, librar­ ians have worked with written selection criteria for decades, involving faculty ex­ perts in the development of subject collec­ tions and applying years of collection de­ velopment experience to selecting materi­ als. Indeed, they are using the same infra­ structure to develop online guides to Web resources. However, students now have more and more opportunities to bypass the selection and quality control traditionally provided by librarians and are relying, in­ stead, on search engines that rank by rel­ evancy, rather than quality, to locate online sources that seem to meet their needs, with­ out ever considering the quality and au­ thority of those sources. Kari Boyd McBride and Ruth Dickstein have pointed out that the Web has no gatekeeper and that there is “a major difference between the types of information found on the Web and the type one finds in a library.”3 Com­ pounding the situation is the fact that stu­ dents are searching the Web not only at home, but also in the libraries, where they, like their instructors, have come to expect others to maintain quality. In fact, librar­ ians may have created this problem by doing their jobs so well for so long. By moderating their collections, they have re­ moved the need for instructors and stu­ dents to evaluate resources. With little or no evidence, Web users often assume that Web resources are current and up-to-date. A second reason why a gap between faculty expectations and student use of Web resources may exist has been pro­ posed by Gloria J. Leckie. The so-called expert researcher model used by aca­ demic faculty presupposes that students have the same high level of skills to judge and evaluate sources of information.4 In other words, faculty members expect stu­ dents to conduct research in the same ways they do and may not even be aware that they are operating in the “expert re­ searcher” mode of thinking. Literature Review The authors examined the literature in the fields of higher education and library and information science to gather some per­ spective on student use and faculty ex­ pectations of Web resources. A basic over­ view of the literature was offered by Susan E. Hahn, who reported that articles began to emerge in 1996 about teaching students to evaluate Internet sources.5 Julia K. Nims and Linda Rich used the Search Voyager feature of Magellan, an online guide to the Web, to examine stu­ dent search techniques and found that problems caused by poor search strate­ gies are “magnified when they are con­ ducted on the Web.”6 Ann Scholz-Crane examined the evaluation practices of two groups of college composition students. One group used a checklist provided by the instructor, and the other group devel­ oped its own criteria to evaluate two Web documents. Comparing criteria from both groups to standard evaluation criteria, she found that a checklist alone was insuffi­ cient to help students evaluate Web sites and, further, that students needed help in identifying components or elements of Web documents.7 In an effort to increase effective use of the Internet for research, Anne F. Pierce used pre- and posttest scores to compare the performances of high school students. She found that, despite their high opin­ ions of their own abilities, students were quite unskilled in research techniques that effectively used Internet resources. She further found that, for a variety of rea­ sons, high school teachers in the study were unprepared to help students learn how to evaluate Internet sources and to develop search strategies.8 Mary Ann Gilette and Carol Videon used a case study to examine the sources cited by forty-seven students in a com­ Worries with the Web: A Look at Student Use of Web Resources 13 FIGURE 1 Interview Questions for Instructors 1. May we have a copy of your syllabus and/or written instructions regarding the research paper assignment? 2. What instructions did you give your students in class regarding sources for their research papers? Be specific, as if I were your student. 3. Did you specifically mention Internet or Web sources? Did you give them any criteria to use to help them select sources on the Internet? 4. What kinds of sources did you expect your students to use? Why? 5. Did you expect students to go directly to the Internet or Web to find information? From home? From the library? 6. What quality of information did you expect them to find on the Internet or Web? Compared to traditional print resources from the library (books and journals)? 7. What qualities or characteristics do you think make an Internet site or a Web site a good source for research papers? Be specific. Prompt, if necessary: the same as for books or journals? 8. Do you use the Internet or Web? For what? For locating information similar to that needed by your students? If so, how do you decided what's good and what's not? 9. Did your students meet your expectations regarding the sources they used (print and online)? Why or why don't you think they did? 10. Do you think Internet or Web sources are different from books and journals? If so, in what ways? How are they alike? munity college writing class. They found that, regardless of a wide range in qual­ ity, 50 percent of the students in their study cited other student papers found online. Citations to Web documents were often muddy, with a high degree of faulty links and errors; and students often cited several sections or chapters of one Web site as multiple sources.9 Purpose of the Study To get a better idea of what students are doing and what faculty members expect of them, the authors conducted a study to determine three things: 1. Are students evaluating Web re­ sources? 