Public Safety Management & Leadership

Whatever you read or view, you should always maintain a healthy skepticism about both its authority and reliability.

A commercial publisher's editorial department provides a filter between you and the information it publishes to help ensure that it is authoritative and accurate. Libraries provide another filter with the process of selecting the published materials for that library's collection.

Those filters in no way excuse you from evaluating what you see or read for yourself, but they do provide some insurance. T

raditional information evaluation criteria are:

• Accuracy How reliable is the information? Are there editors?
• Authority Is the author a subject specialist? What are his/her qualifications? How responsible is the publisher?
• Objectivity Is there any bias evident in the information? Is the information trying to persuade the opinion of the audience?
• Currency Is the content up-to-date? Is the publication date readily available?
• Coverage What subjects are covered in the material and to what depth?

Here's more information about evaluating web sites: