Hyperlocal, Hyperspecific, and Anonymous: Honing Digital Resource Evaluation Criteria
Type of Presentation
Panel (1 hour and 15 minutes presentation total for two or more presenters)
Target Audience
Higher Education
Location
Room 217
Proposal
This panel examines the usefulness of contemporary digital sources that stretch the boundaries of widely disseminated academic website evaluation criteria. What are the gains to students and faculty when a more capacious, more rhetorical conception of credible digital sources is advanced? The panel will open with an overview of prevailing advice from popular textbooks and library resource pages about website evaluation, including an analysis of the terms of these resources as provided by a concordancer to determine the most commonly used terms and approaches. The panel will continue by looking at the usefulness of factoring non-verbal semiotic systems such as image and spatial design into evaluation criteria. It will then examine the usefulness of anonymity as illustrated in a case study of digital sources used in the Arab Spring uprisings. In the end, the presenters will synthesize their disparate approaches to illustrate the benefits of considering hyperlocal and hyperspecific approaches in lieu of generalizable criteria. The aim is to spur fruitful discussion about how best to expand students’ and faculty’s rhetorical capacity in both considering and deploying digital resources in their work.
Short Description
This panel examines the usefulness of contemporary digital sources that stretch the boundaries of widely disseminated academic website evaluation advice. What are the gains to students and faculty when a more capacious, more rhetorical conception of credible digital sources is advanced?
Publication Type and Release Option
Presentation (Open Access)
Recommended Citation
Folk, Moe; Apostel, Shawn; and Gamie, Samaa, "Hyperlocal, Hyperspecific, and Anonymous: Honing Digital Resource Evaluation Criteria" (2015). Georgia International Conference on Information Literacy. 6.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/gaintlit/2015/2015/6
Hyperlocal, Hyperspecific, and Anonymous: Honing Digital Resource Evaluation Criteria
Room 217
This panel examines the usefulness of contemporary digital sources that stretch the boundaries of widely disseminated academic website evaluation criteria. What are the gains to students and faculty when a more capacious, more rhetorical conception of credible digital sources is advanced? The panel will open with an overview of prevailing advice from popular textbooks and library resource pages about website evaluation, including an analysis of the terms of these resources as provided by a concordancer to determine the most commonly used terms and approaches. The panel will continue by looking at the usefulness of factoring non-verbal semiotic systems such as image and spatial design into evaluation criteria. It will then examine the usefulness of anonymity as illustrated in a case study of digital sources used in the Arab Spring uprisings. In the end, the presenters will synthesize their disparate approaches to illustrate the benefits of considering hyperlocal and hyperspecific approaches in lieu of generalizable criteria. The aim is to spur fruitful discussion about how best to expand students’ and faculty’s rhetorical capacity in both considering and deploying digital resources in their work.