2. Are they using unauthenticated Web resources? 3. Is there a gap between what in­ structors expect of their students and what students are actually doing with Web resources? Methodology Case studies were conducted of commu­ nity college instructors and their freshman writing classes, using two classes of En­ glish Composition II (ENG 102), which requires research papers, including docu­ mentation (i.e., references and a bibliogra­ phy). The research paper is the first major writing activity that requires students to identify, evaluate, and use outside refer­ ences to support a point of view or pro­ vide a detailed description or biography. One class of twenty-five students was assigned a biographical research paper. The only instructions related to Web sources were directed toward proper ci­ tation formats. Six students in this class used electronic sources of information, with a total of seventeen citations to Web documents. The second class, also of twenty-five students, was assigned a re­ search paper on a current controversy (e.g., gun control, abortion, and so on). Five students used electronic sources, with a total of fifteen citations to Web documents. Three methods were used to obtain as many data as possible: (1) instructor in­ terviews to learn more about the instruc­ tions given to students regarding required 14 College & Research Libraries January 2001 references, about directions given regard­ ing use of the Internet or Web resources, about the quality of sources instructors expected students to use, and about how the instructors judged the quality of Web resources (see figure 1); (2) student inter­ views to determine the students’ under­ standing of the quality of resources they chose (see figure 2); and (3) an analysis of the bibliography of each research paper to identify the types and quality of sources used. The authors attempted to access each URL (universal resource lo­ cator) cited by the students and to assess its quality according to specific criteria. Evaluating the Quality of Web Resources Drawing from numerous online guides, a checklist was developed of criteria for Web resources used in the writing assign­ ment. The authors found a great deal of similarity among the guides, highly re­ flective of traditional selection criteria used in evaluating print resources in aca­ demic libraries.10 Ten criteria were iden­ tified for use in evaluating Web resources: authorship; currency; recommendations; perspective; audience; style and tone; quality of content; organization of infor­ mation; publisher, source, and host; and stability of information. These criteria are explained in more detail in table 1. Al­ though each source was not expected to meet all ten criteria, each was expected to meet at least some of the criteria in or­ der to be considered suitable for under­ graduate college writing assignments. These criteria take on more importance for Web resources because of the differ­ ences between traditional print resources and Web resources. For example, the scholarly communication system—with its checks and balances of publishers, edi­ tors, peer review, and librarians—man­ ages and controls access to traditional print resources. That is, the scholarly com­ munication system generally prevents informal, poorly designed, and difficult- to-use sources from ever getting into the hands of users. Further, it ensures that authors of print resources have been through some form of review and evalu­ ation. However, there is no systematic monitoring of authority on the Web. Like­ wise, perspective (biases, hidden agen- FIGURE 2 Interview Questions for Students 1. What instructions did your teacher give you about using sources for your research paper? 2. What specific kinds of sources were mentioned? Were Internet or Web sources mentioned? 3. Was any direction provided by your teacher regarding how you would choose good sources on the Internet or Web? 4. What made you choose the sources you did (print and Internet Web)? i.e., how did you know they were appropriate or good for your assignment? 5. Have you used the Internet or Web for these kinds of assignments before? For other things? Where? (Home, work, library, classroom) 6. Did you consciously think about the quality of the Internet or Web sites or sources you chose? If so, what kinds of things did you think of (e.g., source, author, date, etc.)? 7. Do you think you met your teacher's expectations for finding appropriate sources for your paper? Why or why not? 8. How easy was it to locate information on your topic in library books and ournals? 9. How easy was it on the Internet? 10. Which sources did you find most useful? Books? Periodicals? Internet? Why? 11. Did you ask for help in the library to locate books? Periodicals? Internet sources? http:libraries.10 Worries with the Web: A Look at Student Use of Web Resources 15 TABLE 1 Web Evaluation Criteria Criterion Description 1. Authorship 2. Currency 3. Recommendations 4. Perspective 5. Audience 6. Style and tone 7. Quality of content 8. Organization of information 9. Publisher, source, host 10. Stability of information Authors should be identified, with appropriate credentials evident. Dates should provided for each source, which are current or timely enough to be appropriate to the research paper topic. Web resources, both individual pages and databases, should be updated regularly. It should be evident that Web resources have been through some review process or recom­ mended by reliable outside sources. Web resources include online databases, which moderate information like their print counter­ parts, as well as personal pages. Biases and