¶ … Online Sources
Using the Online Environment
The availability of online information has made a tremendous difference in many fields of endeavor including daily interactions. Many journals now have articles that are 'online first' before print; others comment on these online articles and critique even before the print issue exists. Online access also broadens the ease of accessing materials without a nearby extensive library. This is true in nearly every profession: science, economics, finance, business, nursing, medicine, hairdressing, and etc., (Leiner et al., 2003). Access to online information has changed the information paradigm. There is now a necessity and obligation to understand what appropriate online information consists of.
Use of social media and online tools for information-searching and access has increased considerably in recent years. Information is not only proliferating but is being shared more quickly than when print was the only medium available. The use of online media is a revolution like the societal transformation caused by the printing press. Individuals can communicate in 'real time' with others across international datelines and search for information using online platforms such as chat rooms (Vaughn.tv.com), WebMD, Twitter, Wikipedia, Facebook, and YouTube (Kaplan & Haenlein 2010, p.59).
Online businesses are thriving, with some like Amazon.com moving from being book sellers to include movie and grocery businesses; others like Walmart.com may sell as much online as they do in a 'brick and mortar' store. Individuals start up their own businesses with merely an online presence. The 'information highway' provides businesses with details of customer preferences from Facebook 'likes', and many corporations now have a Facebook presence, while corporate consultants write online articles on use of Twitter/Facebook to 'grow your business' (Kaplan & Haenlein 2010, p.60). Individuals meet, 'friend', and marry others whom they've met online, and 'dating sites' match up individuals; specialized niche markets are arising in all directions. However, the 'glut of information' means an individual can be prey to false and/or misleading information if they do not know how to investigate and verify online sources, business reputation, and/or the veracity of online 'personal details' from a new Facebook friend who might be a predator.
Web Citations
For most individuals, a precise understanding of what 'online sources' means may be limited. Also, many have not considered that the 'interweb' can simultaneously be both full of factual resources and full of misinformation. Using the web to find answers to questions has become almost trivial, as one only needs to type a few words or phrases into a search window to have many pages of links to sources 'pop up'.
The first step in obtaining information knows how to ask the right questions. Search engines now will accept almost any question and provide answers, but, the more clearly the question is phrased, and the more 'delimiting' terms used, the more likely one is to actually find the desired information (Macaulay, n.d.). Consider a hypothetical situation, where your mother has high blood pressure first thing every morning. You type in "cause of morning elevated blood pressure," and find a variety of sites. You tell her that many of the sites listed will be sales-pitches, as that is how 'free' search engines (Google, Bing, and/or Yahoo) generate income. Many other sites will be ads disguised as helpful information, and/or other misinformation sites. What should she and you do? Consider looking for reliable sources of online medical advice, such as WebMD (2015) or Wikipedia, a compendium of information like an encyclopedia. Because online users can contribute to Wikipedia and it is thus 'collaborative' (Kaplan & Haenlein 2010, p.60), Wikipedia is very powerful. As well, Wikipedia articles have detailed reference lists, leading to checkable primary 'sources'.
The types of information available online are increasing, including ancient artifact photos, maps, and letters. The types of sites where information can be found vary widely. Some sites require one to sign in and/or become a subscriber to gain information; subscription maybe prohibitively expensive, even if useful. Other sites may send e-mails and/or newsletters even to individuals who are not full subscribers, and as Vardi (2012, p.510) says, there are also traps even for the more advanced professionals. In the areas of medical and scientific research, a considerable amount of data is available for 'free', such as on the PubMed data base; many articles can be seen in their entirety by just clicking 'free full article'.
Once one finds the appropriate reference information for a course paper...
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Credible Sources In the context of online research and analysis, it is important to determine the credibility of sources whether they are scholarly or not. This is especially important when research is compiled and synthesized into new studies or academic, scholarly, or philosophic proposals or insights. It is important to recognize the validity of sources, especially when so many online sources and sites claim to be able to provide insight,
online teaching compared to teaching in traditional face-to-face settings?" With this topic in mind, there are several important research questions that I am considering. One of the research questions if "instructors from online universities report better job satisfaction than do their traditional brick and mortar collogues." Another one of my research questions asks about instructor perceptions of student understanding as measured by formative assessments. Specifically, for example, in regards
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