I believe that one’s ability to assess the reliability and authenticity of online information would improve with several factors, such as education, an increase of knowledge, more job experience, doing more research papers, etc.
In my case, the different types of teachers, facilitators, and lecturers I was exposed to in the various type of education, played an important role in helping to shape my ability to assess the credibility of online information.
The infographic below shows the various sources I was exposed to at different life-stages; elementary, secondary, diploma and finally, the university level respectively.
Source: Self-Produced via Visme, 15 Nov 2017
For me, I was able to assess the credibility of information found online during the start of my tertiary education. The facilitators of my diploma had triggered my thought process.
“How do you know this information is reliable just from looking at one source?”
“If this website (Wikipedia) allows anyone to change the information, do you think its credible?”
This has prompt me to look for statistics from official government bodies, research that are done by well-known companies in that particular field (e.g. A.C. Nielson), reports from recognized news agencies (e.g. The Straits Times in Singapore, BBC, CNN, etc.)
Truthfully, I never did think much of discussions. These were commented and shared by many people, and to me, there is no solid proof of anything. My current education institution, University of Southampton, introduced Future Learn, which showed me that a healthy discussion can help one to learn to and prompt further questions.
There are many ways in how one assesses the reliability and authenticity of online information. It depends on the effort people would want to put in their work.
Before I end off, here’s one way to assess online content from the University of Edinburgh!
Source: How To Evaluate Website Content
(Word Count: 300 Words)
(Topic Question: Evaluate how to assess the reliability and authenticity of online information.)
Reference
How to Evaluate Website Content. (2017) University of Edinburgh [Online] Available: https://www.ed.ac.uk/information-services/library-museum-gallery/finding-resources/library-databases/databases-overview/evaluating-websites [Accessed: 15 November 2017]
Media Literacy, Learning in the Network Age. (2017) University of Southampton, FutureLearn [Online] Available: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/learning-network-age/3/comments/24657627 [Accessed: 15 November 2017]
Information Literacy, Learning in the Network Age. (2017) University of Southampton, FutureLearn [Online] Available: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/learning-network-age/3/comments/24658014 [Accessed: 15 November 2017]
Journey To The Digital World 