affiliations should be evident on Web resources, including commercial affiliations. Intended audiences (laypersons, fans, profes­ sionals, specialists, educators, etc.) should be evident. Style and tone should be appropriate to the topic. Web resources should meet the same criteria for grammar, spelling, and documenta­ tion that print resources meet. Sites should be user­friendly and in good taste to be appropriate for research papers. Content should be timely, documented, verifiable, and accurate. Limitations should be pointed out. Information should be detailed enough to be appropriate to the research paper topic. Information should be relevant to the topic. Resources should be well organized, easy to follow and use, with reliable links. Publishers, hosts, and sources provide some of the authority associated with any Web resource. They should be evident to the user and appropri­ ate to the topic. Web sites and the information on them should be relatively stable over time, as should basic information. Changes in information (or updates) should be indicated. 16 College & Research Libraries January 2001 das, commercial promotions, and so on) is not monitored on the Web in the same way that it is in the scholarly communi­ cation system. With little or no evidence, Web users often assume that Web resources are current and up-to-date. Where a reader may easily note the copyright date of a book or the publication date of a pe­ riodical article, he or she may assume that a Web resource is up-to-date simply be­ cause it is online or on the Web. The reader expects to find current information on the Web but may have to look harder, in some cases, to verify currency of infor­ mation for Web resources, sometimes go­ ing through several online pages to find information about the site or the docu­ ment. Because there is no standard for­ mat for Web pages or Web documents, important bibliographic information, such as date, is not always easy to locate, if it is provided at all. Organization of information is differ­ ent and more important to evaluate in Web resources than in traditional print resources for two reasons. First, the schol­ arly communication system ensures that the author is presenting information in an orderly and logical manner appropri­ ate to the topic. Second, printed informa­ tion follows established linear formats to ensure good organization. In contrast, Web resources, with hypertext links, need not be organized linearly, although they must be easy to follow and must facili­ tate movement from page to page and link to link. Finally, the stability of information is not an issue with traditional print re­ sources. Once in print, information re­ mains fixed in one or more formats. A new edition or a revision may be pub­ lished, but these are different physical items that may be placed side by side with the original text. A Web resource may be edited or revised very easily; many Web documents, in fact, are intentionally de­ signed to change as necessary. Once changed, however, the original electronic source disappears. The protean qualities of the Web and Web documents create problems with fragility of information that are not at issue in traditional print resources. Results As with any research project, the authors must acknowledge the limitations of the present study. The numbers of students, instructors, and analyses of Web resources in this project were quite small, which means that results cannot be generalized without caution. Furthermore, hindsight from interviewees is less reliable than di­ rect observation. However, consistency was found among responses to interview questions and in the analyses of sources used by students. Studies reported in the literature are comparable in terms of num­ ber of subjects used, methodology used, and findings. Interviews with Faculty The instructor for the first class gave no specific instructions regarding the use of electronic or Web resources, except for documentation formats. She expressed reservations about even allowing her stu­ dents to use the Web for this assignment. In fact, she said, “I feel very naive about the Internet. I don’t use it and am not fa­ miliar with what is available.” Prior to this assignment, she never expected students to conduct research from their homes and expected Web documents to be “good.” She was surprised to learn, primarily from students, that many Web documents do not indicate authors and other biblio­ graphic information used in traditional documentation. She then suggested the following as characteristics of a “good” Web source for the biography assignment: reliable au­ thor, currency, and reputable sources. She particularly instructed her students to “separate gossip and rumor” from au­ thoritative sources but was unaware that they would find such things as other stu­ dent papers, personal Web pages devoted to celebrities and sports figures, and other unsubstantiated documents. The instruc­ tor did not expect Internet sources to be different in quality from the books, jour­ nals, and reference materials used by her Worries with the Web: A Look at Student Use of Web Resources 17 students in the past (located in libraries). Moreover, she was unaware that the cam­ pus library offers an online database spe­ cifically on biographical information. The instructor for the second class, like her counterpart, stated clearly that she was not particularly skilled in using the Internet and had reservations about mak­ ing it a part of the research paper assign­ ment. Relying heavily on the textbook, she did make an effort to acquaint her stu­ dents with ways to conduct Internet re­ search. She mentioned specific