Internet Information Quality Whitehouse.gov vs. Whitehouse.net Whitehouse.Gov,

¶ … Internet Information Quality

Whitehouse.gov vs. Whitehouse.net

Whitehouse.gov, under first impressions is accurate, far more professional, and updated. In fact, whitehouse.net is outdated and still has George W. Bush as the President. Whitehouse.gov is extremely informative, but focused on the current President, Barak Obama, and his agenda. The site is divided into photos and videos of conferences, appearances, and there is a briefing room that focuses on the major issues of the day. The site is appropriate for education, it has information about the way the government worlds, and about the topics that are in the news -- immigration, gun violence, energy policy, and more. The site is current with top political news of the day, the visits, and the travel plans of the President and his staff. There is a link for email updates, contact information, and a way to receive answers back from various departments of the government. Ironically, when one clicks on the sides of whitehouse.net, it redirects to whitehouse.gov; it is only the home page that is different.

Notes on Internet Research - Using the Internet can be a challenging academic experience. Learning to verify sources and take a more critical eye towards bias, information quality, peer-reviewed journals, and even academic credentials is a bit more work at the front end of the project, but saves hours of time later when dealing with potentially conflictual information. Using Google scholar is of tremendous help since it supplies scholarly sources, is searchable by date range, and is free. An important scholarly skill is the ability to utilize sources in their most appropriate manner. The modern Internet generation has never been without electronic sources, and sometimes believes that anything it finds online is verified to be true. Instead, a more reasonable approach is to understand the quality and ways of looking at source material for the appropriateness of use based on the subject matter. There is no absolute "right" way of handling every situation that occurs, instead, it depends on the level of depth, the quality of research needed, and who writes the article. When one gets to more advanced levels, secondary source material should be used only as a research review -- looking at primary sources (original documents and/or new research studies) are the norm, with the expert interpreting those sources. Not all reference materials are created equally, however, and one needs to view them in the same manner as other source: credibility of author, publisher, and sense of time (when written and for what audience), as well as a greater basic understanding of the topic (See: Sanchez, et al. (2006; Harris, 2007).