search engines and emphasized that students should use the databases available in the campus library. Further, she expected her students to find good-quality Web infor­ mation without personally having used the Web to do research herself. She em­ phasized the need to locate Web resources with authors and other information nec­ essary for documentation of their papers, but she did not give specific instructions about identifying authors and assessing their credentials. Finally, she was disap­ pointed that her students did not find more reliable and better-quality informa­ tion on the Internet than they actually did. The second instructor stated that a high-quality Web source should have an author with credentials appropriate to the site or the topic and that the site should not be clearly biased in any way. When asked whether she felt that her students had met her expectations regarding Web resources, her answer was an emphatic no. She felt that her students had ignored her advice and the instructions in the text­ book and had relied too heavily on search engines to locate information. This was the first time she had allowed students to use Web resources and considered it, overall, to be a negative experience. She was left with the feeling that the Web was not a good source of information and planned to alter procedures for her next research paper assignment. Interviews with Students All of the students who cited Web sources agreed to participate in the interviews. The students in the first class were well aware of the directions provided by the instructor and confirmed that she had given no specific directions regarding Internet sources (except for documenta­ tion formats). All of these students used general search engines (e.g., Yahoo!, InfoSeek, Lycos, Excite) to locate informa­ tion on their topics (citing the search en­ gine as the reason they chose the sources). Although a biographical database is prominent on the library’s home page and easily accessible by icon, none of the stu­ dents realized that it was available in the campus library. Students in the second class, with a research assignment on current contro­ versies, had varied responses regarding the instructor ’s directions for Web re­ search. All agreed that she had given some pointers about resources, but not all of them agreed that she had been specific regarding Web resources. Several indi­ cated that the instructor had mentioned search engines (e.g., Lycos, Yahoo!, MSN), and one commented that the instructor had said, “You’re on your own,” regard­ ing the Internet. Others said that the in­ structor had told them they should chose “reliable” Web resources, without being specific about what that meant. Several of the students in both classes asked for assistance in locating books and periodicals on their topics, but none of them asked for assistance in using the library’s electronic resources. Most of the students in the second class, with assign­ ments on controversies, stated that they were unable to find current information on their topics in books or periodicals. Of course, the campus library is adequately staffed during day and evening hours with professional librarians (to provide assistance in locating information) and has a wealth of information on current topics, including several online databases and Web resources that students would find relevant to their assignments. How­ ever, students went directly to the Internet without looking at the library’s offerings. Most of the students in both classes had used the Internet for research assign­ ments in other classes prior to the assign­ 18 College & Research Libraries January 2001 ment in ENG 102 (e.g., economics, West­ ern civilization, stress management) or for recreational purposes (e.g., electronic mail and chat rooms). All the students thought that locating information on the Internet was “very easy,” despite the fact that the sources they found were not always of the quality one might expect for college re­ search papers. They all preferred Internet sources to traditional print sources be­ cause of the ease in locating and printing out the results and because of the per­ ceived abundance of information com­ pared to books and periodicals. Answers to questions of evaluation of sources varied. Several students in the first class stated that they had attempted to locate authors for each Web source but were often unsuccessful. They eliminated sources identified through the search en­ gine only when there was “not enough information or it said the same thing.” One student seeking information on a current controversy looked for Web re­ sources published by colleges or univer­ sities, whereas another looked for “asso­ ciations” for her sources. One student specifically mentioned that she had used date as a criterion for choosing a resource, due to assignment guidelines. However, most students simply found matches to their queries on various search engines and took them to be appropriate sources. Students sometimes equated “how the page looked” with credibility but gener­ ally did not consider the design of the site to be an important factor. They formed their own opinions on credibility of the Web sources and did not look for signals from the documents themselves. Most students considered author to be the most important feature of a high-quality Web site, giving no thought to the qualifications of any particular Web author. Most stu­ dents in both classes thought that they had met their instructor ’s expectations for finding appropriate sources. Analysis of Works Cited Authorship: Authorship was considered important so that the proper citation for­ mat could be used (as required by the in­ structor). In other words, any author was acceptable, regardless of credentials. In the second class, most of the students se­ lected sources that clearly identified au­ thors, but less than half of those sources provided credentials for authors. Of those, only a handful of the credentials cited were appropriate to the subject mat­ ter. Currency: Students in both classes were required to use the Modern Language Association (MLA) format for documen­ tation. The MLA format cites the date the student used the electronic source rather than the publication date of the informa­ tion. Virtually all of the sources cited by students in the first class included a date that was only days prior to the date the paper was due. Therefore, the instructor had no way of knowing whether the source was current without examining it online. Upon online examination, the au­ thors found that less than one-half of the cited sources were in fact timely, with most sources including no date at all. Very few of the Web pages selected by students provided information as to when they were updated, and still fewer were up­ dated with any regularity. Recommendations: None of the Web re­ sources selected by students in the first class were from sites with recommenda­ tions, commendations, or awards. None of the students used Web guides that might lead them to or suggest Web re­ views. And less than one-half of the Web resources used by students in the second class had verifiable reviews or recommen­ dations. Only one Web source in either class was from a database that selectively posts articles or papers (i.e., Scientific American). Perspective: Very few of the sites se­ lected by students overtly suggested a bias or skewed perspective. Several selec­ tions were press releases or information from professional associations (such as sports organizations). Half of the Web resources used by students in the second class, assigned to write about controver­ sial subjects, by their nature represented biased viewpoints (although only one Worries with the Web: A Look at Student Use of Web Resources 19 Web source might be considered “ex­ treme”). The majority of sites used by stu­ dents in the second class were affiliated with a particular group or organization, although most did a reasonable job of presenting both sides of the issue. Audience: Several sources were directed toward particular audiences, but the stu­ dents were unaware that sources might be directed toward specific audiences for specific reasons. The students in the first class selected no scholarly Web sources and expressed no concern about the in­ tended audiences of their Web sources. Half of the Web sources used by students in the second class were clearly aimed at presenting information to a particular audience (e.g., www.euthanasia.com), al­ though all presented information in a for­ mat easily understood by laypersons. Style and Tone: Likewise, students did not consider the style and tone of Web resources to be significant. All of the Web resources used in the second class pre­ sented information in a formal manner, with appropriate grammar, spelling, and style. Page designs varied greatly from source to source, but most were appro­ priate to the subject matter and were clearly laid out and easy to read. Al­ though not all of the Web pages used in the second class contained unbiased ma­ terials, all of the presentations were done in a scholarly manner, with most includ­ ing formal references and links to other Web sites on the subject matter. Quality of Content: Very few of the Web sources used in the first class included any markers of the quality of content. In fact, there was so little documentation of infor­ mation on the sites that quality could not be assessed, although the students were quite satisfied with their own judgments of quality. The large majority of Web sites used by students in the second class con­ tained timely material, although several contained information that was of uniden­ tifiable age. In most cases, the scope and limitations of the Web information used in the second class were clearly delineated, but students may not have the expertise to identify these characteristics. Organization of Information: Web re­ sources used in both classes presented a mixed bag, but most were well organized with links still active at the time the au­ thors analyzed them. However, some were very poorly organized and difficult to track back to the original or home page. Publisher, Source, Host: Web sources in­ cluded official Web sites for professional athletic associations, speakers’ bureaus, national organizations, press sites, per­ sonal home pages, fans’ pages, and, in one case, a junior high school class project. During the interviews, students were asked if it concerned them that at least one source selected by a fellow student was a personal home page of a sixteen­ year-old fan. No one expressed any con­ cern, asserting that such a site was suit­ able for college research paper assign­ ments. In all cases in the second class, the affiliations of the source of the pages were evident. Most were official Web sites of organizations or institutions, with only a few being personal sites. In each case where the source of the site was evident, the host clearly provided authority for the site. Stability of Information: Approximately 30 percent of the Web sites listed in all student papers were unavailable for re­ view, due to either student misreporting of the URL or inactive links (despite the fact that all sites were verified within three weeks of student use). Most of the remaining sites seem likely to remain ac­ tive for the foreseeable future. Conclusions Are students evaluating Web resources? The study found that students are evaluating Web resources only superficially, if at all. They went directly to Web resources with­ out seeking help from librarians, even when in the campus library. Their instruc­ tors provided little guidance to help them select sources, and, like the students in Pierce’s study, all were confident in their own assessments of the quality and suit­ ability of the Web sources they found. Unfortunately, the students in the study http:www.euthanasia.com 20 College & Research Libraries January 2001 seemed ill equipped and perhaps unwill­ ing to make the effort to evaluate Web resources. Moreover, they had not been taught in class (or did not learn) what was and was not a good Web resource. Are students using unauthenticated Web resources? The study found that students are indeed using unauthenticated Web re­ sources. As discussed in more detail above, students used everything from junior high school Web sites to publicity sites for information. None of the them took advantage of the availability of da­ tabases or Web guides provided by the library. Is there a gap between what instructors expect of their students and what students are actually doing with Web resources? The study revealed that there is indeed a gap between what instructors expect of their students and what students are actually doing with Web resources. The gap may be in part due to confusion about what exactly instructors expect of students. One instructor admitted being naive about Web resources and having no personal experience in locating information on the Web. She assumed that students would find the same quality of information on the Web as in other library materials. Based on the inadequate resources used by students, the other instructor con­ cluded that the Web was a poor tool for her students to use. Students used the Web for research basically unchecked, largely because they had prior experience in using the Internet for electronic mail or chat rooms and felt they did not need assistance with research. One of the in­ structors, unaware of the students’ reli­ ance on their own judgment, believed that campus librarians were guiding students in their use of electronic and Web re­ sources just as they did students in their use of traditional print sources. How Can Worries with the Web Be Reduced? Where do librarians go from here? Is there a way to reduce their worries with the Web? Two areas librarians need to ad­ dress are how to deal with the instruc­ tors’ apparent lack of knowledge about the quality of Web resources and how to work with instructors to get information about Web resources across to students. Instructors must bear some responsibil­ ity for this. After all, they have more con­ sistent contact with students and they more directly influence the values that students apply to the information sources they use (via classroom instruc­ tion, research requirements, and grades) than librarians do. But, as part of their long-standing role in academic institu­ tions, librarians have a responsibility to make good sources of information avail­ able to students and faculty as well as to get the word out about both the possi­ bilities and the perils of Web resources. To help students distinguish between the good and the bad of Web resources, librarians need to continue to emphasize evaluative criteria. Because librarians do not control the resources available through the Web as they do with books and journals, they need to be able to guide students toward the worthwhile resources that can be found on the Web. This guidance has implications not only for bibliographic instruction, but also for Web design at the local level, for cata­ loging, and for staffing. Although students have become in­ creasingly sophisticated about using elec­ tronic resources, they are not yet sophis­ ticated about searching them. College in­ structional programs should emphasize not only the application of evaluative cri­ teria to their Web selections, but also to search strategies, including how to back­ track a Web page to locate information about authorship, biases, and credibility. While trying to change student percep­ tions, librarians probably also need to have a greater physical presence in the Information Commons or reference areas of the library. They need to be visible, available, and perhaps even more aggres­ sive in offering assistance and suggest­ ing Web sites (as well as print sources, which, after all, are sometimes more ef­ fective, easier to use, and easier to locate for many topics). As suggested by Scholz­ Worries with the Web: A Look at Student Use of Web Resources 21 Crane, students should be taught the com­ ponents of Web documents in much the same ways—and for the same reasons— that librarians formerly taught them the parts of catalog cards, books, and indexes. Web pages posted by libraries need to be enticing, inviting, and easy to use. Stu­ dents should find it easy to go to the pages prepared by librarians before seeking in­ formation through general search en­ gines. Academic librarians should give considerable thought to Web page design, incorporating both the qualities they want students to know as well as the ease of use that less authoritative sites may have. Students need to learn where high- quality Web resources can be found by placing links in the same context as the library’s other high-quality resource materials. Librarians should be moving steadily toward online library catalogs that in­ clude links to Web sites and electronic documents alongside other resources available in the campus library. Students need to learn where high-quality Web re­ sources can be found by placing links in the same context as the library’s other high-quality resource materials. The easier it is for students to locate “good” Web resources, the likelier they are to bypass the “bad” Web resources. Because there is a gap between instruc­ tor expectations and student selections of Web resources, instructional programs should be twofold. Librarians should di­ rect in-service training, one-on-one col­ laboration, publicity, Web page design, and other activities toward faculty. Librarians have had to learn to use the new technolo­ gies because that is the nature of their work, whereas many faculty members, some no longer actively involved in re­ search in their fields, have not used Web resources extensively for research and are not yet proficient in using them. After li­ brarians have begun working more closely to teach the faculty, they need to develop joint instructional programs with the fac­ ulty to teach the students. Although librar­ ians typically find academic allies among the English faculty, they need to extend their affiliations so that information lit­ eracy or information competence is part of all curricula in all disciplines (or at least as many as can be reached). At the very least, librarians need to en­ courage instructors to invite them to the classrooms and to bring their classes to the campus libraries. The unfettered avail­ ability of Web resources requires the use of critical thinking skills, in short supply among some students. Instructors should be convinced to spend some of their pre­ cious class time to help students hone their critical thinking skills and to use evaluative techniques to identify informa­ tion sources. In fact, the identification and evaluation of information to solve prob­ lems should be a goal in and of itself, without necessarily being simply a step in the process of writing a research pa­ per. Librarians themselves need to learn to foster critical thinking through their teaching. Additional research, comparing how students select print resources with how they select Web resources, might shed more light on student thinking and help librarians be more specific in their instructional programs. As students use Web resources more frequently in different aspects of their lives, they are likely to remain confident in their abilities to locate acceptable sources of information without evaluat­ ing the sources they find, thinking they need no assistance from librarians or any­ one else. Their unchecked and unin­ formed use of Web resources will likely continue. At the least, this would be a shame; at the most, it would be a disgrace. Concerted efforts by librarians and in­ structors can increase the odds that stu­ dents will learn how to use Web resources effectively in all aspects of their lives. Li­ brarians’ worries with the Web may not be banished, but they certainly will be di­ minished. 22 College & Research Libraries January 2001 Notes 1. Evan Ira Farber, “Plus Ça Change …, “ Library Trends 44 (1995): 430–38. 2. David Rothenberg, “How the Web Destroys Student Research Papers,” Education Digest 63 (Feb. 1998): 59–61. 3. Kari Boyd McBride and Ruth Dickstein, “The Web Demands Critical Thinking by Stu­ dents,” Chronicle of Higher Education (Mar. 20, 1998): B6. 4. Gloria J. Leckie, “Desperately Seeking Citations: Uncovering Faculty Assumptions about the Undergraduate Research Process,” Journal of Academic Librarianship 22 (May 1996): 201–9. 5. Susan E. Hahn, “Let the User Beware,” RSR: Reference Services Review 25 (1997): 7–13. Examples of these kinds of articles include: Lee Konrad and James Stemper, “Same Game, Differ­ ent Name: Demystifying Internet Instruction,” Research Strategies 14 (winter 1996): 4–21; Judith M. Pask and Carl E. Snow, “Undergraduate Instruction and the Internet,” Library Trends 44 (fall 1995): 306–17; Kristin Kubly, “Guiding Students in Using the World Wide Web for Research,” ED 430519 (1997), available online at: http://www.mtsu.edu/~itconf/proceed97/kubly.html; Edmund F. Santa Vicca et al, “Evaluating Internet Sources,” Reference Librarian 41–42 (1994): 225– 73. 6. Julia K. Nims and Linda Rich, “How Successfully Do Users Search the Web?” College & Research Libraries News 59 (Mar. 1998): 155–58. 7. Ann Scholz-Crane, “Evaluating the Future: A Preliminary Study of How Undergraduate Students Evaluate Web Sources,” RSR: Reference Services Review 26 (1998): 53–60. 8. Anne F. Pierce, “Improving the Strategies High School Students Use to Conduct Research on the Internet by Teaching Essential Skills and Providing Practical Experience,” ED 427756 (1998). 9. Mary Ann Gilette and Carol Videon, “Seeking Quality on the Internet: A Case Study of Composition Students’ Works Cited,” Teaching English in the Two-Year College 26 (Dec. 1, 1998): 189–94. 10. Examples of guides to the evaluation of Web resources abound. See the following as typi­ cal: Elizabeth E. Kirk, “Evaluating Information Found on the Internet,” available online at http:/ /milton.mse.jhu.edu:8001/research/education/net.html; Hope N. Tillman, “Evaluating Qual­ ity on the Net,” available online at: http://www.tiac.net/users/hope/findqual.html; Michael Engle, “Evaluating Web Sites: Criteria and Tools,” available online at: http:// www.library.cornell.edu/okuref/webreview.html; Jim Kapoun, “Teaching Undergraduates Web Evaluation,” available online at: http://www.ala.org/acrl/undwebev.html. http://www.ala.org/acrl/undwebev.html www.library.cornell.edu/okuref/webreview.html http://www.tiac.net/users/hope/findqual.html http://www.mtsu.edu/~itconf/proceed97/kubly.html